Phoning it in.

I recently got a new phone as a free upgrade, and, for the first week or so, I thought it was great. It had a keyboard that slid out the side. It ran microsoft office, for christ's sake. This was less medium-sized phone than very-small-indeed laptop, no?

No.

The first hint that something was amiss came with it's predictive text offerings. Now, I would expect a phone to offer me words in order of their ubiquity in everyday language as i ham-fistedly tap the very-small-indeed keyboard whilst writing a text. Not so the creators of this phone, who, for example, believe that the word 'at' is clearly far less useful than the word 'bu' , as that's what comes up every time i try to use that extremely useful relational preposition. In case you're reaching for your dictionaries, I'll save you the trouble: it means, roughly "bu; n. What you get when you choose your upgrade based entirely on what the most expensive thing you can get for nothing is, you tight(ham)fisted shitstick."

It gets worse. I always feel bad about the moment when a new phone, like a wide eyed seven year old, doesn't know the particularly nasty swear that you are trying to text to a close friend, and has to be taught it whilst weeping for it's lost innocence. When are the phone manufacturers going to forget all this p.c. nonsense and admit that far more people need to call their close friends and family 'utter shitflippers' than need to use the word 'licentious' and get on with it. Then our phones would arrive less like the aforementioned seven year olds and more like east london cabbies after a night on the old stella fightjuice.

Anyway, the point is that I wanted to record a particularly choice phrase that a friend had pulled out of the air in one of those moments of self conscious genius that make life worth living. I was complaining at the number of hours I worked for so little money, and he implied that being part of any great institution meant being treated like a menial, and not an individual. "If you tango with the man," he said, "You're going to get fistfucked." My phone understandably didn't recognise this particular verb and so, another innocent piece of it's soul lost to obscene oblivion, I typed it in manually.

But oh, how things turn out. There is a distinct possibility that the seven year old in my phone is called Damian and has oddly coloured eyes. For now it suggests this and many other inventive swears at every bloody opportunity, it's cursor blinking innocently, as if to say "Is this the word you want?" as if it is just really really trying to help in any way it can. And so I occasionally get less than socially appropriate messages such as: "hiya mum, only me. If you didn't manage to get fistfucked?... " or "Happy birthday, little man. hope you got wankladen?..." One wrong keypress could mean social leprosy.

The moral is this: even if it's a free upgrade, don't just go for the most expensive one.

PS we will ignore the fact that this is my first post in three months and just move on. get fistfucked.

3 things I couldn't help thinking today

1) Walking to Russell Square through an untimely monsoon, I saw two chinese men walking side by side. One was holding an umbrella between them. Unfortunately the umbrella was held too high, and the men not close enough to each other for it to keep any rain off either of them. The thought that sprung, unbidden into my brain? 'That's exactly why communism doesn't work.' My brain isn't as clever as me, but it is occasionally funnier.

2) The only tin of devon custard left in sainsbury's was badly dinted along the side. I screwed my face up involuntarily and ducked down to check if there were any other, less battered, cans. Then I caught up with myself and thought: why did i do that? Was I afraid that the custard in this tin would be bruised, perhaps? Was I worried that the can wouldn't fit into the large collection of aesthetically perfect cans I haven't got?

3) My search for aesthetic cordiality continued as I wrote the title of this post. I couldn't possibly have just had two things, could i? No one would be interested in just two things. They always say you should have three things, don't they. Two things, as I'm sure nobody just thought, is okay, but I was left feeling as though I wanted just a little more. Now, if it had been three, I feel I may have been left charmed and amused, but with two I just feel a bit incomplete.

Time To Go Old School

A week or two ago now I was invited back to my old school in Blackpool to speak at the tenth anniversary Gala Event of theatre company in yer space, the group that grew out of stuff we did at school. For about seven years of my life, I did play after play non-stop with the group and Colin Snell, bald master-director largely responsible for my current unemployment (incidentally, if you're Colin reading this having just googled yourself again, hello!). Nice to go back and see the old place if a bit weird.

Being back reminded me of the many differences between London and 'Up North'. I got into Blackpool an hour or so early for the Friday night performance of 'Disco Pigs' that the group was putting on in the Grand Theatre Studio. With nothing to do for an hour, I thought 'S'alright, I'll just go and sit in Starbucks (a recent innovation to Blackpool) and write me speech for tomorrow night.' Ah, what a metropolitan I have become, expecting Starbucks to be open after 5.30 pee em. One point to London.

