One Goes Mad in Sheffield

Recently I went to Sheffield in what was possibly the world’s first mini-break to the Steel City. It came about due to my desperate urge to run out of London for even just a day and go for a little explore somewhere else. My long-term crush on Sean Bean means I’ve always had a soft spot for Sheffield (That accent! Last time I was up there a guy giving me change said ‘There you go, lass’ and I nearly came in my pants!) and when I heard Othello was on at the Crucible with Dominic West as Iago, well, how could I resist that kind of lure? With tickets booked and hotel sorted I found a spa to spend the morning in and booked an appointment with them online. Perfect.


Sheffield did me the world of good. I wrote and wrote and wrote the whole time I was there and, inspired by my favourite travel writer, Pete McCarthy (If you’ve not read his Ireland travelogue, McCarthy’s Bar, DO! It once made my weep with laughter on a train and I ended up with the whole carriage to myself), here is my own travelogue below. It’s long but cut into bite-sized chunks that are vaguely amusing. Promise!


Wednesday 28th September 2011

4.15am Awake. Scrubbed self, grabbed stuff and now sitting in my front room taut with exhaustion and fear in case I miss hearing my taxi pull up. Don’t let me miss my taxi! I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks!

5.00am Taxi arrives. The driver (who looks like that pervert lawyer, The Walrus, from Ally McBeal) launches into a diatribe against all his customers, particularly ‘them Africans’. I’m snoozing and drooling against the back of the passenger seat but he’s unconcerned by my lack of response and I occasionally jolt awake to hear a choice nugget of vitriol. Just when I’m thinking he must have been a cert for attendance at that EDL demo in Eltham he comes out with; “And I said to ‘im, I said, how can I be racist? My wife’s black”.

Pause.

“My wife’s not black”.

5.45am Merciful arrival at St. Pancras. a station that for me is full of happy memories of visiting my grandparents when I was wee and our school history trip to Derby when I was 16. And the architecture! It’s so gorgeous; the first thing that struck me when I returned to London from Hong Kong was seeing all the amazing buildings that look like glorious Victorian gothic gateaux or pure white Georgian wedding cakes.
Speaking of cake- BREAKFAST NEEDED. Pop into AMT for coffee and a pain au choc. One staff member listlessly stocks the sandwich chiller and the other who serves me looks grey with exhaustion and on the verge of tears. Shudder with horror remembering my own stint in an early morning catering job. Thank God those days are gone.
Sip my coffee (Oh, energising blood of life!) and look at the destination boards, buzzing with that feeling you get when you’re at a station or an airport- I’m going somewhere! Anything could happen! This is LIFE! Off to a new life, even just for a day. Is it tragic that I’m feeling this excited about Sheffield?!

6.10am Train pulls out of St Pancras, the city is still dark but as the journey continues, dawn starts to creep up in apricot streaks across the horizon. It’s a hazy morning, the fields are cupping the mist and it’s taking a long time to lift. Everything looks impossibly beautiful and the dawn/rebirth/exhaustion/me-time metaphors could be endlessly scattered across here as the universe seems to be providing me with all the clichés I would need. Instead, I will leave the clichés to my Ipod, whose shuffle seems to have psychically synched with my brain and the morning outside. On comes a mystical Irish reel, Davy Spillane on the flute and thump-thumping feet pulsing in time with the train. Next I get ‘Clair de Lune’ and then “The Day We Caught The Train”. It’s almost as though my Ipod is composing it’s own ‘Exciting Adventure Train Journey’ playlist. Of course I could have made one myself but that takes the joy away when my Ipod surprises me with the perfect track. It’s the little things in life, right?

7.15am As the train gets further north I see and increasing number of fields with sheep and industrial landscapes with power station cooling towers. As a suburbs-dweller these things excite me greatly.

8.56am Pull into Sheffield. It is a BEAUTIFUL day, one of those days where hope is in your soul and the crisp air feels like it’s cleansing you with every breath. The awful estates on the hill above the station which I recall from my previous visit seem to have been modernised. I remember them looking like huge multi-dwelling hobbit houses, carved out of the slate grey hillside with tiny windows and an air of neglect. Now there seems to be some modernisation going on, lots more glass, much more chi-chi looking. Further modernisation is evident once I exit the station (no ticket gates, are people more honest up north?!). There are fountains EVERYWHERE. Shimmering steel walls of water nearly twice my height that wouldn’t shame a medium-sized shopping mall in Hong Kong. And as any of the HK posse will tell you, the Chinese take their mall decorations SERIOUS. All Sheffield needs is a 60ft Hello Kitty and then it might be a contender.

