Elly Goodman

Sydney rain storms
I’m English, so I’m pretty used to rain, you don’t get a green and pleasant land without it, but nothing prepared me for the kind of rain that you get here. English rain is very, well, English. It’s subtle, gentle, wet in a way that you don’t even realise it’s wet until you happen to touch your sleeve and then you are soaked through. Australian rain is BIG, it’s undeniably WET, it’s heavy, and it’s totally and utterly awe-inspiring. I love it! It’s like punctuation, dripping commas breaking up the long, sunny sentence making it understandable.

Coffee, Tea or Me
This little (and I mean little) coffee shop on the corner of Crown and Davies Street in Surry Hills is just perfect. The décor is shabby-chic, in the right way, they serve tea in china cups (essential) and the staff are friendly in an English way. That is, they smile (a little), they are polite, friendly and attentive, but they don’t need to know your name. They do, however, remember your favourite drink and they serve it with care and attention. The wait is often long, but unimportant, English people don’t mind waiting, we feel at our most comfortable in a queue (besides, it gives us something to whinge about later). If you are not so keen on waiting, they supply newspapers and magazines in a basket in front of the coffee machine or there are the numerous Polaroids of their four-legged customers gracing the walls to keep you occupied. It feels like a little slice of Europe smack bang in the middle of Surry Hills and for that I am eternally grateful.

Marmite and Challah
Challah is a Jewish bread eaten on the Sabbath. It has a doughy, eggy texture with a thin, glazed crust, usually sprinkled with poppy seeds. It has a slightly sweet taste, which the poppy seeds offset nicely. When combined with butter and a layer of Marmite it becomes manna from heaven! The salty layer of Marmite (the English variety, which is infinitely different to both Aussie marmite and vegemite) and the sweet bread is a combination to set the taste buds leaping for joy. It’s even better if eaten whilst watching trashy Saturday night telly before a night out on the tiles and is offset with a glass of icy cold milk (which also acts a stomach liner for the night ahead).

Kapka Kassabova’s poetry
I don’t get much time to read for pleasure at the moment, so to my delight I had to work on an Australian or New Zealand poem at school. Wandering around a second hand bookstore in Newtown on the search for new world poets I opened up Kapka Kassabova’s book Dismemberment on page 8 and read 'Striving for Lightness'. It pulled me in word by delicious word and I had just been having a conversation about that very topic not moments before, by synchronicity or serendipity I had found myself a New Zealand (via Bulgaria and Scotland) poet for school. I now read her poems in any spare moments I have, usually just before bed and find myself lost with words that could have been written just for me.

Shakespeare
Being an actress, words are my livelihood; other people’s well-chosen, finely crafted words, I say them and bring them to life through me. Shakespeare’s words are the best! They are pre-packed with power and raw energy, sex, breath and heartbeats, shape and texture, taste, smell and colour, all the magic ingredients there on the page, ready for you to just add life. His work is always relevant, always up-to-date and to quote Doctor Who, ‘He is the most human human to have ever lived’.

Elly Goodman is an English actress currently living in Sydney who kindly sent me a list via email. Perhaps you might see her on a stage sometime (or if not, skirting through rainstorms or remembering Elizabethan-era monologues while preparing Marmite on Challah).