Your fearless blogger made several Resolutions at the end of 2008, most of which - rather unusually - she has stuck with. One of them was to cease and desist from writing those endless posts whinging about her hayfever/colds/attacks of typhoid which seemed such a feature of TN 2008. So no whinging, just a quiet apology for her recent slackness. Despite everything, I have managed to appear discreetly at a couple of Dance Massive events. Dance Massive, if you haven't caught up, is a small but perfectly formed program of contemporary Australian dance that is on in four venues around town until March 15. It's not a "festival", apparently. Which is good. I am, as you no doubt know, constantly afflicted by harassing feelings of guilt during festivals...

Although I'm less than present at present, there's no shortage of excellent reading online for all you eager theatrenauts. So let me list a few. Jana Perkovic at her smart new blog Guerilla Semiotics has a comprehensive and useful rundown on what's happening in Melbourne this week, with some useful Dance Massive links (if you haven't subscribed to this blog, which is looking like a must-attend, do so immediately). Up north in Sydney, Matt Clayfield at Esoteric Rabbit has taking time out from being a star cub reporter for the Australian to attend to his blogging, and today has a thoughtful review of Bell Shakespeare's Venus & Adonis, now on at the STC after opening at the Malthouse here.

On the shock horror front, Sydney critic James Waites has posted some pictures of himself in the aftermath of a brutal mugging that happened on his way home from a play, demonstrating that the life of a critic can be more dangerous than most people realise. (As a corrective to those images, he also puts in his bid to be a soft porn star.) David Williams from Compromise is Our Business makes his own bid for celluloid stardom with some useful hints on how to write successful grants for the Australia Council. Disappointingly, as I was secretly hoping for some Brendan Behan theatrics, I didn't see any sign of the boozy lunch that allegedly preceded the filming...

Further afield, David Jays at Performance Monkey, another must-read blog, has an amusing post about theatre etiquette in the age of cyber-narcissism. And George Hunka at Superfluities Redux provides some brain food with links to some fascinating interviews with Heiner Muller and some news about up-coming Howard Barker events which, sadly for me, aren't happening in Melbourne. And also an overdue pointer to Alex Sierz's new blog, Pirate Dog, which is posting bite-sized chunks about British theatre. Sierz, some of you might recall, is the coiner of the term "In-yer-face theatre", and even wrote the book on it.

Now I'll go back to my discreet grumbling. Back soon, when my fettles are finer.