9.00am Like a good girl scout, I have a citymap marked with my first port of call, Spa 1877, a Victorian Turkish bath-style spa on the opposite side of the city centre. After a quick look at the map I decide to navigate using my natural geographic ability. I get lost almost immediately. Navigation decisions such as “I’ll just go that way a bit”, “Anything with a spire must be a cathedral” and “Oooh look! Follow the butterfly” don’t help matters.

9.45am After running across Sheffield rather flustered I find Spa 1877. I am very sweaty on account of my rushing with two heavy bags and being clad in a scarf, coat and jumper, all of which I removed en route due to this bastard hot, beautiful day.
Standing at reception, I gather that customer service in Sheffield is very friendly but not particularly efficient. I stand second in the queue for nearly ten minutes resisting the urge to shout “Me! ME! Stop being helpful and PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!!!!!!!!”

10.00am So begins the spa experience. Slut my way round all the facilities, using the aromatherapy steam room (until I figure the oil in here is citrus, probably containing evil orange so leg it out quickly), ice cave, eucalyptus steam room (let’s see if I can shift this freaking viral bronchitis) and freezing cold plunge pool. Pop into the sauna briefly but leave after 5. Dry heat BAD.
Surrounded by people talking Sheffieldian but sadly they are all women. Have yet to hear a Sheffield man speak. No one has called me “lass” either. Most sad.

11.00am Lime and ginger body scrub and massage. Words cannot describe this HEAVEN. Feels very self-indulgent but I am important and deserve this me-time. Yes I do! Fuck it, I do!

12.30pm Lunch. Wolf down every scrap of my delish spinach, beetroot, goats cheese and pomegranate seed salad and all the free apple juice, tea and lemon water I can.

12.30pm- 1.30pm Almost continuous peeing.

1.30pm Facial- BLISSFUL, though if you’d said the words ‘facial’ and ‘Sheffield’ to me in my 20s, this is definately not what I would have imagined.

2.30pm Continued use of spa facilities. Sitting in the red-lit eucalyptus soup of the steam room. I have nothing to do today but enjoy these facilities, go for a yummy veggie dinner and go to the theatre. This is UTTER heaven. Another plunge in the 4 degree cold pool, taking my number of plunges up to 11. I am HARDCORE spa-ing now.

3.30pm MEN! Sheffield men! Ruling out the possibility that they are gay, I do the shagabilty equation which is hotness rating plus two points for the sexy accent minus my level of sobriety. These men end up scoring 8 which is perfectly acceptable but what is the etiquette for hitting on someone in a plunge pool? Or should I just grope them in the anonymous mists of the steam room?

4.00pm Decide I better leave the spa before I turn into a prune (and a pervert) but it is with great reluctance that I leave this little patch of heaven. It’s done me the world of good. Once I am showered, hair dried and straightened and make-up done I am looking HOT. Not Angelina Jolie hot, obviously (if the spa was capable of that I’d be moving in!) but as hot as it is possible for me to look which is all we can ask. Good work Spa 1887.

4.30pm Pounding the streets of Sheffield. Head for Division Street, a studenty area full of bars and boutiques. There’s a streetpark with skaters down one end and lots of little alleys leading off to more intriguing bars and shops. Down one of these turnings is Bang Bang Vintage, the shop I am hunting for.

4.35pm LOVE Bang Bang Vintage. For a start, all the gorgeous vintage clothes are about half the price they’d be in London. I end up buying a cool white ruffled blouse and a cameo ring. The girl behind the counter asks if I’ve got my NUS card for a discount. I reply that I haven’t, as though I’ve left it in my other bag or something. Love Bang Bang Vintage even more now and love Spa 1887 too as they seem to have taken 9 years off me.

4.50pm Cross through Sheffield city centre, lots of Victorian buildings and clattering supertrams. Pass ‘Embrace- Sheffield’s premier nightclub’. It looks like a 1980s Sainsbury’s crossed with a multi-storey carpark. Embrace- who are they kidding? Just go ahead and call it ‘Foreplay’.

