So, sports fans, this afternoon was a rare trio gig with my dear colleagues Ben Robertson and Niko Schauble. Donna Coleman had very kindly arranged for us to perform at the Classic Cinema in Elsternwick, and we did two sets to a small but very attentive and appreciative audience.

I had decided, because these performances are rare and also I like music to mark life events, that we would perform the tunes I wrote with Sally in mind, for the last time. Since she dumped me in November and shows no sign of changing her mind, I feel these pieces can be taken out of the book; the only problem is that I like them so much and will miss playing them. Most of them I treasure for different and distinct reasons. Still, if they’re not current, they probably have to go.

So. We played ‘SJ’, which is the earliest, written one morning in a practice room at the VCA in about 1991 or -2 I think. It hasn’t been recorded for release; it was included on a recital program many years ago – in fact, if I found the tape of that performance that would give the more precise date of its composition. Future project. – and when it was my mum decided that the initials in the title stood for The Society of Jesus. She couldn’t have been wronger. It was good to take this to Ben and Niko because neither of them had seen or heard it before so we sort of premiered it.

Next up came ‘S.S.T.T.’, which opened the first Browne – Haywood – Stevens album King, Dude and Dunce. No-one has ever known what these initials stood for but I broke it today: they are Scholar, scientist, thinker, traveller. I wrote it for Sall when I think she was in Singapore doing some kind of study. She could tell you when that was I guess but I don’t know for sure. It might have been the summer of 1994 or -5. KDD was released in 1996.

‘In angel arms’ followed, another BHS number that appeared on Sudden in a shaft of sunlight. Sall’s arms, my goodness. Angelic.

That took us to ‘Cardigan patrol’, and I was able to explain (as I did elsewhere) that this related to shopping trips in the 1990s: Sportscraft, Witchery, Myer, wherever.

Then came the corker. I knew I was going to lose it when I played ‘Esj”, and sure enough, I did. This piece people find lovely and I’m glad about that but for me the feeling it contains is just epic. I could say it’s a portrait of Sall, and she’s very pretty too, so there may be something in that. I could say it’s a portrait of the way I felt about her when I wrote it, and that feels true too. I can’t be precisely sure what it is. But crying while you’re playing is risky. Anyway we got through it.

And that brought us to ‘The unmistaken’. Because this is no time for secrecy, I told the full story of this piece too. When we were together, Sall and I would be walking along talking about whatever and one of us would notice someone wearing a G-string. Now my idea is that these things are supposed to be invisible – that’s the whole idea. But frequently they aren’t, and they can seem even to draw attention to themselves. So when one of us saw one, the words ‘if I’m not mistaken’ would enter the conversation, and that was the tip-off for the other to look around. When I wrote this piece I played it over and over and I really thought I had captured something of Sall’s character. So she is the unmistaken and so is this tune.

‘Most miraculous accident’ wound up the first set, and this to me is the moment I met Sall. I remember seeing her the first time and thinking, fuck what a beauty.

After all that, it felt like we should do some standards, which I have never done with a trio before. So we played ‘You’d be so nice to come home to’, ‘Just friends’, ‘Last night when we were young’, ‘Taking a chance on love’, and ‘Everything happens to me’. This last piece is one of my absolute favourites and I had to recite the lyrics from the last eight because they are so heartbreaking and, I felt, not inappropriate: ‘I telegraphed and phoned, sent an airmail special too, your answer was goodbye, and there was even postage due. I fell in love just once, and it had to be with you – everything happens to me.’

A great pleasure playing with Ben and Niko. Champions both.

12/iv/2026

This year’s books: George Orwell The road to Wigan pier, Helen Garner The season, Bruce Johnson The Lord of the Rings, vols 1-3, Raymond Chandler The big sleep, Graham Greene Stamboul train, George Orwell The lion and the unicorn, Thomas Pynchon Gravity’s rainbow, Matthew Hollis, The Waste Land: A biography of a poem, George Orwell Coming up for air, Melanie Cheng The burrow, Tim Winton An open swimmer, Dante The divine comedy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov, Noni Hazlehurst Dropping the mask, Diana Reid Signs of damage, Elaine Feeney Let me go mad in my own way, William S. Burroughs Queer, Andrea Di Robilant Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and his last muse, Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein The mushroom tapes, David Szalay Flesh, Kate Mildenhall The hiding place, Patrick McGilligan Woody Allen: A travesty of a mockery of a sham, Vrasidas Karalis On Patrick White’s dilemmas, Hisham Matar The return and currently I’m on Sebastian Faulks Human traces.

Some rather large ones this time around. Gravity’s rainbow I’d need to read again really to get a handle on it – it’s vast and deeply confusing and I’m sure there’s lots I missed. Funny that in Knives out Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) says to Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) ‘I anticipate the terminus of gravity’s rainbow.’ She replies, ‘Gravity’s rainbow?’ and he says, ‘It’s a novel.’ She says, ‘Yeah I know. I haven’t read it though.’ He then says, ‘Neither have I. Nobody has. But I like the title.’ I’ve often wondered if this means perhaps that Rian Johnson is mates with Thomas Pynchon, who is known to be obsessively reclusive. The book also features in Glass onion when Serena Williams is reading it while she waits to see if anyone wants her fitness assistance.

A roman a clef usually disguises the true identities of the people it utilises, but Dante doesn’t bother with such niceties in The divine comedy. This was educational as I’d never heard of a lot of them, and finding they were real people was quite fascinating. Hell is crowded.

The brothers Karamazov was cause for humour as I read it in the waiting room at my doctor’s; with the bookmark about a third of the way through she said, I hope you didn’t read all that while you were waiting for me! With mental health one of the things we talk about, I was able to say, I have to live to finish this book! Not happy with the ending, it was a long way to go but I’m pleased that I got there. Ever since I read Notes from underground about thirty-five years ago I’ve been very fond of Dostoyevsky, and this was my first reading of Karamazov so I regard it as a bit of a milestone.

Helen Garner’s The season is simply beautiful. I’m a huge Garner fan and have been since time immemorial but this book had a poetry and a love that was truly astonishing. And it’s about football, where you mightn’t expect to find so much of that. The exquisite depiction of the author’s relationship with her grandson just has to be read to be believed.

McGilligan’s biography of Woody Allen is tremendous. I loved his book on Alfred Hitchcock and this one similarly addresses both the life and the work with seriousness and profound awareness and it’s really impressive.

So I managed monthly posts for a year, as I promised I’d do. Every year is different; next year will bring new books, new music, a new journey. I hope everyone reading this had a delightful Christmas or Hanukkah and that 2026 is full of surprise and delight.

30/xii/2025