I Can't Get Into My Office

I have inexplicably forgotten the code to the my office’s entrance door.

The outer lock of the staff entrance to my building is one of those old fashioned ‘push the buttons together but in the right order’ deelies, but it may as well be the Rubix cube from hell these days. I'll be working from home from now on, someone inform my boss.

I USED to know it. Oh yes, I pride myself in being really rather good at remembering sequential actions. I was told the code once on the first day, and remembered it instantly. In hindsight, I probably should have written it down.

Because it’s not like I ask can ask anyone I work with what the code is, is it? I’ve worked there for more than a year. I’m technically a manager in that I am an actual manager. Managers are supposed to KNOW this stuff. I can’t just waltz in one morning, high five everyone, and say ‘hey pals, can anyone tell me what the code is to enter this building because I’m either that stupid OR I’ve had a mild stroke?’ They’d take away my biscuits again.

And also, I can’t ask my team because I can’t get into my frigging office!!!

Every morning for days – DAYS – I have sauntered up to the back door, happy and chirpy, wondering what that strange imposing sense of dread is until I reach out for the door handle, and it all comes flooding back. Yes, it’s true – I even forget that I’ve forgotten something.

The scene either plays out in one of two ways - and bare in mind that while my office entrance is not on a busy high street, it is visible to some passers-by.

The first sees me frantically punching in random combinations of code and hammering the handle with gritted teeth. There’s only so many times you can do this, before you have to pretend that you didn’t actually want to go into the building because of a very very important text message that needs addressing straight away. And lo, there you stand, pretending to text until someone else arrives for work and lets you in. Every time I act like nothing is wrong. It’s just a web of lies, day in, day out.

Scenario two is much more pathetic. In this situation, I stand for literally minutes outside the door, hand hovering in the air, staring wide-eyed at the combination pad, willing myself to remember or for the door to stop being such a bastard and just open by itself. Surely I’m due one free magical door opening by now. 

But wait. It gets more tragic.

The other day, I went out for lunch alone and returned a short while later, deeeply immersed in the music I was listening to on my phone.  I suddenly looked up, and found myself inside the building, the offending door swinging closed behind me; I had punched in the right code without even thinking about it and walked in without a second glance.  

‘Christ, I did it!’ I cried, and then cracked my knuckles and hurtled back outside of my own free will, and let the door slam shut. Nothing to fear, I smirked. The same luck would surely repeat itself and I would punch in the code again without thinking and this time, I would memorise it.

Did I bollocks.

Learning Lines Like A Boss

I’m learning lines again.

Autumn season is upon us and that means another splendid production by The Canterbury Players is around the corner. Which means I get to force people to pay money to pay attention to me. Yay! Having appeared in a smasher of a show at The Marlowe Studio in the summer, I was offered the role off Hannah in Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece, Arcadia, which will play at The Gulbenkian from 4^th to 7^th November and is directed by lovely Becky aka Miscriant.

Ahhhh Stoppard. Stoppard.

Oh Christ, I’ve just realised something…….he’s good, isn’t he?

I mean, like, really good. Like, Shakespeare good. Like all his words actually mean something. The kind of words that help the people in the audience on tenuous dates to have sex with each other because the script composition is so witty and so brilliant that you feel like nothing in your life that will ever be as beautiful or as beguiling so you may as well just have sex because you sort of know you’re good at that and why not just attempt to be okay at something for 15mins?

Yes, that level of good.

This is Ben's script because I left mine in a car.
And I wrote a phone number on it when I couldn't find a pad.
I think it's the number for Port Lympne Reserve. Visit it, it's nice

Arcadia is indeed a masterpiece, intertwining literature, sex, thermo-dynamics, gardening, academia with his usual biting humour and yes, blah blah blah the words the words are wonderful, well I HAVE TO LEARN THEM OKAY?!

But it's okay, I've developed a fool proof system of notes. Some of you dear readers may be amateur thesps yourselves, or perhaps you harbour a secret desire to tread the boards.