5.00pm Check into my hotel, which is only the Premier Inn, nothing posh. It gains points for being central but loses them again for being above a pound shop. Also for having the kind of security measures that wouldn’t shame Guantanamo Bay. Room key has to be swiped in order to call the lift, again to get into the corridor leading to your room and again at your door. Make the journey to my room looking warily over my shoulder for crack-addicted zombie muggers.

5.05pm Make use of the free tea and coffee-making facilities because I am BRITISH and this is what we do. The day they put an end to free tea and coffee-making facilities in hotels is the day civilisation collapses.

5.10pm Slump on hotel bed watching Coach Trip and Come Dine With Me. Some things are sacred.

6.00pm Head out to the Blue Moon Cafe, a veggie restaurant allegedly by the cathedral. I seem to be getting eyed-up by lots of men. I do look pretty good, but then I also look very different to everyone else around here, in my red dress with tribal design, raspberry kimono cardigan, leggings and cameo ring. It’s all VERY boho chic (or at least that’s how we’d describe it if this was 2006) which is basically a euphemism for ‘4.15am dive for whatever clean clothes I could find in the half-light’. My make-up is full on smoky-eyed 1950s vamp with scarlet lipgloss as thick as tar and maybe it’s that attracting the attention. Sadly, none of these men look like they’d like to wine me, dine me and call me “Lass”. They look more like they’re eyeing me up for use in some kind of gang initiation.

6.05pm Where in name of arse is the bloody Blue Moon? As per my usual geographical philosophy I didn’t write the address of the cafe down, instead absorbing the essential clue ‘near the cathedral’. This may be annoying right now but will make it so much more rewarding when I do find it.

6.10pm Hate to stereotype but I see some hippie-esque sorts hanging round on the corner of a lane. All headscarves, batik and flaring linen trews that smell of dog and tabacco. Instinct tells me that this is the exact demographic group you’d expect to find outside a veggie restaurant. Head towards them- SUCCESS!

6.11pm Comparing my outfit with the dress of the Blue Moon clientele I realise I am finally amongst my own people. Order broccoli and cauliflower cheese which comes with two salads in a portion so large I may well miss my train tomorrow, never mind the play tonight. The girl behind the counter asks what I want to drink. Consider water as all that massage and steaming is quite dehydrating. Order a large glass of Chardonnay.

6.15pm Ploughing away at my dinner and occasionally scribbling in here. The restaurant is a large, airy Victorian room with a high white and blue ceiling. It looks like a grand station waiting room or an antechamber in the Brighton Pavilion. There are moon windchimes, paintings and stained glass dotted about and four clocks set to the times in Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley. I like a place with a theme and a sense of humour. Things get more amusing when I examine the long noticeboard that covers one wall. Posters and leaflets include “Buddhist Barn Dance”, “Save Steve Irwin”, “Being Hip- exercise classes for those recovering from hip injury” (one wonders if they saw that magazine created on The Apprentice, Hip Replacement?) and the poignant “Have you seen my polecat?”. I realise I have wandered into a quirky world where rules of normality seem not to apply. I like it.

6.35pm Halfway through my plate of food, a cold glass of white wine on the table, a view of the cathedral courtyard in the evening sun and an the expectation of a great evening ahead. Perfect little moment.

6.50pm Othello starts in 25 mins so I better get a freaking move on. Start touching up my makeup at the table whilst eating, drinking the wine and writing. Strewn across the table are my powder compact, leopardprint powder puff, wine glass with red lipgloss print, plate of veggies in cheese sauce and notepad and pen. These are pretty much the primary elements of my life. If I ever get a coat of arms, this is what will be on it.

7.05pm Having legged it to the theatre on a very full stomach I’ve managed to get here in time and join the queue to pick up my tickets. Once again, Sheffield’s pleasant but SLOW customer service gets me agitated. The box office assistant seems to be intent on treating the couple in front of me as human beings! WASTE OF MY TIME!

7.14pm Take my seat for Othello, relishing that pre-show buzz of excitement that always runs around a theatre. Realise I’m slap bang in the middle of a school group. The 16 year old boy I’m next to sneaks a sideways peek at me and looks terrified. It’s that lipgloss.

