A girl whom you really like, who you live with, telling you that for the first time in ages she's become incredibly horny, and wishes there was a guy around to sleep with.

The other day I went to the sauna at Erding. Which is, by and by, amazing - there are slides and pools, and the largest sauna area in Europe (allegedly).

And as I went into the sauna area, which by and by has a huge pool with a bar in it as well, a towel wrapped around myself, a girl emerged from the water.

She was by far and away one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen.

This is not to state that I suddenly was very glad that I had my towel around me. There was no instant erotic reaction associated with this. I was just dumbfounded for a second, paralysed in shock as she, much like Venus (and yes I know how stereotypical that is), water cascading down her let's face it amazing body, rose up in front of me.

And I, fool that I am didn't even blush, just glanced away, not wanting to make a scene, or make things awkward.

Try though I might, I didn't see her again, and probably never will.

What I should have done of course is apologised for staring, let her know that I did in fact think she was one of the most attractive women I had ever laid eyes upon, and then perhaps offered to buy her a drink, or just left it at that if she wasn't interested in talking.

These things I did not do. And I will regret not doing them for at least a little while longer.

Because I don't want to see pretty girls and imagine, I'd like to think I'm confident enough and brave enough to take them off a pedestal and get to know them as people. And strong enough not to be scared more by an approach than by being rebuffed.

It is harder when we're all naked though.

Alternate Title: What I Did This Weekend

Alternate Alternate Title: That Previous Title was a little Misleading, I didn't "Do" Naked Girls. Or Hitler. That Shit is Nasty.

My mother showed up this weekend, to come say hi, tell me all about her trip to Turkey, and show off how much more of my inheritance she's spending. This is a running gag between us, and isn't nearly as mercenary as it sounds... especially when she's buying big expensive items which I'm going to get in lieu of money anyway.

So today we decided to go to Dachau - or rather, the concentration camp at Dachau. Auschwitz at least is just a camp (it was the name of the town as well, but after the war they changed it back to the original Polish) but Dachau the town always has to live with the stigma of Dachau the concentration camp.

We didn't learn a lot about the holocaust at school. I think this was mainly an Australian thing - we did Australian history from 1788 - 1901 around three times (convicts, settlers, gold rush, genocide) and a little of the two world wars (Gallipoli, Kokoda, Tobruk) but we hardly ever covered anyone else's involvement in the world at the time. Hell, I didn't even know about the reunification of Germany until a couple of years before I came here. Though that at least is a recent enough innovation that when I was at school it hadn't yet been termed as history.

So while I was aware of the six million or so Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Russians, political prisoners etc who died in the camps during the second world war, it was pretty much a footnote in our textbooks. We never got to actually try to get to grips with the holocaust in a school setting.

Of course, being me, since school I've educated myself a lot about it. Apart from films like It's a Wonderful Life and Schindler's List, there is also the huge resources available in Encyclopedias and on the Internet (specifically but not limited to Wikipedia) with which one can discover things.

So when I eventually came to Germany, it was with the knowledge of the terrible things that have happened, and also knowing how the modern nation coped with it.

Why did I go to Dachau then? This is something I was thinking as I was walking around it. It's one thing to read about the tens of thousands of prisoners who died here, who were cremated and their ashes dumped. About the mass graves and the execution wall, and the incredibly cramped conditions that people lived in. But it's another thing entirely to walk around and see it.

Or... is it? Dachau as it is now, while being an excellent memorial and reminder of the sins of the past and the cruelty and inhumanity of man etc etc, is radically different to the Dachau of the war. Sure, the walls are still there, as is the administration building, and the gas chamber (which was never used apparently but which I felt more sobering than much of the rest of the camp) and crematoriums, but it's surrounded on the outside by beautiful trees and a scene of peace.

I understand why this is. The people who died there deserve their peace, and the survivors (those that are still alive, of which I don't think will be many any more) certainly don't want to return to the camp in the same state that they left it. But can we, as visitors, truly experience the horror or the understanding which could be conveyed to us from walking through such an informative park?

There isn't a good solution to this. Certainly a tacky holocaust experience like the London Dungeons would be in incredibly poor taste. But there has to be something which at least gives someone the understanding of what Dachau felt like without having to ask them to read large amounts of text.