Well to help you on your way, I’ve decided to share some of my private script notes – my method, if you will – so you might learn from my experience.

 

 Acting is about knowing when to act. It's important to remind yourself of this.

You will need to be on stage almost every time that your character is on stage. It's best to hover by the wings, making sure that you don't go on without you.

 Physical acting can be challenging and confusing.

I should have learned the dates earlier because I sure as hell haven't been saying these ones. I swear, I think at some point I said '1732 to 1485' in rehearsal. 

 Yep, lots more of that.

Oh Jesus, that's a lot of words. Ohhhhhhh I should really look these people up.

And also look inquisitive. Look and speak inquisitively when asking questions. And yell. Always yell questions. 

In all seriousness, here are some actual am dram tips. (If you’re a pro, go way you’re getting paid get back to your script and your roasted swan)

TAKE AWAY THE SAFETY NET
Try putting your script down sooner than you’d like, and lose the prompt (if you have one) for a couple of rehearsals close to curtain up. It feels uncomfortable, but it’s supposed to. If your lines are not in your head and others are waiting for their cues, it’s painful. But one thing that's sure to make me learn my lines is the fear of looking unprofessional in front of others

TAKE STOCK
Reread everything YES THAT INCLUDES THE BITS YOU AREN’T IN. All too often we focus solely on our own roles. You can't let that shit fly. Every character, every scene, informs on the next, and you better know it inside out. That's why it's a play.

TAKE A LESSON FROM HOPKINS

You can never know your lines enough. It's an old acting cliche that you have to know who your character is, inside and out, but the reason it's hammered home so often if that it's not an easy job.

Anthony Hopkins reportedly examined his lines up to 200 times until he didn’t even have to think about ‘saying a line’ any more. He just knew his character completely.
Are you better than Anthony Hopkins? ARE YOU?

AND FINALLY…

NEVER, EVER FORGET YOUR LINES. Not for one second. Every horrifying feeling you have about the world collapsing if you forget a line is true: if you drop a line you’re AWFUL and the world will burn and people will laugh at you. What kind of person can’t even learn a words without having to hold an itty bitty piece of paper to help them?!! LEARN YOUR DAMN LINES.

.......Oh I kid, I kid! You’ll be fine, tiny darlings. Acting is not that scary really.

Want to SEE me act? Come and see Arcadia in Canterbury this November - we promise it will have all the acting you could imagine. 
Book here please

The Fable of The Brew Dog - A Beer Tasting Tale

Come closer, tiny darlings, for it is story time. A story of one dog and his fight for the purest of beers.....

.....Okay, it isn’t story time yet, I’ll get to that at the end. First, let me tell you about my delightful evening spent with The Brew Dog.

Lessons in Libations at Le Mouton Rouge

Me: Darling, there’s a beer tasting at Le Mouton Rouge this Saturday.

Beau: Beer?

Me: Yes. Shall we go?

Beau: Beer. I mean, yes

…..The conversation sounded longer in my head.

Under Lock & Key in The Pound

It was only a matter of time before the law caught up with me. Sooner or later, I knew I would have to pay for my crimes, that I'd find myself behind bars.

No, tiny darlings, I have not finally been locked up for my terrible debauchery, or for being drunk in charge of a lawnmower. I have instead been to visit Canterbury’s latest drinking emporium: The Pound.

What happens when you direct a play (for the first time)

This post was written on the opening night of my directorial debut with The Canterbury Players in June 2014.

A while ago, I wrote about hay fever. But now I am going to write about Hay Fever. No, not the ailment that's killing me slowly via the nose. I mean the thing that's probably going to kill me by way of a bunch of people kicking me to death while shouting "is it stage left or right, you silly bint?!!"

Yes, tiny darlings. I am directing a play. Namely, Hay Fever by the one and only Noel Coward, and it starts tonight (Thurs 26th June) at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury.