7.15pm THE PLAY; Octagonal set design, thrust stage, heavy oak doors- interesting but you cannot establish something as a door throughout the entire play and then have it open magically as though it is not there later on- this gets a laugh from the audience at what should have been a serious moment.. I’m undecided as to whether Dominic West’s shaved head makes him look like a hottie or a nits-infested simpleton. Or a hot, nits-infested simpleton. His Iago isn’t convincing me he has the capacity for true evil but his looks to Emilia are full of unspoken menace. Clarke Peters’ Othello seems to be American which is jarring when Iago is doing Yorkshire with a hint of West Country. Desdemona is screechy and annoying.

9.00pm Interval. Lucozade and a bag of minstrels is a fiver. Nice to see that even though spas, vintage clothing and theatre tickets are much cheaper up north, interval food still remains ri-COCK-ulously expensive.

9.30pm Second half. I think the Globe has ruined other theatres for me. There are so many sound and light effects in this production I find myself longing for stillness and silence. Just let the words and the actors do the work, stop undercutting dramatic tension by flashing a sodding light!

10.00pm Totally gratuitous shirt-removing scene as Iago whips it off and uses it to bind Cassio’s wounds. I don’t remember Tim MacInnerny doing this at the Globe. The schoolgirls ‘Ooooh’ at this flash of West chest and really, I’m not complaining either.

10.10pm Othello finally strangles Desdemona and shuts her up. Thank God for that.

10.25pm Hmmm. All over. It’d give it a C plus overall; enjoyable but could do better. The schoolgirls give Dominic West a standing ovation but I’m sorry Westie, you have to do better than that to get me on my feet. The evilness of Iago usually gives me a total wide-on but tonight my pants are barely dampened.

10.30pm Had planned on having a drink at the Crucible bar but it’s all open-plan and very 70s. Head into the square outside and but don’t see any bars here either. Remember the cute cafe bar by my hotel but when I get there I find that’s closed too! At 10.30pm! Next door there’s a Wetherspoons open. Briefly consider it but drinking at a near-empty Wetherspoons at 10.30pm on a Wednesday in a town where no one knows you seems to be the first step on a path that leads to working in animal porn to pay off a meth addiction. NO NO NO.

10.35pm Safely back in my room at Guantanamo, having cleared customs, retina scan and body cavity search (I wish!). I reckon I can take advantage of the fact the Wetherspoons opens at 7am and go and have a dirty cheap breakfast tomorrow, then hop on a supertram to the huge Meadowhall Shopping Centre and go to the fish spa, head back for a walk along the River Don, then lunch in the cafe bar before catching my train at ten past 2. Set alarm for 6.30am. Sorted.

The thrills of day two to follow... later...

Writing, Meditation and and Fire Extinguishers...

*Sigh*

I'm all in a hotch potch so cannot promise any wise, profound insight today. (Because obviously that is what this blog usually offers, as opposed to a vaguely amusing, occasionally unsettling window into my tattered soul). So the reason I am writing is an attempt to entertain or even inform (HA!) but simply because I MUST. I must write, have to have to have to.

This is the conclusion I am reaching the further into my'Psychology and Spirituality' course I am get. The last two lectures were on meditation and my notebook is scribbled with references to WRITING and how WRITING is basically the same thing. Focusing on one thing entirely that calms me? Writing. That brings order and the ability to notice everything in more detail? Writing. That gives my mind space to be creative? Writing writing writing. It's the same for us all; meditation can be anything- art, running, dance... so if it is so positive why does the thought of a 10 hour meditation retreat chill me to the bone? (not that I'm planning on doing one you understand!)Can you imagine it? I think I'd go crazy, wouldn't you?!!!

It's the same with writing. Why, when I attempt to write and 'be a writer' and say 'I write' do I find it SO FRICKING HARD TO WRITE?!!!! It's not the actual experience of writing, this bit is fun and easy. It's the anticipation, thinking 'Oh, I should sit down and write' and then a shot of prickley fear followed by the thought, "Oh, but don't I have some pants that need ironing?". Basically, I'll do anything to get out of it.

But why? I think one thing is that writing needs a certain degree of arrogance. You need to think that you have something worthwhile to say, that people will want to read. Now don't get me wrong, it's obvious to all of us that I'm a fabulous human being with a rack that could kill and an ass that won't quit... but writing...? Sure I can spin something amusing but the eternal dilemma is CAN I WRITE ANYTHING WORTHWHILE?!!

