Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I don't know what life will be like at university but I'm pretty sure it won't consist of shoving my cat's arse into my mum's face and shouting "Smell the fart! Smell the fart!" and then laughing like a crazy witch. Welcome to another normal Tuesday dans le Jardine maison.

Because I lack originality I'm going to do what Caitlin and Laura have done and write my letter to television.

Dear Television,

We don't see each other as much as we used to. I remember watching The Simpsons and Robot Wars and Blue Peter almost religiously. But those days have gone, cast off into the wind along with my bright green primary school jumper and Pokemon cards.

Nowadays I watch you for about two hours a week. And when I say that, I mean that's the time I actually sit down in front of you, in a chair and watch your screen. The two programmes that have currently been given that honour are Doctor Who and Psychoville. Otherwise I guess I just sit upstairs, usually on my bed, watching all the other programmes that I can't watch downstairs. Bones and True Blood, basically. I'm going through a bit of a Bones phase right now, re-watching all of my favourite episodes and seeing as there have been six seasons that's a lot of mangled corpses to get through.

And then when Doctor Who finishes on Saturday until later this year (ahkfdkajskja) I guess it'll only be half an hour for Psychoville that we see each other anymore.

I'm sorry, my friend. But my bed is just comfier.

Love, Genie.




Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Yesterday at work a man and his daughter came in for cheese on toast. The girl must have been two or three years old, and she sat down at one of the tables whilst I made their lunch. They sat for a while and eventually got up, paid and left. Why are you telling me this Jane? This is boring! Indeed it is. But bare with, because it's about to get wild.

I was sweeping the floor, and had made it the rolls area, when I looked up to see a stuffed toy Piglet (as in Winnie the Pooh Piglet) sitting rather folornly, watching me, from one of the tables. I don't know why I suddenly felt a rush of sorrow, perhaps because my mum calls me Piglet (alright, alright stop laughing) and and this Piglet had been left behind. I don't want to be left behind, so I felt a connection with this little toy. Actually, it wasn't very little, it was a good thirty centimetres high and obviously well-loved. It wasn't grubby per say, but it had evidently seen its fair share of the world. Anyway I dropped the broom and cried "Oh no! The little girl has forgotten her Piglet!" to which Mork snorted and insinuated that it wasn't the end of the world or anything.

But I was determined. I spent the next ten or fifteen minutes desperatley trying to remember the company the man worked for and looking it up on my iPod. The broom lay forgotten. It was a sports company...or a health centre...Herts something? Perhaps I could ring them, get his number and tell him I've found his daughter's Piglet. That sound like something a deranged paedo might do but I'm not. I promise. I just care.

Twenty minutes rolled by and I wandered back to the broom to finish sweeping. Almost immediately upon my hand touching the handle, I heard someone say "Erm...excuse me?" from behind me.

It was the man and daughter! The little girl had obviously been crying and the man looked desperate. He asked if they'd left anyone behind and I reunited the little girl with Piglet. I swear the guy almost hugged me. I felt pretty good after that. Like I'd done my bit for the world. The little girl thanked me and they disappeared out the door and on there merry way.

Not three hours after I put up my Four Point Plan, it's already chugging away towards that oh so fabulous goal. Bring it on.

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Sunday, May 22, 2011

WHY I SHOULD NEVER GO TO THE BAFTAS

When I arrive outside the building, be it Grosvenor House or wherever, I'd go all silly and giggly because ohmfgkajshdakjd over there is Matt Smith! And look! Martin Freeman! Gillian Anderson! You get the picture. So I'd hurry up the carpet and probably go over on my ankle in my heels, and during my descent to the floor I'd grab onto Trevor McDonald's coat tails in order to remain upright. People would be pointing and staring so I'd run off to the loo to find that my face is bright red. I promptly down two glasses of Moet.

I take my place at my table, and Graham Norton or whoever comes out and I become aware that a cameras are flying around all over the place so I assume a facial expression that's a cross between absolute fear and tipsy embarrassment. Attractive (Anthony Head! Positions!).

Gradually the awards would start to roll out and I'd clap a lot and laugh loudly at jokes that aren't particularly funny. Like when Mr Norton says something like "The Only Way Is Essex? Really?" and people give a small ripple of giggles and from the back of the room you can hear me going BAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA when it all goes quiet. At this point the people on my table are wishing they were over there with Miranda Hart or Steve Coogan.

