“We ain’t never gonna be respectable”

I’ve discovered the key ingredient that ensures my emergence from the folds of my duvet in the morning – RESPECT! Not something I usually care too much about giving or receiving (though I think much of our society could do with a re-education as to its meaning) but it makes all the flippin’ difference in the world to this lowly worker bee!

I love that I can do my work and then check my email with impunity. There is no hovering and scolding, simply the respect given to me as an adult that I will not chimp on the web when I ought to be working. Should I have done my work, I am a free agent, within the confines of my working area of course.

Shift working makes me curl up my toes with joy. To this erratic insomniac, being a stranger to the 9 to 5 might just allow me to feel rested every now and then. Most people would look dismayed on receiving a week of 3-11pm shifts, but not this willing slave to the anti-social working hours doctrine.

People are, unfortunately, very stupid and mean-spirited. What sort of craven soul rings to complain that some blind guy had the cheek to bring “a bloody great Labrador” on the bus, and didn’t even pay for the privilege. I can almost understand the frustration during the morning rush, and even then only out of a concern for the dog and the visually impaired customer, because there are no less careful people than single-minded commuters. No, this sterling example of humanity didn’t like the dog being on the same bus in the deserted lower deck around mid-morning. Had I been responsible for the call, I might have had some choice words for him, but instead I had to listen and seethe.

Today I got to play on the DLR! I cannot suppress my childish glee any time I so much as think about making a journey on it. It doesn’t have a driver and is controlled entirely by magic (I get to see the control room for it tomorrow!) I saw City Airport for the first time, thus completing my acquaintance with every London airport, though I won’t be flying from it any time soon unless the fares take a significant nosedive.

My toes may be blistered, and my head is typically aching, but for once I’m doing something easy without thinking it’s beneath me. Perhaps I’m growing up after all!

“same old day job, why can’t I leave it?”

First days in a new job are generally tedious and I’ve always enjoyed them about as much as root canal. Mercifully, today was a most pleasant exception. After the typical corporatespeak presentation (and I scare myself with how easily I assimilate all the HR claptrap), we set off to the building that will be my workplace sort of indefinitely. Talk about swank? Let’s just say that the people leasing a few floors to my new organisation are somewhat security conscious, and having a pass feels a bit like being given a key to the chocolate factory. Casual clothes are encouraged, email usage and personal calls are permitted, and there are plasma TVs and chill out rooms all over the place. Shifts will fit my life perfectly, and there’s a taxi home after working a late shift. The benefits are even sweeter than we had been promised, and if an office can be said to have a vibe, this one certainly works for me. PLUS, we’re on the twenty-third floor and the panoramic views of London would take your breath away.

I am dropping dead of exhaustion and thus my bed beckons. I owe emails left, right and centre and they will be responded to in due course. But with the impending visit of my bezzer, it may have to wait a while.

“and when Joseph tried it on, he knew his sheepskin days were gone”

Having just written about Dr Who, the obvious link of John Barrowman takes me into the third part of today’s televisual adventures (the first being the Man United game, which I don’t care enough to talk about, ok?)

Appropriately enough, this also gives me some fuel on the very topic from which my username was born. I used to work (and practically live) in the West End after I first ran away to London. It was the theatre that brought me here, and while I can trade Shakespeare quotes and rhapsodise about Chekov with the best of them, my own work experience and great love is for musicals. Considering that one of my defining qualities is my utter snobbery (especially when it comes to the theatrical) it may seem incongrous that I should give musical theatre the time of day. But I do, and I love it, so shut up.

Any Dream Will Do was always likely to wind me up. I avoided last year’s travesty about the Sound of Music until the final, the edges of which were dulled by cheap wine and furniture assembly. Predictably, I’m rooting for the ugly Scots and the one semi-professional (the spit of Owen Hargreaves) who will probably get chucked out when it’s revealed that he’s sabotaging the whole competition as part of a protest from Equity.

I have no real problem with the X-Factor/Fame Academy setup, because the music industry is huge and already prone to rewarding on a basis other than simple merit. But theatre is different, painfully different. It requires training and discipline, which is why stunt casting has been known to backfire before now – McNuggets anyone? The My Fair Lady débacle (before the divine Joanna Riding swept in to save the day) seems to have sparked a trend for leading ladies cutting performances to six a week, often with a far less famous alternate (different from an understudy). Even “Peggy” Paige, who never missed a performance in over a year’s worth of Chess has been reduced to missing a fair share of performances since her health problems after doing the super-demanding Piaf. The winner of the Maria show is getting pelters for missing performances left, right and centre; and that does suck when an actress really can’t help getting ill. But I’ve seen the real pros go on with broken bones and head colds and concussions, being stuck three floors up, suspended on bits of wire above the audience (despite suffering from Vertigo), smacked into the proscenium arch by accident and having scenery dropped on them. And they still make it out after the interval.