Which brings me to the second point; I can never think of anything I want to write about. That's actually a lie or a trick of the mind. Funnily enough, when I do meditate, then my mind decides it wants to give me ideas. But when I try to clutch at them and follow through the idea wafts away like smoke and I'm left with a disappointing smell that stinks like FAILURE. Whatever, it must have been a crap idea anyway, because what could I possibly have to say? (See point one)

And to write well, about something serious (which I can't do!) is to put a little part of you out there to be surrounded and stabbed by a sneering critics. So it requires bravery and dedication and belief and all that bollocks. And that brings us to the final point. IF I want to write but don't write I still can have the belief that I COULD be a writer. But if I start to write and can't follow through with it and am crap then I'll DEFINATELY never be a writer.

Did that make sense? Told you I was hotch-potchy. So is it better to have the untested belief that I am a writer but never fulfil it? Or to try and FAIL. And I know, I know, from that Disney/Hollywood perspective it's always better to TRY (Image: Brave girl standing on mountain top with arms aloft and wind whipping through her hair). But in the real world? Maybe sometimes it's better to take the safe option...

THING THAT HAS AMUSED ME THIS WEEK: In the lifts at Covent Garden and Russell Square stations there are fire extinguishers labelled "Suitable for wood and paper fires. Not suitable for metal and electic fires"

Erm, are they expecting forest fires in a lift?!! Presumabley, at various points throughout our National parks there are fire extinguishers labelled 'For electrical fires only"???!

MORONS.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up...?

Greetings all,

So I've been away with the fairies for a little while and not posted, mainly because there was nothing to say. It's all been dull, dull, unemployment, dull, dull, occasional rescue by a kind friend who's taken me boozing, dull, dull, etc etc. As I mentioned to one friend, I’ve been as much fun as a yeast infection of late. And no one wants to read a blog by a yeast infection, do they?

BUT things are finally on the move. I'm so impatient, I always want everything to happen RIGHT NOW, but this is not how the Universe works, is it? Bide your time, learn your lessons. Thankfully, my time has now been bided (?!!), and I have a job (temporary and not very exciting but it's work), I am doing courses (freelance journalism on Monday nights, social psychology will start on Tuesdays in a couple of weeks time). There are mega cheap rates for the unemployed so I'm making lemonade out of those lemons!

Anyway, I will elaborate on all the above at some point, (how lucky for you!?!) but that's not the reason for me posting. The reason I'm posting is that my mum found some of my old schoolwork, including an infamous piece I remember writing in my last year at primary school. It was entitled 'When I Grow Up' and illustrated with possible pictures of me, as a grown-up, in the future. You will see I already thought of myself as a fabulous multi-tasker; oh for the confidence we all had at 10! Here's the text, complete with spelling mistakes below:

"When I grow up I would like to be a clothes designer and an author. If I chose a sporting career I will proberbly be a dancer, an ice-skater or a show-jumper. If I choose a more glamorus career I will be a model or a Actress, Also if I become a sports person I wouldn't mind being a Tennis player."

Isn't it funny how, when we were little, none of us ever said "I want to work in middle-management in a large corporation" or, indeed "I want to be a mid-weight front-end developer". I suppose some of us grow out of childish dreams, some of us give up on them and some of us make compromises as other things become more important. But I think our 10 year old selves, and the hopes we had, have a kind of truth to them. We knew what we wanted and were confident it would happen. That is before we got scared we couldn't do it, or wouldn't earn enough money doing it, or that everyone would laugh at us because we were too crap.

This little glimpse of my past is especially important to me now that I've finally decided to try and make writing my career. Writing is really all I've ever wanted to do but I’ve always been far too scared to go for it or to define myself as ‘a writer’ in case someone spits in my face and says “No you’re fucking not you LOSER!”. Then I would have to run away crying and live out the rest of my life hiding in London’s sewerage system.

Obviously it’s not right for all of us to follow the dreams we scribbled down as snotty school kids. Then the world would have far too many astronauts or cowgirls or dinosaurs. But I think little 10 year old Mel was right. I knew what I wanted back then and even if it takes me till I’m 60 to get there I'm going to try and stick with it.

The writing that is. I don’t think I’m likely to become a model anytime soon.

If I Write It, The Career Will Come...