The only place I could find open was Woolworths caff in which there was not another single soul. But this is where the North scores over London. Within two minutes of selecting a coffee and a scone (rhymes with gone, or you're automatically a gobshite), I knew that the lady on the till was about to close up, not that you'll mind pet, only I've only taken a tenner since five o'clock and with the staff I've got to keep on it doesn't really make it worth it, you know? And my request to swap my apricot jam for a raspberry lead to, gasp!, not a sullen look of reluctant acquiescence but a short conversation about how nobody likes the apricot ones, I don't know why they keep making them, I've a whole box of them under here that I won't get rid of, probly end up just chuckin them, which seems like a shame.

Bless you Woolies lady, for not being (as in London) either:
a) fucking miserable and resentful of my lack of despair or,
b) labouring under the delusion that trotting out the company line in an overly cheerful eastern european accent will cause me to have a nice bloody day. And I know the cocking sugar is on the side behind me, Pret-omaton.

Anyway, 'Disco Pigs' was great, and I got the speech written (usual trick: bad stand-up), and trotted it out for the do the next night, which was interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, time absolutely has flown. Was it really so long ago that a naive and 'nice' young man left school that now no pupils remain that remember him. Weird, but I'm glad to say I've changed much in the intervening 7 years, and certainly no one could call me naive or 'nice' anymore.

Probably because of this, I saw a few of my old teachers as human beings for the first time ever, as unsure of themselves and socially awkward as the best of us. This is a slightly odd revelation to have at the best of times, but to then stand up in front of them and talk about something you feel strongly about kind of puts the cherry on top as a bit of an epiphany. At some point, without noticing it, I've grown up. Weird.

Menial Labour 2

And so, for the first time ever in this blog, and in my twenty four point seven five years of life I ask the question: what the cock have I done with my life?

This morning (now not actually this morning) I fought my way through two and a half hours of work in the RADA canteen. Yes, that's just two and a half hours. A hundred and fifty minutes. An average play. A slightly flabby film. An extremely short german opera. And I have never wanted to die more.

Wearing a fetching chef's jacket with blue checked sailors trousers I was employed to rinse pots, pans, trays and implements, and load them into an industrial dishwasher. Again and again. There was an absurdly huge pile of assorted pots; a bit like the episode of spaced where daisy gets the job in a restaurant. In fact, it was so huge, I wondered whether environmental health ought to know, if only because there might have been new species in its foody depths. Every time I cleared out the slop I walked through to the kitchen bin, and the chef kept staring at me like i was mad. After the thirteenth dishwasher load, I realised that this was because there was a bin right next to the sink, but which had been utterly obscured by the dirty colossus of my labour.

After the endless envelopes had proved merely mind-numbing, I realised that there was a whole new layer of brainless that I had previously never even considered. I mean, someone actually does this as their job. The poor poor bastards. The only tiny bit of amusement was from the chef. He's a malaysian (I think) guy called Ron, and I shall be eternally grateful for his enthusiastic and slightly inaccurate renditions of the odd chorus from the radio. 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' from the Lion King only just topped by Wham!'s 'Careless Whisper' in high pitched and only minutely imperfect english. Thank christ for you Ron. Even if your gitty feet have got no ribbon.

Anyway, I bailed out and palmed off the other two days I was supposed to do on someone else. I feel slightly guilty for exposing any human being to that task, but it is every man for himself as far as I'm concerned. I will NEVER, NEVER do it again.

Twatology

Incidentally, between my bouts of stationery induced mania, I stumbled across something on Wikipedia which crystallised a lot things in the field of one of my pet projects, which I call Twatology.

Being a psychology graduate (oh yes- two degrees, will dance for money) and an actor, I'm obviously interested in people. Now, I found from my degree that the most interesting things in psychology are where things go wrong. What differences in someone's brain, or upbringing, or experiences could cause them to say, hear voices or tear close relatives to shreds without the slightest remorse?

And naturally, the most studied things are, like these I've just mentioned, generally pretty severe defects in humanity. But, for me, a more interesting question that concerns us far more in every day life would be a little less extreme, and the results far more commonplace. What differences in someone's brain, or upbringing, or experiences could cause them to be, for example, really fucking annoying?

Enter Dunning and Kruger, psychologists at Cornell University, who place a huge piece of the twatology puzzle in place with the imaginatively titled Dunning-Kruger Effect. Check out the article and go 'Oh, yeah, that's what that is.' I love little things like this that crystallise things I've long suspected, or in other words, prove that I've been right all along.

The essence of it is beautifully simple. As Charles 'Religious Idiots Will Misunderstand My Theories For Years To Come And Use It As Part of A Ridiculous Circular Argument' Darwin put it: "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." That is to say, the words 'arrogant' and 'twat' go together like E and mc squared. Which is all rather neat and lovely.

If you can contribute anything to my study of twatology, do email it to me and I'll be eternally grateful.

Menial Labour 1

Hurray! I'm back, after a long short period of not actually being arsed to write anything down. And just as it looked like my blog was abandoned and empty as a McCann's hotel room, I'm back to give my statement to the portugese police of the web.

