Ich bin geschwindelt worden

According to freetranslation.com, the title of this blog is German for "I've been had" so it most likely means nothing of the sort.

When we last left me - and I am sure everyone reading on the edge of their seats ;) - I was off to Munich for 10 days to photocopy. Well, that lasted a day before - for only the second time in my life - I quit. To put that in context, if I was to put every single job I've had in my life on my CV, it would cover probably 10 pages. I have handed in my notice in order to move on to another job before - I mean "this is out of order - I quit" type quitting. Twice now.
I was offered the booking late on Wednesday afternoon, told that it was a last minute urgent situation, that the client desperately needed people to fly to Munich first thing Thursday morning and work for 10 days straight for possibly up to 12 hours a day. My first though was "ka-ching!" - that many hours of overtime would be a lov-er-ly addition to the concert/travelling fund for the next few months. Plus, it meant a week of free board so I'd make lots without spending anything. Plus there was the adventure of flying out to Munich at a moment's notice, which is always going to appeal to me. The reason I'd told the agencies I was available was that I was a bit stuck on the main writing project I'm working on at the moment, and often a few days' boring work resets my brain a bit. And I can buy some more shoes.

So I agreed, and at an ungodly hour the following morning was at Stanstead airport ready to jump onto a plane. The night before, the agency had emailed us some more details of the booking, included in which were the bombshells that a) night shifts and b) we would have to share rooms - both factors that would have made me pass on the job had I been aware. So I was annoyed that the agency hadn't mentioned them until so late in the game (after my plane ticket had been bought) but figured that it was at least partially my responsibility to have clarified, so I had no one to blame but myself.

When I and the other suckers... I mean temps... arrived at the hotel in Germany, we were met by our team leader for the week - the man that the agency had promised could clarify all the details that they hadn't been able to. Details such as whether meals would be provided or we would have a per diem to cover such expenses. Well he clarified... that there was neither, we were expected to fend for ourselves for all meals other than breakfast (included at the hotel) plus internet access (which involved getting a cab into the centre of Munich and finding an internet cafe) plus get ourselves to and from the office (a short walk, but through snow and at 11pm in a strange city). I felt that this was unacceptable, and when I discovered that the hours we were working were all for one flat rate, so no overtime - and no one was willing or able to discuss this, negotiate, nor shed any light on why this hadn't been made clear to us prior to departure from London... I quit.

I did a bit of research when I got home, and was astounded to learn that none of those conditions are actually illegal - although I still maintain that they are unethical as only the most vulnerable workers would be willing to work 12 hour days for a flat - not great - rate, plus pay for their own meals and contact home for 10 days. And indeed, that's who I left behind - students, recent arrivals to the UK - people who didn't even realise that it is standard practice for the employer to cover expenses incurred by working away from home. It was further irresponsible of the agency to not only accept these conditions for their workers, but to fail to ensure that we were all fully aware of what we were agreeing to.

There isn't much I can do except rant in this blog - and know not to work for that particular agency again! Live and learn and all that I suppose!

My Technicolor Dream Career of Many Day Jobs

When I mentioned, a few blogs ago, that I made my mind up to be a writer, I gave the impression that it was one definitive decision, at which point I downed tools at everything else, took up residence in front of my laptop and never looked back. In fact it was nothing of the sort.

I left drama school with vague notions of knowing I wanted to work in theatre, and most probably direct eventually. I lived up to the adage "take everything and anything you can get" and for two years I was box office assistant, stage crew, wardrobe mistress (including spectacularly stabbing Puck in a sensitive area during a backstage repair at an outdoor production of A Midsummer's Night Dream), script reader, stage manager, dramaturge (a script editor for theatre), casting assistant, literary assistant, and finally assistant director on a couple of productions before starting my own theatre company. Reading and editing other people's play scripts had whetted my appetite for writing my own, but I didn't do much about it until I realized that my brand spanking new theatre company couldn't afford the rather essential element of… scripts.

Part of the ethos I'd created for this company was to explore new and unique ways of storytelling, so I had always imagined that there would be an element of improvisation in our work. We set about devising pieces from scratch: I would come up with a concept, and character bios, and we began to improvise. If you can picture an artist's preparatory work: sketches around the subject, experimenting with perspective, angle, placing - it was a little bit like that. There was masses of trial and error, over 90% of our improvised scenes were never performed in public, and I had stunned actors storming out and threatening never to speak to me again galore. Once we (with however much of the cast was left!) started devising scenes that would form the actual play, I began to write. Initially, this consisted of literally transcribing the improvised scene, but gradually I started to re-draft, to shade and tighten, and then we would improvise some more, and finally we had a working script. I am grateful that this was my first experience of drama writing, because its having always been intrinsically wound into the actors' and director's process means that I skipped over the main beginner's weakness that I often see in scripts I read now: an… entirety that renders it flat by not taking into account the production process. Ideally, the script is the foundation for the finished project - whether it's theatre, film or television - it's the springboard from which everyone else starts their creative process.