So if people who have slogged their guts out working on some of the most demanding scores outside of opera can’t always shoulder the load, why should a bunch of builders and secretaries be able to manage it? Not many people can be another Michael Ball, who may be loathsome, but he also managed to use his not inconsiderable voice consistently without formal training. But then, he’s traded in long-running musicals for touring the country to excite the libidos of middle-aged women with questionable taste (the Cliff Richard market, if you will).

So imagine my distaste to see this parade of identikit bland “Joseph”s. It may not be the most credible role in the history of theatre, but you need to have a bit of something about you. Aside from the overwhelming tides of gayness (especially the super-effeminate Johndeep who basically came out to his family on national television – nice one, crying boy!), there’s just not enough raw talent. Say what you like, but when Donny Osmond dons his loincloth (oh my brain!) and belts out “Close Every Door”, you don’t find yourself wondering if you remembered to switch the oven off.

John Barrowman, he of the truly awful Torchwood and some pretty bland West End performances, did get major points for referencing the McNuggets mess I mentioned above (I believe my exact words were, “okay Barrowman, even I’d blow you for bringing that up”), not to mention his token bit of being Scottish and saying “pure dead brilliant” on primetime television. Well done that man of indeterminate nationality, perhaps we’re kindred spirits after all!

“it’s too much to ask for and I am not the doctor”

I generally refuse to get drawn into the silliness of Doctor Who, preferring to download it a couple of days after the initial hullabaloo has died down, and thus being able to watch it in peace. The only reason I watch it at all is because my girlfriend likes it so very much, and since I was in the mood to spend some time gawping at her in a lovestruck fashion, I watched tonight’s episode with her. (Not that she noticed, what with being all caught up in the “acting” or whatever.)

First things first, David Tennant? I don’t care how much you’re from Paisley, a constant set of STAREY EYES does not constitute a sensitive dramatic performance. I know we mustn’t scare the chidlers, but honestly? Try another facial expression. I much preferred ol’ Eccles Cakes, as a matter of record, but I think Tennent’s Lager can do the angst of being ALONE rather well when he tries – like the one in the school, that actually quite struck me (“I used to have so much mercy” etc – I could appreciate that).

I have no strong feelings about the sidekick, since I thought Billie Piper was sort of alright at best. I think she’s a little too bland, but thank God they’re finally steering her away from having a crush on teh Doctor, because I get enough of that from Livejournal, thankyouverymuch.

I love cats as much as the next feline-crazy lesbian, but giant talking ones creep. me. the. fuck. out. Enough already.

Which brings me to the biggest bone of contention: stop rehashing the same freakin’ plots all the time. Oh the Doctor doesn’t need anyone? Except he totally does? Right you are. We’re back on New x15 York are we? Fandabydoozy (with no Zoe Wanamaker, for shame). You can’t bring characters back from the dead I suppose? Well what about the freaking Daleks then? I am sick to the very back teeth of seeing them, and I haven’t even seen half the episodes. The one with the “last” Dalek was actually sort of poignant because of this Time War that I have to ask Kaite about every time it’s mentioned. Then they brought them back which was a sell-out of the previous vaguely good material. The whole Galaxy, and the Doctor doesn’t have any more sworn enemies? Puh-lease. Then they brought them back again for the Chrissie from ‘Enders episodes that I didn’t watch. The Dalek quota is overfilled. Stop it! But oh no, they’ll be back next week.

Sure, it’s all iconic and stuff. God knows they probably need the merchandising funds, but the mystique of the Daleks was over when we discovered they could get up stairs after all. The end.

“I expected summer to be there in the morning”

A list of petty annoyances, to save me simmering on them.

• The patronising demeanour of all estate agents, ever.  I’m not a moron, I worked in construction, and I know what to look for in a potential flat.  I do so wish they would quit bullshitting me.
• Being a gay heterosexual, apparently.
• Pretending to be annoyed by the previous item, when I’m really all “aw, my girlfriend is writing about me.”
• The RichieRich jerks who use our pebble driveway to take their multiple cars and motorbikes out.  Apart from the noise, the rattling of the pebbles scares all three cats, and I hate to see my babies scared.
• The whole prospect of moving: financial outlay, checklist making, throwing stuff out and packing what I can’t part with.
• Waiting.  I want to just move NOW and no hang around for weeks.
• Being really hungry, despite a bowl of Weetabix, and having nothing else in except for more sodding pasta.
• Having to wear make-up because my skin is all blech and not fit for the outside world without serious covering up.
• The next few weeks of serious Arabic revision.  It makes my head hurt, dammit.

So here’s a cute picture of our cat, Orlando.  It cheers me up all the time.  I think G is right, I can’t go too long without mentioning at least one of them!

“flowers grow through my window, and I love you again”

It is with great reserve and a mountain of empirical investigation that I can conclude the following:

GARDENING SUCKS.