I AM A WRITER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM A WRITER I AM A WRITER I AM A WRITER I AM A WRITER I AM A WRTIER I AM A WRITER I AM A WRITET I AM A WRITER I AM A WRITER I AM A WRITER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO THERE!!!!! :op

MWOO HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately there’s nothing new or interesting to report, I haven’t suddenly been given my dream job by The Guardian or Wanderlust magazine (or indeed Lust magazine). Instead I am just practising saying “I am a writer” as how the hell is anyone supposed to think of me as one if I just say “Oooh, yeah, well, um, I write a bit and y’know, not much and... oooh, look WINE!”. Ridiculous. I’ve got to believe I am a writer if I want other people to believe it too. Although I am taking some convincing.

With that in mind, I have joined Twitter (Ugh! I know! But Suzie at Underbelly advised me to in order to promote my theatre blog so please ‘follow’ me if you’re on there http://twitter.com/#!/noisymilly It is with some horror that I paste that link in). When my next theatre blog is up (should be in the next couple of days) I will then promote it on Twitter. HORROR. But how does one get lots of followers? Advice please. How much further do I have to debase myself to promote me as a writer?!!

In other exciting news, I still have no job. But I have jobseekers’ allowance, The Apprentice, champagne and two Colin Farrell DVDs on order from Play.com so really, how bad can life be? I have been stressing A LOT recently though. The only time I get really stressed is when I question myself and the decisions I make. I find myself asking, ‘Should I settle down to some sort of career?’, ‘Should I be with someone?’, ‘Should I listen to all the people who sneer “Back to reality” at me, as though I’ve spent the last two and a half years in a pool full of cock and thousand dollar notes’? Because some people seem to live their lives as though they are a burden, they believe life isn’t ‘real’ unless it’s dull, repetitive and involves all kinds of heavy responsibility that they may or may not enjoy. When I am uncertain of myself and my own choices I start to think they’re right. That they are ‘grown up’ and ‘responsible’ and that I have somehow failed in some way and that I must ‘get real’ and allow my future to involve the discontent that they exhibit on the faces when I meet them in a bar, or at my bank, or when I’m job hunting.

But nah, bollocks to it. Currently the only ambition I have is to run screaming with laughter through the Irish countryside, pursued by a hot Irish man I will later shag and oh, to have adventures, many many adventures. And to write. And to get Stephen Fry to follow me on Twitter. There have to be some advantages, after all. I just can’t settle (whatever that means) now. Don’t get me wrong, if I met a guy right now who wanted to be my partner in crime and head off on adventures with me I’d snap him right up but I am in no way ready for a place of my own in a fixed destination, marriage and (ugh!) kids.

With that in mind, I must thank my dear friend Lola for supporting me a lot this weekend and making me feel better. She basically talked me down out of my scary panic attack. I am lucky as, though I don’t have any bros or sisters, Lola is one of the family I got to choose. And the best of it is, we are completely different and yet totally supportive of each other. She is very much a settle down gal, she met her lovely Derrick and now they have a lovely home and are getting married next year (YAY!). I on the other hand am a horrible cynic and the thought of anything commitment-y (marriage, mortgage, staying in the same job/place for more than 3 years) panics the shit out of me. But Lola and I support each other. She’s not me and I’m not her but that doesn’t stop me from being so happy that she’s getting married that I’m going to cry ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE CEREMONY and doesn’t stop her supporting all my wayward and often foolish decisions. So BLESS HER for telling me that I know what’s right for me and to just keep going and not to panic. I shall remember this next time I see sodding Baz at the recruitment consultancy.

So then, the phase I’m going through now is like a chrysalis. Yes, there is little happening, but I can feel things starting to pick up again. I feel ready to get back out there, chat, schmooze, do stuff, get involved. I DESPARATELY need a job, it’s true but I just have to keep trying on that one. Normal Mel service will be resumed soon. In the meantime, I am going to continue drinking champagne, get my haircut tomorrow and hope that the Postie brings my Colin Farrell DVDS soon!

What I like today: Blogging, Twitter (I know!), champagne, The Apprentice (in particular, Stella!), Lola, the increase in Lola's wedding plans.

What I don't like today; That I have no job or indeed career, that I'm starting to like Twitter.

Writing, not writing, job-hunting, Irishmen...

I am supposed to be writing a blog. But not this blog. The blog I should be writing is for my new gig and that's my number one new piece of news to tell you.