Then it would come to my category and my stomach would be in knots and I wouldn't be able to focus on the little video thing before so I'd forget to clap at everyone's work and then a camera would come on to me sitting there like a sweaty, stuck-up lemon. Then they announce that I've won and I promptly burst into tears. I make my way up to the stage wobbling about a bit due to my sore ankle and wine consumption. I'd kiss the presenter the wrong way and put the BAFTA the wrong way round on the podium. My speech would go like this:

"Oh blimey. This is very strange. I feel a bit like I'm going to faint, scream, laugh hysterically and wet myself all at the same time. Oh hey Matt Smith! Anyway, this is a very nice award and if there's anything I need it's a big gold face staring at me while I'm on the loo because of course it will go on my bathroom shelf. This is very toilet-oriented and my mother would be ashamed. But it's late, and I'm drunk. Hey Matt! So thanks to everyone I've worked with and that, and thanks to my friends and stuff. Screw you Beaumont drama department you f****ing tits! G'night all!"

There would be an akward pause and then people would clap and I'd sit down and do a head desk as a joke, not noticing that the posh bangers and mash that we'd ordered for dinner had arrived so my face gets covered in potato and dead pig.

In the after party, I attempt to talk to Matt Smith but he sees my eyelashes are full of buttered starch and runs away in fear. I go home clutching a BAFTA but full of shame.

The next day the newspapers run with the headline 'LATERS POTATERS!' and I never appear on television ever again.

The End.

Friday, May 20, 2011

I could fill this first paragraph with an apology and some sort of vague explanation as to why I haven't blogged for a long time. But I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to leap straight in to productivity with two stories from my week.

Today I went on a tour of the BBC White City, Media Centre and the Television Centre. I don't want to ramble on but I will tell you I saw where they film The One Show, the Top Gear and TARDIS meeting rooms, the area where Doctor Who Adventures (along with hundreds of other BBC magazines) is assembled, the news rooms, studios and 5 Live radio rooms, the massive aircraft hangar-type two-story space where the journalists and researchers go to make sure the BBC news programmes and sites run smoothly (which was both terrifying and fascinating at the same time) and also the Blue Peter garden which was absolutely tiny but so, so cool to stand in.

Not that I was expecting it to be stereotypically 'British' and very stoic and all about the work, but I was pleasantly surprised to find walking about the Media Centre that there was a definite element of fun. It was brightly coloured with, for example, Australian and Vietnamese sections which were random to get 'in the zone' and more unusually-shaped chairs than you could shake a stick at. Everyone seemed very happy to be there and rightly so.

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The second story involves, for legal reasons, a bakery chain that for the sake of this story is called 'Plimmons' and a man who is called Mork. Anyway Mork slept in a week or so ago and promised not to do it again after Plimmons head office gave him a verbal warning. He was telling a young, impressionable and highly skilled, reliable, well-trained, responsible and all round catch called (for the sake of this story) Lane, whose name is pronounced with a J, about a festival he was going to with his fiance. Mork told Lane-with-a-J that it was a horror themed festival and he was going as the Devil. He continued to explain that he was planning to wear mechanical wings that extended to eight foot (four foot each side). Lane-with-a-J thought Mork was an idiot, and that surely that would irritate anyone withing an four foot radius of him, but said nothing, after all, she's extremely polite. Mork said his fiance was going as the girl from The Ring, inside a real television set. Lane-with-a-J found it difficult to hide a look of withering scepticism.

Mork didn't come in for work on Tuesday. It turned out the Devil and the scary Asian girl had been at the front of the crowd and the TV had cracked Mork's fiance's ribs. Lane-with-a-J didn't want to question why they didn't get out of the way when they realised there was a problem, but quickly remembered that Mork had been caught and fined for possession of cannabis and cocaine the week before. Lane-with-a-J assumed Mork and his ladyfriend had been too high to notice anything. Apparently Mork had been selling some kind of inhalable gas drug thing (see how hip and 'in' I am?) at the festival and also ended up in a police station.

Mork is getting fired soon from Plimmons.

Lane-with-a-J is hardly surprised.