Excuse me a moment while I vomit profusely from gut wrenching nerves.

Allergic To My Own Face

Some of you may be aware that I am directing a show this June. It is Noel Coward’s Hay Fever. Well, this post is nothing to do with that.

No, tiny darlings, I merely bring this up because (ahem, chuckle) it’s rather apt that all my attention is focused on Hay Fever because actual hay fever (ho ho!) is literally killing me it’s killing me I’m going to die from it in the next eight minutes this is not a joke or a witty little anecdote or pun SEND HELP.

A new strain of super pollen has taken over the clouds and rains bloody murder upon me every day.

 

BASTARDS

Tequila Tasting I Will Go

An email arrives in my folder. It reads: “You have won a place at our exclusive members’ only tequila tasting event at Club Burrito.”

I stare at the screen for a long time.

I can’t imagine this is a random coincidence, given me penchant for blogging about local things and supporting local businesses.

But seriously…free booze? For ME? This is like asking The Joker to watch your massive pile of weapons and maps to Batman’s house while you nip to the toilet.

Meh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.  

What Sounds New - An Interview

My world is flurry of festivals this week. Festivals here, festivals there, festivals in the unlikeliest of places – crypts, cafes, woodland, concert halls. I went down to the kitchen during the night for a glass of gin, and there was a festival happening in my cat.*

The festivities to which I refer are not those giant, camping in a damp field, paying £9 for a beer, constantly fighting the need to urinate, crouched under a campervan at 2am and talking of ‘the sins’ type of affairs.

No, I speak of the local kind. Lots of music, unconventional venues, and the ability to go home at the end of the night instead of fighting your way into someone’s tent while saying “it’s alright, I’ll just curl up at your feet, you won’t even know I’m here!”

A Few Wise Words

It isn’t often I spend a weekend listening to beat poets, seeing tales of the Stour River acted out in a 13th century Franciscan chapel, wondering about who I am in a yurt, searching an island of lost souls, or debating the extent of Al-Qaeda’s control in the Middle East.

This is probably because I spend most weekends seeking out the legendary Emerald Gin that is fabled to flow behind the bins at M&S if you are pure of heart and strong of stomach.

But even when I take a break from such frivolity, the A Few Wise Words Festival isn't on in Canterbury every weekend. If it was….it wouldn’t really be a festival. More of a thing that happens. But I digress!

For those not yet in the know, A Few Wise Words is the spring-time sibling of the larger annual Wise Words Festival (which debuted in Canterbury last September). I was invited to attend its first outing, which ran from Friday 4^th April to Sunday 6^th April in Canterbury’s beautiful Greyfriars Gardens, and around the city streets.

The Wise Words concept was born in 2010, when arts organisation Workers of Art decided to create an event that brought the streets of Canterbury alive through poetry and literature-inspired activities, using the city as its canvas and the people as its inspiration.

The Goods and The Goose

Forgive my absence in the last week, I’ve been very VERY tired and drunk.

Actually, I’ve been meaning to post this offering for a while. For a brief moment, a few weeks ago, there was sunshine so I set about town with my camera to capture some charming snaps of Canterbury life.

Long story short, I’m not allowed in the library anymore and I eventually ended up at The Goods Shed. This is a picture heavy post, so brace yourself and your relatives. 

Why You Should Never Wear Anything On Stage

I’m one third of the way through the run of The Canterbury Players latest production – Hobson’s Choice, in case I haven’t screamed this enough.

I may have previously mentioned that I was going lose an extra 5lbs before opening night.

This was because my character is required to wear Victorian dress, and because my chest was not pleased about it.

I was all cocky in the costume shop, having tried on several outfits that either swamped me or refused to even think about fastening over my heaving bosom. Finally, I found a pretty lilac number that looked just the ticket. But it was a little…snug. The director expressed concern...

Director: “Are you sure it isn’t too tight? You have to act in it for a long time, you know.”

