..live on stage accompanying the movie and we’d arrived far too early.
I was idly fiddling with my phone when Maria nudged me. ‘Isn’t that Julia Zemiro?’ she whispered - and then had to repeat the question because the ambient foyer-noise defeated my well-meaning but quite ineffectual hearing aids.
I had to do a double take, but it was indeed the ever-charming Julia. We greeted each other in our celebrity sort-of way and I introduced Julia to Maria. Julia’s an even more lovely person in person than she is on screen and, although she was there to meet a couple of her friends, she chatted with us in her extremely personable way and kept up the conversation with Maria even after I drifted away to buy some fries.
Just as Dick and Mary finally arrived and it looked as if we were heading into the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall for our night of intellectual hobnobbing, Julia remembered an anecdote about fellow Kiwi Sam Neill meeting Mike Rudd (that’s me) back in the mid-seventies.
I actually remember the night. Ariel (can’t remember which version) had just finished playing at Martinis, a tiny Carlton club filled to the gunwales with a jostling, sweaty crowd loudly reliving the night’s proceedings.
Sam Neill clambered onto the stage and introduced himself. That much I remember. Apparently Sam advised me that we’d both attended Christ’s College back in the sixties in Christchurch, although he said I was probably unaware of him at the time as he’d been a few years behind me. At which point, Sam maintains, I invited the prospective superstar, film actor, raconteur etc. to ‘fuck off’, which, if in fact the case, was outrageously rude of me.
Sam’s sportingly taken the view that it was actually very rock and roll of me and has apparently related the story a number of times to general amusement, but I took issue with Julia as to the veracity of the story on the grounds it was so absolutely out of character. Maria and Mary Rudd also insisted that it was so out of character that it couldn’t possibly be true – but then the doubts started to nag at me.
From time to time in my own brilliant career I have been known to do some curiously ‘out-of-character’ or ‘rock and roll’ kind of things. Not outrageous Keith Moony kind of things mind you, but slightly disturbing things nevertheless. Probably more disturbing because of the second-tier status I enjoyed – first class celebrities seem to have some kind of entitlement to make complete arses of themselves and the public is inclined to indulge them.
So, now I’m not sure. I have to concede that, for whatever reason, it is possible I might’ve actually told Sam Neill to fuck off. But, just in case you think I might’ve repented of my evil ways, or that I’ve somehow matured and have a more responsible attitude to match my greying hair, as she was leaving I told Julia to tell Sam Neill* from me, ‘Fuck off – I never said fuck off’.

No, the days of rock and roll hi-jinks are well and truly over. All I’ve got to look forward to is the relentless deterioration of my faculties with the stories of the ensuing mishaps all I have left to relate – providing I can remember them.
This is quite recent. The sagacious and remarkably generous Doc White had booked Spectrum for an evening at the Burrinja Cultural Centre in Upwey and had asked me to do a couple of radio interviews to help promote the gig. He sent me a text with the details.
‘Hmm..’ I mused. ‘That’s unusual. An interview at 9.00 on a Monday morning. Actually, I think that’s quite clever – it might put us in touch with another potential audience.’
I tend to muse like that. Anyway, the morning came. The interview was at Yarra Valley FM, normally about an hour’s journey in the trusty Mitsubishi, but it happened to be cold and wet this morning, so I had to drive very carefully in the most potentially lethal conditions for an unloaded van.
Despite the conditions I arrived, albeit slightly unnerved, right on 9.00. I obeyed the signs on the way into the station requesting that I wipe my shoes and SMILE. I introduced myself to Charlene, who didn’t know anything about an interview but thought I might have a pre-record with Loretta, who’d been held up with the kids.
I thought I was supposed to be talking to a bloke, so while Charlene got me a cuppa I consulted my phone again – and discovered that I was actually booked to do the interview at 9.00 that night! Twelve hours early for an interview is a record, even for me, but I suspect all sorts of records will tumble on the road of uncertainty that awaits me.

* BTW - Sam Neill's a very amusing man - see this Q&A (from which I borrowed Sam's photo) with The Guardian's Rosanna Greenstreet for confirmnation