How to avoid distraction

For the last couple of days, in the interests of actually getting some writing done, I've hired the front room in the Michael King Writers' Centre in Devonport. It's in the most extraordinary position: halfway up Mount Victoria, looking out onto the harbour, opposite the tennis courts, just up from Devonport Primary.

The reason I work here is to avoid distraction. Ha! What a joke. It's the most distracting place in New Zealand, especially from that front bedroom. Every thirty seconds someone walks up Mount Victoria, or cycles down Mount Victoria (rarely the other way round, I've found), and they're always far more fascinating than whatever I'm supposed to be writing.

Today, for instance, I watched a school class go by. The stragglers were a good ten minutes behind the others, with a frustrated teacher shepherding them from behind. A couple of sweaty guys sweated up the hill and played a quick sweaty game of sweaty tennis (can't help thinking this should only be a winter occupation for them, yes?). There are always various people - this is my favourite part of being there - who wander into the driveway, past my pink car, to study the placards telling them what the MK centre is, and then think they'll have a look around, little expecting to find real live writers peering out at them from behind the blinds. I shock a good few tourists a day. It's great. And there's Martin in the studio who has a residency there; I expect he takes a good few out as well.

To my very great delight, after I'd spent a good hour gossiping with the wonderful Karren who runs the place, I sat behind my secret blinds and watched a whole family of tourists whizz up the pathway on Segues (those little platforms on wheels, with tall handlebars). It was like seeing the Jetsons doing their shopping, and it felt like one of my own creations come to life. Then as I made a cup of Earl Grey to tide me through the last chapter I wrote today, a paddle steamer went by, from one side of the kitchen window to the other. How beautiful. Paddle steamers -who even has those any more? It was a gorgeous NZ contrast - the very modern with the very trad.

Amazingly, however, with all these things to look at I did manage to get a monumental amount of work done. I don't really know why it is, when my own house is quiet and lovely and has my desk in it, that I can spend hours doing no work at all, and yet when I'm perpetually distracted by stuff going on outside, I seem to be able to do heaps. Perhaps it's to do with the fact that I'm paying for this place and feel I need to get my money's worth.

Actually I think it may have more to do with the quality of the distractions. At home the distractions run roughly in this order - other writing work, housework especially loading and unloading dishwasher, dog-walking, emails, MySky, Googling random things. At the Michael King Centre, distractions are inspirations. I'm sure time-travelling paddle-steamer passengers are going to leap onto Segues and play sweaty tennis within a couple of chapters of me seeing them.

I adore the MK centre. I spent Christmas and New Year 2008/9 and most of January there, and it was the most wonderful Kiwi Christmas I've ever had. We had heaps of visitors because we were in this wonderful place, and whole weekends could pass by without me moving off the verrandah. We skulled wine, watched sunsets and ferries galore, played guitar and sang badly and for too long, saw New Year fireworks from the top of the volcano with 500 drunken 20 year olds , and probably drove Devonport mad. Devonport is lovely; it doesn't deserve to be driven mad. Apologies, Devonport.

But you do have a bit of a gem in your midst. Writers should all know that these wonderful vistas are available for hire, but it's one of those secrets you'd rather keep to yourself. And hopefully, with a few more days of spying on the outside world, I'll produce a gem of my own. Here's to you, Michael K. http://www.writerscentre.org.nz/

The Importance of Being ... well, just being.

Last night I went to see The Importance of Being Earnest, one of my favourite plays - in fact, one which I practically consider to be my own, having been in it twice (more later).

To begin with, I just couldn't get my head around this version of it. The first act was louche and lewd, and I really could not fathom the disconnect between the content and context of the play and what was going on before our eyes on the stage. Why would anyone, for instance, still be bothered about getting Mama's permission to marry when they could openly grope their intended in front of a room full of people, dressed in a tranny-type of PVC mini-dress? The two ages - this and Oscar Wilde's - just didn't fit together to me. I was probably somewhat affected, too, by the prospect of having to explain to my daughter just what they were chopping and snorting, chucking down their throats, or unzipping on each other. It was a loss of innocence -for both of us.

I don't know if the glass of wine in the interval changed my perspective, though, because I just loved the second half. The acting was rapier-sharp and I'm sure just as Wilde would have intended, and the laughs rolled over the audience in tinkling waves. Laurel Devenie as Cecily was hilarious, and the denouement was delivered so brilliantly that I was actually holding my breath to hear the outcome even though I know the play back to front.

And that's when I realised what my problem had been: I'd gone in with EXPECTATIONS. Instead of accepting this was going to be a whole lot different to any performance of the play that I'd ever seen before (and there have been many), and that would be the joy of it, I sat down expecting to see a direct reproduction of Edith Evans or even Judy Dench, and it took a while to let those thoughts be jostled out of one ear while the freshness and humour of this version entered via the other.