Millions of miles from my point as usual. For the first few years after making the decision that writing was what I wanted to do - in some ways directing will always be my first love, and I hope to return to it some day, but writing is the priority for now - I would say that I dabbled in it. I thought about it, I scribbled out ideas and the odd few scenes here and there - in addition to returning to a variety of production work, and experimenting with other writing media - but with the exception of the pieces that I wrote for my course at the Vancouver Film School, I didn't properly complete a full length script for a good three years. I wrote a few (produced) shorts, did the odd bit of re-drafting, script editing, dialogue polishes here and there. All of this just about kept my head above water and let me pretend that I was an aspiring screenwriter, but, even in my own head, I never got anywhere with my own work. Then, just over a couple of years ago now, I got serious. I realized that… I hate the expression "shit or get off the pot" but it's applicable. Finally, that decision was properly made: the commitment to writing in every spare hour rather than going out or vegging in front of the tv, the promise to myself to block distracting thoughts of maybe going back to directing, or casting, or PR… I was, finally, a writer.

Except that unfortunately no one knew that yet but me.

So I devised a plan. I knew that it would take me 3-5 years to have enough projects of professional quality to actually start making a full time living at it. So writing time was my main priority, but I also needed to keep my bank manager from turning a funny colour without distracting myself too much. I decided that I would divide my time between sitting in my pyjamas wailing at a blank computer screen, and a succession of day jobs which would a) keep me just afloat enough to avoid lying awake worrying about bills, b) have enough variety to stop my brain from going on holiday and not telling me, and c) not be so consuming that they turned into careers in themselves or left me too exhausted to be creative in my spare time.

In the last two years I have been a club promoter, a fashion PR assistant, a bartender, an HR administrator, a studio assistant (for radio drama and music), a door picker (the bitch who decides who looks cool enough to get in to clubs), an events manager, a web copy writer, a celebrity babysitter (more or less ;) ), a marketing project manager, a legal PA. I've been a PA and had a PA; I've worked in hospitality, insurance, administrated for the British Columbia Liquor Board, dressed windows at Gap, stuffed more envelopes than I care to remember. I worked for the Refugee Commission in south London, taught drama to troubled kids, and worked in an oil refinery in Ohio complete with fire resistant overalls, safety goggles and steel toed boots. I've answered phones for television companies, insurance firms, investment banks, charities and music moguls (at one I was told off by Simon Cowell for being unable to reach the person he wanted to speak to, over heard a Scottish accent in reception, looked up and said "oh, whereabouts are you from?" before noticing it was Annie Lennox).

And that is how, last week, I agreed to go to Munich for 10 days to photocopy…

The Day Two Days Before The Day Before Tomorrow...

Are we headed for an apocalypse?

I only ask, because this morning when I headed out for a run through Hyde Park (well I say run, I really mean tear hell for leather, arms and legs flailing in directions anatomy would declare impossible for about 50 metres, collapsing in a trembling, nauseous heap on the grass and remaining there until I realize I am lying in a pile of pigeon shite, repeating until home again) it was raining hailstones and I could see my breath in front of me. I had an appointment for a haircut, so I figured I'd go there and straight home again. But in the time it took for the hairdresser to shape my locks into something lively and spectacular, the sun had come out, so off I headed to frighten the tourists peering at Kensington Palace and wondering if Diana is home. Hot sunshine it turned out, take my jumper off and tie it round my waist hot - and even then, when I collapsed, I was a trembling nauseous sweating heap.

Now I am home, despite the bright blue sky and white clouds, I just saw a handful of snow flutter to the ground, and heard a single thunderclap.
In all fairness, I do live directly underneath the Heathrow flight path, so it could have been a noisy jumbo jet - but it definitely sounded like thunder.

I had another blog planned for today, if we are all still here tomorrow I will write it then…

The Great Unknown

After two weeks residing in my pyjamas, when the closest I have been to real life is the Aussie soaps (I've taken to wandering around the house wailing dramatically in my best Madge Bishop voice) I have reached that stage of writing where I am so entrenched in a world of my own invention that my sister coming home in the evening is a traumatic event. She will, perfectly reasonably given that she lives here, wander into the kitchen and I will jump three feet in the air and scream in terror, so bizarre is it to hear a voice that isn't in my own head. It would be fair to say that she finds it somewhat irritating.