What mystifies me most is how this crippling exertion doesn’t kill more of the old people so obsessed by it. It’s geriatric central around where I live, according to UpMyStreet (my postcode omitted because I’d rather not be stalked, thanks) and I’m surprised they’re not dropping into their azaleas as I stroll past them on the street. I am covered in dirt, bruised, bleeding and itchy. It’s worse than a night out in Glasgow, for Gawd’s sake!

The icing on the particularly unpleasant cake is the minimal level of satisfaction. Having transformed our non-tropical rainforest into the neatness expected in suburbia, there’s no reward beyond not saying “I must do something with the garden” five times a day. Had I more disposable income, and if I actually cared enough, I would have called in a ‘gardening service’ as so many of the monied folks around here seem to. Though I doubt I’d feel comfortable living in such souless perfection, to a girl who grew up in a tiny flat, gardens are only for running amok in when the chance presents itself. I think the solution is to pave over the garden in whatever place we eventually buy, and get genetically modified plants that don’t grow or require any attention, ever.

To add insult to injury, it’s just another stick in the burning fire of my youth that I ought to be misspending. Or maybe I’m still sour from the lady in Boots recommending me a night cream. Youthful skin, people. It’s not that bad yet, surely?

“Women who long, love, lust; women who give”

Monica and Rachel make out!  Should be sex-ay, no?

I have never been more disappointed in my life! Not that I’m some awful voyeur who gets their kicks from fake lezzbianism on television, but with her show tanking, you’d think Courteney Cox could have put some oomph into it. Jennifer Aniston is still HAWT though.

Jeez, but I’m shallow.

Anyway, if that’s your season finale and you can’t capitalise on the best tabloid-y storyline possible, then your show probably deserves to be cancelled.  Trust me, one and all, I’ve watched a few episodes out of blind loyalty to Friends and it’s unspeakably bad.  For a while I thought it might be compulsive viewing bad, but it really isn’t.

For all that Courteney Cox-Arquette is a legitimate Hollywood whatever, the scripts have the clunky feel of being written by people in Ohio or something, people who haven’t even been on a Hollywood studio tour.  The drug-taking storylines have the depth and realism of those play-acting exercises we used to do in PSD (Personal and Social Development) about not giving into peer pressure.   Plus, there are a number of unattractive people, and in the televisual equivalent of Heat magazine, I want some eye candy, dammit.

Suffice to say I won’t be tuning in for further episodes narrated by the shizophrenic photographer with the dead girlfriend living in his apartment, nor will I ever again have to suffer Courteney’s character stumble through an exchange in which she’s just a bitchy girl with daddy issues.  Or another completely passionate kiss.  Still, it’s better than watching unenthusiastic sex scenes with the little David Arquette lookalike who’s in it.

“I’ve got some real estate here in my bag”

For someone who thrives on change and despairs at the very prospect of boredom, you’d think I might be happier about the constant moving house that has punctuated my life these past six years. Counties and countries have become interchangeable, but at the root there has always been somewhere to get away from (Motherwell) and somewhere I ache to get back to (London).

It’s not quite right here anyway; this isn’t London proper. Walking last night as the clock hands crept up to midnight, only the Shell garage and floodlights of the Gothic hospital punctuating the rows of majestic but dark houses that make up this overpriced suburb. The road that provides our freedom – at one end the buses and train station and tube station that keep us connected to real London – but walking in the wrong direction only provided endless well-tended nothing. A huge and pulsing artery of a road by day, at night it’s deserted with only the occasional car speeding along to reach one of the far more provinicial places it leads to. I’m not ready to settle for this suburban monotony, this getting home at a sensible time and taking a pride in the garden. I’m twenty-four years old and there has to be more night bus and puking in the streets for me, surely?

So we’ll move further in, back into the cloud that protects us from the rest of the country with their terribly small concerns, and lives that aren’t dictated by the whims of the RMT and their tube strikes. People who don’t think of geography in postcodes are kept out by the cold grey circle of the M25, and it’s probably better that way. But for once I want to settle, I really crave having one place to come home to and knowing that it won’t change for a long while to come. I may have hated living at home, but for the eighteen years before I ran away it at least felt like mine. I need to make a home, because a year from now I’ll be preparing to live somewhere very, very different. It’s one thing to fly in and out of Kuwait and Dubai, someone else footing the bill for the luxury hotels full of rich Westerners; but living in Syria or Egypt for at least six months is an entirely different prospect.

“and they’re all made out of ticky tacky”

Is it wrong to want an Ikea lego house? Because I absolutely do. It’s a sad reflection on the housing market that I would downgrade my expectations from the dream Victorian townhouse to a flatpack Wendy house.  Still, I haven’t completely lost my mind, I’d want it to be in London, I won’t flip out and move to Gateshead.