Firstly, I should state that I still don't have a proper job. Sorry, didn't mean to get you all excited there. Instead, I am the official theatre blogger for London Underbelly (you may, should you fancy, check out my first blog here ( http://www.londonunderbelly.com/ ) It's unpaid but, y'know, it's experience. And a good chance to make contacts etcetera. Except making contacts, networking and all that jazz is my least favourite thing to do. I just want to get pissed with cool people who don’t judge instead of worrying if they are useful/important/impressed by me.

But as my wise friend Simon pointed out last night (At least I think he did, I was a little drunk and the music in the bar was noisy) if I want to get into this sort of work then a-schmoozing I will have to get. Writing is, after all, all about contacts. People have to like you to publish you and have to know you to like you. But supposing they don't like you? Why wouldn't they? BECAUSE YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, minor nervous breakdown. Well Suzie, the very cool head of London Underbelly was complimentary about my first blog so that boosted my confidence for approx 5 mins before it once again plummeted, dropped out my ass onto the floor and slithered down the nearest drain. So I've spent the last 7 hours procrastinating about my second blog (even though it's only about 500 words). I thought if I wrote this one instead it might at least kick my writer's block (more like writer's paralysis) into gear.

Onto the next update: The job-hunt continues. I signed on for the first time last week. I'd expected a dismal queue in a cold grey room with bump-and-grinding men as depicted in the Full Monty and was somewhat sad to be allocated a comfy seat in an overheated room opposite a guy who looked a bit like your pervy uncle. I badgered him into sorting me an appointment at a recruitment consultancy and to be fair, I was in there for a good hour while Unc went above and beyond to sort it all out for me. And the next day off I went. My recruitment consultant's name was Baz. He had a Hoxton fin. To be fair to Baz, he has since sent me some useful links and an action plan but I did have the feeling that our meeting was more about how great he was at his job rather than finding one for me. At one point, he told me he was a very creative person and had, on his wall, an Andy Warhol quote on how “being good in business was the best kind of art”. A little bit of me died there and then. And when looking at charity/arts-based jobs for me he exclaimed 'I don't know how you work for these people. They don't pay very much, do they?' GRRRRRRRRRR. I fear we will never see eye to eye, but then maybe that's what I need to kick my ass.

Piece of news number three is that the drought is over! Whilst out dressed as a broken doll for Halloween I hooked me a guy. We were at a pub in Peckham Rye and he came over, slightly pissed and said ‘Can I just say, you have the best boobs on the Rye?’ Well, it was much more charming than the usual ‘UGGGGGHHH NICE TITS!’ I must confess, I didn’t get an instant fanny gallop when he approached but he did look like a good manly man... and then I realised- he was Irish! From Donegal! And you know how that works on me. So we had a nice chat, yeah yeah yeah, you can fill in the blanks there but all I’m saying is it was similar to that whole Rugby Sevens/Afro French man/Spicy Fingers incident...

So I arranged to meet yer man on Monday. We went out for cocktails and had an excellent drunken time. As the old joke goes- Irish first date? Get drunk and have sex. Ladylike decorum prevents me from telling you whether we did or not though (Oh, take a guess!)

The next day, as I staggered through M&S at London Bridge with debilitating hangover, I didn’t glimpse déjà vu so much as was whacked repeatedly over the head with it. After all, this was exactly how I spent my mid-twenties. Too much drinking? Celtic men? Bruises in sensitive places? Shouldn’t I be over this by now?! The worrying continued; will I still be doing this when I’m nearing 40? And then I thought- is that such a bad thing?!!

Yesterday was spent recovering, drinking again and then watching a great play at The Rose and that is what I am now supposed to be writing about. I still can’t take myself seriously as ‘A WRITER’ though. I just feel so embarrassed talking to people about WRITING and WRITING this blog like they’re going to look me up and down with disdain, hissing softly while I admit, actually, that I cannot write; that in fact, I’m a grand eejit with no talents and should spend the rest of my life in my room, under my duvet, slowly festering until I die because that is all I am good at.

Harsh. But writing matters to me so I paralyse myself with fear that I can’t do it. I think, along with my terror of networking, I may have to get over that.

What I like today: not having a hangover, green tea, The Apprentice, the word ‘eejit’.

What I don’t like today: not having a job, writer’s terror (which I do not get because I am not a writer

The incomparable wonder of Sharron Fast...