After all, I did that at home. And garnered almost as much from that as I did walking through the place.

I'm sure that other people would have been more affected from seeing the juxtaposition of Dachau now, with lots of English and Americans (as well as the large amounts of Germans) walking through with their kids, compared to the Dachau we were seeing and reading about on information boards and in the museum. But to me it just cheapened the experience. It made it a little unreal, put another layer between myself and the tragedy.

Which I guess is where films like The Pianist and Schindler's List come in.

Naked story tomorrow. I don't think it fits at the end of this.

(Explanation still later)

The best superhero film of our current generation was The Dark Knight. This is pretty uncontestable, it won an Academy Award after all (and was nominated for a few more). But the current hype over the Avengers would have you forget that. This is because The Avengers is apparently the best film ever, in the history of cinematography.

I tend to disagree, but I think my problem is more with the genre than the specific film.

The Avengers was a little self absorbed. It was the culmination of a whole heap of films (Iron Man I and II, Captain America, The Incredibly Hulk and Thor), pitting all of those characters together in one place in order for... well... I'm not really sure anymore.

The supposed reason was that they could defeat an enemy which was vastly more powerful than any of they individually were. But it seemed in the end that it really was only to see who would win if any of them got into a fight.

Joss Whedon films tend to be self aware - I can see an argument as to how The Avengers was self aware, but it seemed unaware of this fact, and just came off as, at times, pretentious.

The point where I completely lost my suspension of disbelief was when Iron Man and Thor started fighting in the middle of a forest. Apart from the fact that I kept wondering why the hell they were destroying an innocent strand of trees (that's a thought which actually went through my mind), there was no real reason for them to be fighting in the first place. Thor was pissed off at Loki... but he didn't want to beat him up. He just wanted to grab the macguffin (I'm not going to try spelling what it actually was), and then head home with Loki to put him on trial.

Iron Man disagreed. I'm not sure why, since this is what happens at the end of the film, and Iron Man didn't have (yet) any emotional stake in what was happening. So it would have made sense to fly down and ask very politely who the hell Thor was, whose side he was on, and then they could all go back to the base together. (Which flew - flying aircraft carriers are turning into a trope.)

Instead they have a fight, which Captain America joins, and then just kind of... stop? Not really any motivation for that.

So there goes my Suspension of Disbelief.

Cut forward a lot of stuff later, and let's not mention the fact that I have no idea who Hawkeye is or really care either, and The Avengers start fighting a giant alien force. Who aren't explained in any way shape or form. They just kinda want to destroy the Earth. How dull.

So this fight lasts for about half an hour - I wasn't checking my watch - and it was just... too long. It felt like Joss put in a bunch of great slapstick moments, but then had to cover each one in about four or five minutes of fighting so that the producers wouldn't yank his creative control. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like superhero fights... but this one just seemed kind of pointless. Especially considering that they won by nuking space which they could have done from the beginning.

Oh - let's also address something I saw a while ago in a cracked article. This something being trauma. In 2001, when a bunch of guys flew a couple of planes into the World Trade Centre, New York reeled. Economically, the city lost huge amounts of money and income, and only came back up to pre September 11 levels relatively recently. As well, people all over America were extremely traumatised by this level of hate crime, and a lot of New Yorkers took ages to be able to recover from it emotionally.

Now magnify that a hundred fold, and that's what happened in the last twenty minutes of The Avengers.

So many buildings were destroyed (including some fairly famous ones, including Central Station and the Library) that tens of thousands of people must have been killed. We only saw a few in the film - and they were generally being rescued by Hawkeye (who would have done a much better job if he'd just concentrated on killing the enemy as opposed to shouldering his bow to help some kids out of a bus).

I really want to see the aftermath of the Avengers - an actual one we get from such a huge civilian loss of life that would actually have happened given the events of the film.

There are, of course, good things about the film. And other problems as well. But I'm not going to bother trying to go into them just now.

For the moment, I'll just say that it's flawed, and while I liked it, I wasn't anywhere near as overwhelmed as everyone else seems to be.

Also, I miss Edward Norton. He was a good Hulk.