This afternoon, I realized that I had run out of an essential ingredient to the elixir of life that keeps me going - milk for my intravenous drip of tea - so rather than doing something intelligent like go to the supermarket and buy milk, I happily wandered up to Café Nero for a cup of tea.

So shocked was I to emerge blinking and trembling a little into the bright lights big city of Earls Court that I'd walked halfway up the road before I noticed that I didn't have my glasses on. I wear contacts most of the time, but when dressing myself in anything other than a sweats over pyjamas (apparently layers are in this year) might as well be black tie, sticking my fingers in my eye to attach spectacles to my eyeball is a surge of activity unlikely to happen.

Eyeing the distance to the coffee shop and the distance back to my flat, I decided that I was slightly more than halfway so - in the interests of returning promptly to work, naturally - I decided that I didn't really need to see in order to procure a cup of tea, so I might as well carry on. Despite tripping over a dog lead, walking into a display of muffins and spilling half the tea down my front (which, to be fair, I often do whether I can see or not) I thought that my mission had been something of a success.

So much of a success in fact, that by the time I had finished, I had forgotten that I wasn't wearing my glasses but had remembered that I wanted to wander to Robert Dyas to look at some blenders - so I decided that there was no time like the present and trotted off down Kensington High Street. Even wondering why I seemed to have trampled more tourists than usual didn't remind me of my sightless state, so it wasn't until I got to Robert Dyas and couldn't find the blenders that I was reminded I was in a pickle. I wandered around for a bit, peering in vain at small white goods and was afraid to ask a staff member where they were in case I was standing right next to them.

All Around...

When Toby first told me about the “30 Countries Before 30” challenge and I decided to muscle in on it, I counted up all the countries I’d been to at the time and came up with something like 24. I just now sat down and wrote a list and seem to currently be on 22 so I am either missing some (a pesky little European one probably), or I counted a couple twice in the first place. The rules (according to Toby, who is the authority because he made up the game) state that the countries that make up the United Kingdom count separately, and stopovers count even if you didn’t leave the airport. So, in no particular order:
Scotland
England
Wales
Ireland
France
Italy
Vatican City
Greece
Holland
Switzerland
Belgium
Luxembourg
Spain
Portugal
U.S.A.
Canada
Australia
The Bahamas
Singapore
Thailand
Germany
Monaco
Which I don’t think is too bad in 28 years. It does mean, however, that I have two years (oh all right, a year and a half) to hit 8. Which means I have to start thinking tactically and stop going back to the same countries for a bit.

Having said that, I already have trips planned to Canada and Australia, plus the usual few to my parents’ in Switzerland, this year - so I’ll be mostly thinking tactically then. I do have my new favourite hobby of going to see INXS in foreign countries to help, so you’ll be able to find Jemma and I in Bulgaria on the 1st June, if you are looking for us (I’ve finally persuaded her that JD is edible enough for her to bear someone else singing Mystify) so that’s a start. Fingers crossed they announce some dates in other countries I’ve never been to. France and Holland are no use to me, and annoyingly I’ve just realized that I can’t make the Paris date anyway because it’s smack bang in the middle of the Isle of Wight festival - ooh, the Isle of Wight is definitely England, right? … bugger.

A trip to Iceland or Greenland on the way to Canada may be possible, but I don‘t have masses of time for that trip, it‘s a fly in, see friends, do some work, fall over in shock at how much Giselle and Lily have grown, and fly out again sort of situation.

So I am going to have to make the journey to Australia do a lot of work. Hot on my avoiding flying plans, I am thinking of either taking a boat - incorporating Morocco (we all know I‘ll flounce around growling “here‘s looking at you, kid“, right?), some of South America and New Zealand, or (and this one does rather negate the non flying thingy)taking the Trans-Siberia railway from Moscow to Beijing. That option would involve a few flights, but it would also avoid spending time on a cargo ship (there aren’t passenger ships to cover that whole journey) which, feel free call me a princess, doesn’t terribly appeal. In addition, the Trans-Siberia railway would mean I could a) pretend to be Hercule Poirot on the Orient Express and wander around twiddling my moustache, b) visit Mongolia which is apparently the least visited destination on earth - ever since Nick told me that I’ve had a hankering to go - and c) finally see Jeff and the other half of my brain (hopefully at the vodka restaurant where you go in the fridge to drink it which sounds fabulous - and as I will be starting in Moscow would rather nicely book-end the whole thing) in Hong Kong.

Decisions, decisions. It’s a hard life.

Ahhhh! San Marino! 23! Thank heavens for pointless little European principalities. Seven to go…

In the time it took to write this blog, INXS announced dates in Serbia and Croatia... five to go!