As mentioned, I've actually been in the play twice, first at grammar school and then at Sixth Form College. Both times I was Lady Bracknell. At the time I hoped and dared to believe that it was because I had enough dramatic gravitas to carry off the part. In hindsight, the truth was probably far less flattering. I was at an all-girl's secondary school, and wasn't one of the petite pretty pixie ones who got chosen for the female leads. I always played men or old women. Not that I minded - I got some pretty juicy parts out of it (Lady B, Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Sir Peter Teazle in School for Scandal) but just once it would have been nice to skip on stage in a flouncy dress. I guess I was Lady Bracknell again at Sixth Form for the same reasons, and because I'd done it before so it wouldn't take long to learn my lines. My boyfriend at the time played Jack/Ernest while I was his overbearing, wrinkly mother-in-law to be; we broke up not long afterwards and I couldn't help wondering if he got a nasty flash-forward moment and decided then and there that the prospect was unbearable.

What I realised last night was that Lady Bracknell has truckloads of fairly unpalatable lines with the odd gem thrown in, and anyone who can make light of them and cause them to zing even a little deserves applause. Maybe I didn't do such a bad job of it after all.

On top of that, I understood myself a bit better. I'd brought all my past along to this production, and it wasn't until I chucked it out along with my Pringles packet during the interval that I gave this production the attention and courtesy it deserved.

It's fab. Go and see it. And if you're old-school English as I discovered I am, have a glass of wine before you go in. Relax, dude, and have some fun with it.

Harry Connick Jr Auckland

It must be 15 years since I last saw Harry Connick Jr live. It's certainly so many years that I've since managed to grow a whole daughter who thinks he's just the dude from Will and Grace and that nice guy in PS I Love You ...

Well, of course he IS all those things, and very nicely he does in them too. But can I just pause here to complain about the unfair distribution of talent? How did one guy - one NICE guy - end up with demon pianist fingers, good looks, raconteur abilities that would put most stand-ups to shame, AND be able to lead a sob-worthy band with a voice that regularly makes your eyebrows hit your hairline and lump surge up in your throat? Oh, and a sweet ass. (Anyone who was there last night will appreciate the reference). Sweet, sweet as, bro. So how? How?

I mean, gimme your front row tickets for Christchurch! Oh, sorry, that just slipped out. Try again ...

I mean, gimme a break! Was it a Faustian deal? Is he going have to hand over his children on their sixteenth birthdays (including the lovely unaffected Kate who was dragged out onto the stage last night)? I'm sure someone more intelligent than I am could point out the genetic soup that created him is the cause, or direct me to some nature v nurture argument, or explain it to me in some way that makes sense.

Anyway, I would just like to point out that it's not fair. I'm very accepting of the fact that being fabulous at something doesn't mean you can't be fabulous at other things too. An obvious exception to this in most cases might be celebrity authors (don't even get me started on Madonna and bloody Jordan), but you know ... Jamie Lee Curtis can turn out a very beautiful book or two.

So I'm not saying that it's not fair he's so multi-talented and sweet as. Not really. What is not fair is that he was far too brilliant last night to be on for only two hours. Me and My Girl were quite near the front, and it was so cosy and effortless I felt as if we'd somehow gate-crashed his Christmas party. He sang and laughed and entertained us, and I found it so hard not to leap to my feet and dance that I must have looked as if I was strapped into an electric chair. And then all too soon, it was over.

I've a suspicion it may have been all too soon even for Harry and the Band. To say the lighting was a little curious at the Civic last night would be an understatement. We all had to find our seats in the dark, guided only by the distant twinkle of the stars on the ceiling, the beam from our mobiles and people kindly shouting out what seat number they were in as we stumbled over their feet and plastic wine glasses. Inexplicably, the house lights then came up for two minutes just before the show started, when most people were seated (in the wrong seat/row/each other's laps). And then at the end-which-might-not-have-been-the-end, HJC and the band were waving at the cheering, clapping, crying audience who were fully anticipating another encore, and suddenly - whump! Curtain down, lights up, everybody out. I could still see the tips of Harry's shoes beneath the curtains, facing forwards, and they looked pretty startled too.

Still, that was definitely that. We schlepped out expecting to buy his new CD in the foyer but there was no merchandise on sale (maybe someone had nicked it during the black-out?), and overall it was a bit puzzling and rather an anti-climax.

You have been warned, Wellington and Christchurch! You lucky people still have him to come. Make the most of him, and do please consider hijacking the lighting director (after you've placed a traffic cone in your seats). And if you have spare tickets, let me know.

Hello world - read this.

More news to follow! Just getting used to this whole thing. In the meantime, here's a little taster of my new book.

What do a housewife from Hampshire, a pole dancer from Taranaki, a London publisher and an LA soap starlet all have in common?

All their lives have been impacted by The Most Beautiful Man in the World.

It's only when he's found floating face-down in his Hollywood pool that they discover the ugly truth - about themselves, about each other, and about the man they've chased around the world and across the dedades ...