From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:

Later, looking backward, Harry would think of how, in his SF and fantasy novels, people always made their big, important choices for big, important reasons. Hari Seldon had built his Foundation to rebuild the ashes of the Galactic Empire, rather than because he would look more important if he could be in charge of his own research group. Raistlin Majere had severed ties with his brother because he wanted to become a god, not because he was incompetent at personal relationships and unwilling to take advice on how to do better. Frodo Baggins had taken the Ring because he was a hero who wanted to save Middle-Earth, not because it would've been too awkward not to. If anyone ever wrote a true history of the world - not that anyone ever could or would - probably 97% of all the key moments of Fate would turn out to be constructed of lies and tissue paper and trivial little thoughts that somebody could've just as easily thought differently.

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres looked at Hermione Granger, where she'd sat down at the other end of the table, and felt a sense of reluctance to bother her when she looked like she was already in a bad mood.

So then Harry thought that it probably made more sense to talk to Draco Malfoy first, just so that he could absolutely positively definitely assure Hermione that Draco really wasn't plotting against her.

And later on after dinner, when Harry went down to the Slytherin basement and was told by Vincent that the boss ain't to be disturbed... then Harry thought that maybe he should see if Hermione would talk to him right away. That he should just get started on unraveling the whole mess before it raveled any further. Harry wondered if he might just be procrastinating, if his mind had just found a clever excuse to put off something unenjoyable-but-necessary.

He actually thought that.

And then Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres decided that he'd just talk to Draco Malfoy the next morning instead, after Sunday breakfast, and then talk to Hermione.

Human beings did that sort of thing all the time.

Every day (generally) I do some exercise.

For a while there, I went to the sauna afterwards as well, and spent fifteen minutes getting my sweat on, before having an absolutely freezing five minute shower.

While we don't have a sauna in every accommodation (so far only two), there are almost always some nearby. And so now I'm hoping that I'll be able to get my sauna on a few more times before I leave Germany.

Because god forbid. Takings ones clothes off in England or Australia! In front of other people! What will the neighbours think!

To replace myself, since this I feel is the role which I am relegated to in my current group.

And by group I mean the people I live, work and travel with. Which, 24/7, ends up being far too much time.

This is at least partly my fault. My sense of humour tends towards the self deprecating, and on the other end, the absurd. I'm often the one to offer outrageous solutions to simple problems, or make sarcastic or dead pan snarkery comments to benign statements. I can be caustic, when the mood suits, which at the moment it sometimes does.

But just because I can be a bit of a fool doesn't mean I appreciate being treated that way all the time. My position at the moment seems to be somewhat valueless. I am going to be really glad when this tour is over and I don't have to deal with this anymore.

The young lady I get along with best has told me (more than once) that I'm not being myself anymore. This seems to be a singularly unhelpful way of telling me to harden the fuck up. Because I don't feel like doing it, especially since I get so much negativity from both her and the other girl in the group - and this is not merely on a social standing, but also professionally as well.

Once a week we sit down and have meetings, during which we talk about the shows and how to make them better. And I generally get a huge amount of criticism, to the point that I'm now trying very hard not to overthink every single thing I do on and offstage. It's become almost paralysing... this isn't who I am! At least, it wasn't who I was. Last year I had someone I got on well with and who I worked with well on stage. I just need one person to believe in me, which at the moment I don't feel I have.

And if ever I have the temerity to suggest anything, or bring anything up which is worrying me, it tends to get shuffled around to becoming my fault, and something I need to fix.

I don't have this trouble with the guy in my group at all.

These last few months have not been happy for me. And I don't necessarily think the next few will be, either.

This is ruining my self confidence, which I rely on incredibly strongly as an actor. If I was American, I would find someone to sue over it.

For several months now, one of my costars has taken up dieting and exercising. Not in an extreme way, but in a way in which she occasionally feels guilty for eating things she feels she shouldn't, or in taking a day off exercising because she's too tired or inebriated.

She did, briefly take up extreme dieting during Lent, forgoing not only bread but also cheese, wheat, chocolate, and most forms of alcohol. (She was also going to give up cigarettes, but declined on the thought that attempting to deprive herself of so many things would be silly. I would personally have switched cigarettes with one of the other vices, but that's just me.)