These past few weeks I have been industriously making money anyway I can, as a can of beans was starting to feel almost as unaffordable as dinner at Claridges. Firstly, then, I did the mail out of the autumn production season at RADA. Oh lord, how much I took for granted in my cosseted existence as an actorpillar in the RADA cocoon. (Incidentally, my new favourite website is: http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/ - "If you have found a caterpillar but can't identify it, this is your first port of call!". It's quite literally an utter waste of lepidopteric time.) You see, every time a new brochure comes out, it isn't automatically teleported to the desk of people who should know, as you might expect. Oh no. The following things have to happen:

1. Lists of people must be printed out on sticky label sheets. Just under 2000 should be a laugh.
2. Aforementioned sticky labels must be stuck manually onto appropriately sized envelopes.
3. Correct booking forms must be photocopied on satan's own photocopier.
4. Correct booking forms must be folded and inserted into appropriate appropriately sized envelopes.
5. Brochures must turn up from printers (allow fucking ages after they should be there).
6. Brochures must be put in envelopes.
7. Envelopes must be sealed.

And if you've given up reading and decided that classifying butterfly larvae might not be so dull after all, then quite frankly I don't blame you. This took the best part of five days over a week and a half, by which time i was worried that my mental agility would never recover, like Jack Nicholson in one flew over the cuckoo's nest. In fact, I did most of it sat in the RADA bar where they were playing classical music, and knowing about the Beethoven Effect, I was acutely aware that I was literally being made more stupid and more clever at the same time.

By the fourth day I was in a state of near mania. I could now fill and seal envelopes without looking at my hands; I had become truly automated. If anyone attempted to shake hands with me they would leave with a sleeve full of brochures. I became oddly detached from the task my hands were performing, and, my scarcely repressed giggling attracting odd looks, I had a revelation.

"HANDS. ARE. BRILLIANT. I mean, look at them. They're AMAZING! So deftly each pole moves separate from but coordinated with all the others! OPPOSABLE FUCKING THUMBS! Just genius! Full marks evolution! I should like to see a cow attempt what we consider a menial task. Cloven hooves are fucking rubbish, you bovine plums! But here! Here! See these dexterous hands move like fleshy spiders over the clean white envelopes!" I thought. I was clearly mentally ill. Balanced on the razor's edge between sanity and fuckybumbooboo.

I'm better now. I occasionally have flashbacks, and dreams of spiders of flesh sealing me in a prison in which caterpillars play Beethoven. At least I was paid.

It's only Rock Rivals

Well, aren't I busy? Audition yesterday for an ITV thing called Rock Rivals, auspicious for the fact that it's by the same people as Footballers' Wives, a show which was both the big break and final testimony of a friend of mine a few years back. Now, I thought I remembered Robin auditioning for this a good long time ago, and I was right. I did what any curious person with too much time and an internet connection would do, and googled the shit out of it.

Now, as it turns out, it's been filming for about seven weeks and suddenly the guy who was playing the part I was auditioning for dropped out. Something funny going on there. Oh, and the other thing: The last guy they picked for this part is about as different from me as, say, Nelson Mandela is from a cartoon shoe.

So, it was with no real expectations I arrived at Shed Productions near King's Cross, waaaay too early for my audition. I inherited the early gene from my mum. Even just thinking about arriving on time makes me feel late. So I inevitably end up wandering round the block, or up the road and down again so as not to appear pathetically desperate. This is a great opportunity for me to focus and relax, and for my brain to try and sabotage my career by pretending not to remember the way back (see previous post).

Shed productions is not in a shed at all. It's in one of those semi-industrial-turned-media-offices estates, with a buzzer on the door that it looks like you'll get in trouble for pressing. Back to the Crystal Maze, but very much in Future Zone now. There's a tiny little reception area a bit like a youth centre with TV Quick awards on the wall. There's a nice receptionist with an impressive collection of speech impediments considering his main job is answering the phone and swingy chairs in brown suade. All this to lull you into the false idea that this is a cosy little place, before you go into the meeting room with the glass wall looking down onto the shop floor, where about fifty people look like they should be holding their collective breath to see if Hanks can pull Apollo 13 through on manual. Or at least shouting 'sell,sell,sell.'

Margaret Crawford is casting, and she's fairly abrupt. Not that she's trying to be unkind, I think she's just like that. Read through the part with her and did it fairly well. Something tells me I won't get it though. Possibly the camcorder on the tripod that she singularly failed to point at me, or even turn on. But she casts a lot of things and there's a lot to be said for just being seen by these people.

Back downstairs, with the door refusing to perform it's egressive duties, the receptionist said "Jutht click the button on the wight there and it'll let you thtraight through." If only there were a similar button for casting directors at auditions...