Me: “Pfft, it’ll be fine! It just about fits me and I can easily shed a few pounds before the show for comfort’s sake. It’s only tight now because I’m massively hung over and bloated from beer.”

Director: “Oooookay. You’re really sure?”

Me: “Come on, I just lost 20lbs! I can lose another 5lb easily.”

Well I DIDN’T, okay?! I didn’t, I spectacularly didn’t and now my costumes are trying to kill me. I didn’t gain any weight and I’m still the thinnest I’ve been in ages, but that is little consolation when you are gasping for breath and listening to buttons and ribs snap with every miniscule movement. We’re talking boned jackets, pinched waists and sleeves so tight that if someone held a gun to my head and said “do the YMCA now”, I would be fated to die.

Just look at what I (and Becky) have to wear! LOOK!

Don't look

Even Hobson himself is horrified.

None of you will notice my pain should you see me on stage; I’m a woman, I’ve been acting like clothes are comfortable on me since I was 9. But behind the scenes is a different matter. Dress changes are normally an ordered civilized affair, but everyone else’s calm has been violently disrupted by me hurtling into the (mixed) dressing room muttering “fuck it fuck it fuck it” as I fling corsets and rip skirts from my abused body.

But it’s not all bad on the physical front, costume torture aside; I get to pin my hair into pretty curls like a real live girl. I might keep this look for a night out, and when I am in need of sweets that I don’t wish to pay for.

 

You'll see from the picture that this is one of the few shows in which I get to act with the beau (can you see how happy he is about it?).

Not only do we share the stage, but we also play a couple. Which means beau will do his scary ‘romantic’ face (smiling with VERY wide eyes), and I will have to fight the urge to be sick on his shoes.

Gracious!

In truth this has, as ever, been a very enjoyable production to work on and the weeks of rehearsals, set building, and line-juggling have paid off, thanks to the very talented cast and crew. But let's not forget the most important person in the show. Me. ME. I may not be (do the finger quotes) ‘the lead’, or ‘the director’ or ‘sober’, but don't you forget for one minute that it's ALL about me, up there, having to share the stage with Miscriant AND the beau and other people I just plain don’t like*.

So there’s still time, gentle readers, there is still time to come and see it! There’s still time, big shot movie director with nothing better to do, to come to The Whitstable Playhouse and see Harold Brighouse’s much ad’mired comedy brought to life. There is still time to muse out loud “good GOD that woman’s curls looks amazing. I shall have her for me’ next film, and for me’ wife!”

A night at the theatre will soothe your soul.

By the way, it’s more than likely that a door will open at some point when it isn’t supposed to and the whole audience will see at least one actor scratching themselves. Just go with it, it’s am dram. 

*I do like them really**

**I DON’T

Place to Quaff and Quarrel - The Lady Luck, Canterbury

It matters not a jot how long a day I’ve had (travelling back and forth to the Antarctic to tell Lord Thistleface to stop sending me chain letters really takes it out of you). There is always time for a drink or nine at The Lady Luck.

I could never be a one-pub woman, but I have a particular soft spot for this black and red haven in Canterbury's high street. And it’s not just because I usually end up there at midnight with the beau and the shady figure behind Twitter’s Book of Trains, quaffing ales and playing I'm Shipping Up To Boston on the jukebox.

Getting Clean at KITCH

I awoke in a daze.

It was the morning after 14^th February, and I knew I had done something very wrong. Something shameful, and sinful. Something the beau could not forgive. The air was thick with the scent of wine, grease, secret spices, and shame. On the bedroom floor, an empty cardboard box lay open.

The plan had been to spend Valentine’s night alone, as the beau was booked to play folk music for the baying crowds of Kent. He had foisted gifts of chocolate, Prosecco and a sonnet upon me that morning (I had delivered beer and dark chocolate digestives in an Asda carrier bag as a token of my love), and had left for work, not to return for many hours.