I have recently started feeling as if I should do the same thing, and have decided to attempt said exercise videos myself (courtesy of one Jillian Michaels, best known I think for Biggest Loser). This stems mostly from a desire to look good with my top off - something which up to now I feel I have been somewhat detrimental in doing (especially since I have to do so in front of several hundred German school kids per week - would rather get a few wolf whistles and sighs of lust, regardless of the fact that it's from teenage girls).

What I have discovered so far in doing exercise videos: using two bottles of water is probably sufficient as weights, as long as they do actually meet the required weight. I think mine are, in general, a little lighter. Also, I really should get one of those matts, to avoid my back making that farting noise when I try and do sit ups on a bare floor (it is my back, I swear).

Also: I'm a lot more unfit than either my age or body would suggest. Even though these are in general fairly intense workouts (you're supposed to do one twenty minute work out six days in seven, I'm managing it five days in six). There are some things which I just can't maintain for more than ten seconds - at the moment this includes double jumprope. I've gotten better at push ups, which isn't hard considering that when I started I could barely manage five in a row. Now I can at least do a few without feeling as if my arms are going to fall off.

Oh and despite the flab around my belly (which is what I'm basically trying to get rid of), the weakest part of my body is my arms. Which stands to reason. I've never really used them for anything except typing, and holding up incredibly light swords.

My friend has been doing these since October, and she's both lost weight (I refuse to diet at the same time, I'll keep my eating habits for want of a better term consistent), and muscled up.

I've been doing these now for two and a half weeks, and am unimpressed by the fact that my body hasn't started burning off as much fat as I want it to. Though I have gained a little more muscle, which is endearing.

After this so called 30 day shred, I'm going to embark on another entitled "six pack in six weeks". This should mean that I'll be hopefully in pretty good condition, body wise, by the end of the tour, which is when I'll be seeing most of the other actors again. And then back to the UK where I'll hopefully get the chance to take my shirt off in front of my ex girlfriend.

Currently I'm keeping my exercise regime secret from the girls in my group because, well, no particular reason. But I'd like to be able to suddenly magically have a sexier body, without being seen to work at it.

If that makes sense.

I haven't posted properly on here for a few months. Many things have happened, but I don't feel like going into them all particularly in depth.

SO, if you see anything down here you think I should expand on, comment on it, and I'll do so in a later post. In the meantime, here is a quick precis of all the weird stuff that's happened around/to me.

- Girl in our group left, citing illness
- Rehearsed in new girl, changed shows a lot, I now have a morbid fear of rehearsals
- Went to Koln for the Karnivale (germans are crazy)
- Rain of chocolate
- Went to pick up van from train station. Accidentally drove it into a mudfield, was stuck. Had to wait for three hours for a truck to come unstick it (would have been less time, but the first truck got stuck too). In retrospect shouldn't have been wearing thongs and fisherman's trousers in winter
- Ate Sushi, watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which was both of those things from the front row), threw up
- Went back to the uk, stayed in seven different beds in fourteen nights
- Discovered my ex has a new boyfriend, was understandably upset
- Went to my cousin's funeral (he had been missing for several years, they finally found his body)
- Stayed with my cousins in Biggar, am now the coolest cousin/uncle hybrid ever
- Started exercise routine
- Saunad hugely
- Overcome by desire to go to Scandinavia
- Decided to watch all the films on my hard drive I've not yet seen


There were, I am sure, more and varied things which happened to me, but I can't remember them all off the top of my head. Hence why I now want to start posting every day.

And today I put on my dressing gown for the first scene of our show, and midway through one of my lines a wasp which was ensconced within decided it was the perfect time to sting me. I twitched not at all, until I was backstage, at which point amidst much muttered swearing a flailing, I managed to evict the poor creature, and continue on with the show.

It's been some time.

For some reason when there's too much to talk about, I don't feel like talking about it. I tend to get somewhat withdrawn during these points. So a lot has happened in the past three months.

However, it being ten in the evening, I'm not going to cover them all. Tomorrow will ye receive them in their bullet pointed glory. (At the moment I'm too busy reading webcomics on an incredibly slow internet connection, while briefly flirting with the idea of sleep. I've flirted with enough people in different countries online today that sleep is probably going to be a fairly easy conquest.)

I have not forgotten my blog. I'll bring it back up in the next few days, hopefully focussing on more shorter blog posts. That way I won't get o'erwhelmed.