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I've got half an hour before I run out the house for a few drinkies this evening so I thought, better blog NOW or end up with pissed rantings later.

Today is basically an ode to my dear friend Sharron, who has given me many beautiful clothes, shoes and handbags, including some still with the tags on and a fake Balenciaga which someone mistook for a real one. Seeing as I'm unsure of even how to spell Balenciaga I am impressed by this.

Today, Sharron also took me and our friend Ramesh to a talk at the uni where she works entitled 'What, Why and How Writers Write'. The four panallists included the lovely Stephen Fry who signed autographs and posed for pictures and who laughed heartily at a quip I made about shoes. I am more pleased with this than I would have been had the talk been on 'What, Why and How Irishmen shag' and the panellist Colin Farrell (who would then subsequently admire my shoes and demand I walk over his back in them). That's just how I roll these days.

Anyway, the wonderous Mr. Fry was very inspirational on writing. Frederick Forsyth, who was also on the panal, said he wrote for the money, would stop writing once he amassed enough money and didn't get writer's block because he was doing a job and being paid for it. Hmmmmmm. Stephen on the other hand was much more artsy fartsy and mentioned P.G. Wodehouse's cure for writers block which is apparently to swear a lot. That's what I like to do myself so this pleased me. Obviously screaming 'FUCKSTICKS!!!' at the top of your voice (while trying to find Ghanan things to do in Hong Kong) is what writers do. He also stated his belief that writer's wrote 'because they have to', and that the two main things a writer needs is to overcome their self-conciousness and to be willing to put in the labour needed to produce writing. I definately agree with him on those two, not so sure if I 'need' to write. I'd love to be that artistic and dramatic but I think the only need I have for writing is as a valve to my brain; otherwise the thoughts all jam up in there and drive me mad. (Oh God, that makes me sound psychotic...)

Incidentally, there were two other panallists. The first being discussion chair, Sir David Tang of 'Shanghai Tang' fame (a sort of Chinese Laura Ashley, a lot more upmarket and expensive but similar in terms in the way they market conservative clothes that attempt to reflect the national identites of their countries but end up being something a posh mum would wear). Sir David was a fierce chairperson, telling people with poorly thought-out questions that they were stupid and offering a potted description of anyone who put their hand up; 'Yes, you the man with the weird moustache', 'Yes, the chubby boy'. Needless to say my hand stayed down as I found him rather terrifying but I did conclude that the BBC's Question Time would be a lot more fun with him as a presenter.

The final panallist was an historical biographer, Andrew Roberts who looked like a dry Conservative pary back bencher but was actually very witty and engaging, particularly when telling how he had received two death threats. The first time, the police dusted for fingerprints on his letterbox and were only able to ascertain that his cleaning lady wore rubber gloves. The second time, he received a threat stating 'death to the Jew Andrew Roberts'. The man had kindly left his name and address on the letter so Andrew turned it into the police, not before pondering whether to write back a note to the man patiently explaining that he wasn't in fact Jewish.

Anyway, then we went for a yummy lunch at Life, the organic vegan cafe where I had eggs bendict and Sharron the most delicious veggie burger in the world. The humble veggie burger is usually the desperate choice of herbivores everywhere as in a lot of restaurants it's only thing us non-meat eaters can have. Consquentially, when you go to an actual, yummy, we-can-have-everything-on-the-menu veggie restaurant you avoid the veggie burger. Been there done that. Boring! But I can only say this was the most delicious, tongue teasing veggie burger I have ever had. Light yet filling, moist not soggy. I have no idea what was in it but I'll be back for one of those in September... To top it all off, while I was in the loo, Sharron did that sneaky thing your mum and her best friend do and paid the bill while I was having a wee as this was 'my going away lunch'. I am spoilt!

Finally, she's taking a suitcase full of my crap back to the UK for me at Christmas, which has saved my ass because, as I type this very blog, I still have too much stuff and not enough time to get it the hell out of my flat!

Basically, it's been a brilliant day. Thanks Fasty.

Today I like; The inspiring Stephen Fry, veggie food, my new 1950s style dress courtesy of Sharron, listening to my ipod on he MTR, ignoring my shit everywhere by going for a drinkie with friends at The Fringe.

Today I don't like; All the things I still have to do before I go to Jakarta- aaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!