It was a rare Friday night in alone, and I had been weak. I had turned to an old vice: chicken. Fried chicken. The kind of chicken that doesn’t have a phone number – just a card in a phone box. It wants the money up front and you’ll need to see a doctor in the morning.

Obvious Beauty - A Journey to Dermalogica & Precleanse

Today I bring you guidance on how to make your face so squeaky clean that window cleaners will happen upon you and remark “damn, that is one clean face.”

Oh I jest! This post, in truth, is all about my favourite skin care range, Dermalogica, and the current member of its family I am lavishing attention on. As ever, I advise you to skim through my beauty basics before burying your head in any recommended products, and you should do so at your own risk.

Places To Quaff and Quarrel - Cafe Des Amis

Why. Why, I pondered wide-eyed. WHY must it be so hard to get a decent margarita these days?

True,  I don’t spend ALL my time looking for one. And…well several places in Canterbury appear to be offering them now I do a Google search…and I know a lot of people in the UK may be more concerned about being underwater…....but, damn it, this is important!

This pondering took place last Friday night, as I gulped down increasing ales in one of my usual dens of inquiry and found myself craving my favourite cocktail. Nobody panic – I still like beer that tastes like twigs and beards. But every now and then I want to pass the evening sipping something sharp, strong, and full of bite (for I am but a girl). Frozen or shaken, just make sure there is a nice layer of salt on the rim of the glass and we’re golden.

2014 and 'The Plan'

I rejected new year’s resolutions this year almost as fervidly as I rejected dry January.

I’m all for self-improvement but the first few of hours of a new year should not be spent sitting primly in front of a crisp new notebook, jotting down whimsical yet thought-provoking ‘dreams’ for the weeks and months while sober. No, January 1 should be spent curled up on the bathroom floor, hugging a bag of bread. One eye should be glued shut by an errant false eyelash (even if you are male) and your booze, ash and vomit covered clothes should be in hurled mess in the bath. Ideally, a child (possibly yours) should come in around midday to drape a towel over you and say ‘there, there’.

This is why I have waited until February to write of the year ahead, lest my thoughts be lost in the tidal wave of positive thinking spewing out of my dearest friends’ sauvignon-starved brains.

Now, there was no good reason for my not doing dry-anuary; I succeeded admirably last year and did a bit of dry September once. A bit. But screw it, there was still drink in the house come January and I was damned if I was going to let it spoil. (Booze spoils if you leave it untouched for more than three days. It’s a fact, look it up, it’s definitely probably true, ignore the French).

Thus, with a few extra weeks of excess accomplished, I met February with a more agreeable stance on my general well-being. Plus I have a show coming up in just over a month’s time that requires Victorian costume i.e. skirts so tight that you look permanently faint and furious. And when hiring my outfit, I was so taken with a fetching lilac number that I insisted to the director that it fit perfectly when in truth I lost a kidney moments later. If I want to survive this show, those extra 5lbs have to go. (It won’t be a booze free month, you understand – I have Places to Quaff and Quarrel at and I’m also probably a drunk)

But it was when I reached this point of determination on one element of my life that my brain began to get ideas above its station and started trying to make me do other things.

Let me put this perspective. I am writing this the night before I attend a Cuban salsa class.

ME.

As I said, I don’t like new year’s resolutions because they are invariably hollow, doomed to fail and are made on your bathroom floor as you recant your sins. But now that January and all its pious judgement has finally died, I’m suddenly all up in the rest of my life’s face.

Hmmmm...(I’m musing)…learning a proper dance has been on my ‘to do’ list for a while…and it would be nice to learn some steps other than the Kate Bush freestyle/Michael Jackson disgrace/shuffling the cards/stabbing the hooker moves I’ve worn out so thoroughly…..of course the blog is my biggest priority this year, but there could be room for other stuff…pretty stuff…and it's not like I don't enough to do already. Aside from the day job, blog, am dram, music and trying to fit in eight bottles a gin a week...

My mind was set, and a plan had to be drawn up. So here it is, for you all to gaze upon. For what is the point of a life plan if you don’t publicize it so that others will envy and hate you and wish wish WISH they were you?

Oh. Sorry, I mean (sigh) I’m publishing my 2014 plan so I will be compelled to do most of it because if not I don’t know the social media Gods will find me in the night and cut off my hair and the lands will dry up and probably something like a plague upon my houses and various wombs.

Plan for 2014, in no particular order

1. Make more phone hats
2. Write something every day and be totally brilliant at it
3. Complete my writing schedule and monthly plan for the blog (instead of scribbling random words and obscenities on open Word documents and then accidentally sending them to my boss)
4. Launch weird vaudeville/cabaret music act, and therefore sing in public at least six times. Or in pubic, as I first wrote. Either suits
5. Pick a name for the music act. We have it narrowed down to two, and we need to move on because it’s just getting sad
6. Run three big-scale digital media projects at work
7. Buy more light bulbs for the living room so that I can see what I'm doing for once
8. Drop final 5lbs and reach target weight
9. Reach at least 500 followers on Twitter. Because I NEED this
10. Ring up the security alarm company and ask them if cats make a difference to the sensors, and pray that they don’t
11. Take a dance class. Attempt to be good at it.
12. Boost the blog’s pageviews and reach X by its first birthday (I have the figures written down somewhere but I’ve had some wine and I don’t want to go looking. But I do have a target! I think)
13. Cook a new recipe once a month (I cook all the time, so I am being realistic, and because of no. 8)
14. Go to Paris on Eurostar
15. Engage with more bloggers and contribute to at least two forums regularly
16. Read at least six novels (look, it’s not much for some of you but with the amount of shit I am doing already, even this is pushing it!).
17. Go to Edinburgh and photograph the shit out of it
18. Write more songs
19. Fuck, this is taking a while. Better put on some espresso
20. Buy espresso
21. Decorate the main bedroom. Somehow. Maybe a few pictures will do…the espresso will help me plan this
22. Write honestly about my ‘crashes’
23. Improve my French (when I say improve, I mean for the love of GOD make it better)
24. Shop at more thrift/charity shops and try fixing up three outfits myself
25. Direct a play (I’ve added this because I know I’m already doing it in the summer)
26. Continue last year’s furniture up-cycling prowess (I’ll share details in the future) for other people as well as for me
27. Once current blog features have bedded in, set up film review feature because it’s your true love
28. Ooo and that should include a regular bad movie night!
29. Continue to dream about writing part-time and using one of those nice shared-office spaces with similar type! And then imagine hanging myself in that office
30. Maybe do some vlogs!!! Maybe….

And that's that.

******

I just wanted to say that I’ve felt a bit bad for Facebook this week. All it did was try to brighten up your day with a film just about you, and suddenly everyone is baying for blood for such cursed sentimentality. Twitter positively went in to melt down due to the sheer volume of hate.

Oh Facebook was fine when you wanted to show off about your big night out, tell us all ‘I’m just so confused right now’, or post pictures of your awful children. But when FB reaches out to you, you fling the gesture back in its face like so much rotten meat.

And on its BIRTHDAY!

If your film was filled with banal updates and pictures of you looking fat, you only have yourself to blame. You should lived better, and been less fat. And have words with all of your friends for only liking posts involving someone’s death or a new home. They only did so because they want invites to parties or wakes.

But the truth is, I feel bad because I’ve been neglecting FB on a personal level, when it has been a good and loyal friend. Once a FB addict (but only for the most witty reasons), I have now moved my daily ramblings to my blog and have started courting Twitter as a result (bigger audience). Poor Facebook barely gets a look in from my personal account, and when I do update, it’s only so I can scream “read my blog!”. I’m a bad Facebook friend, but a worse friend to Facebook.

This should be another aim of mine this year: to better balance the love on social media. Assuming I have time. Or that any of you notice.