Hi Diddly Dee, an Actor's Life for Me
"Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness."
Cullen Hightower
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Shameless Plug
So, if anyone is interested in coming along to see Hillbilly Goats Gruff on Sunday, it's on at Watermans Arts Centre in Brentford at 3pm. It lasts 45 mins and tickets cost the princely sum of £6 or £4 concessions. Box office number is 020 8232 1010. The show is high-energy children's entertainment, but adult kids seem to enjoy it just as much as the smaller ones Go on. You know you want to come... |
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17.11.06 00:11 |
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The story is a reworking of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff fairy story and features the voice of James Dreyfus as the Troll, as well as obviously starring yours truly as a dungareed hillbilly goat.|
Fuck
I just put a cashmere sweater through the washing machine on a normal 40 degree cycle by mistake. If I was still playing with dolls I could quite easily donate it to them right now. As it is, I shall be mostly crying with frustration and desperately trying to reshape it with the help of gallons of fabric conditioner and fervent prayer. |
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19.11.06 09:24 |
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Today I have been mostly...
...injuring myself. The new shoes look gorgeous, but they ain't designed for tramping long distances. All would have been fine had the buses not been completely up the spout this morning. Of course, I didn't know this until I got to the bus stop - which is in the opposite direction from the tube, meaning that I had to retrace my steps and walk for 15 mins, rather than the planned 5. Dammit. One day I'll learn that, when crossing a busy road with 4 lanes of traffic in particularly vertiginous heels, it is really more sensible to go to the crossing and wait for the lights to change. Obviously, I didn't do that this morning, and therefore twisted my ankle as I tried to scoot across in front of a rapidly approaching bus. Oops. The last injury wasn't really my fault. Mr Smoker Man, if you see a woman approaching you holding a handbag and full tesco's bag in one hand and a large bunch of lilies in the other, it would surely be common sense to realise that she's going to have difficulties opening the very heavy glass door that you're standing in front of having a cigarette. A little bit of help would have been appreciated. I blame the enormous, swelling bruise that I'm now sporting on my right arm, due to the door falling shut on it, entirely on you. Grr. On the plus side, this is a very untaxing job. I've pretty much been told to just sit here, look pretty and play on the internet all day. Now that I can cope with. |
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20.11.06 11:19 |
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Pictures of you
There are photos everywhere in this flat, but the most recent ones are from about 1999. I have albums full of pictures that I took, aged 9, with my first point and shoot camera. Pictures of grass, of icicles, of my pony, of tall ships, of my teddy bear, of my brothers... None of them are great works of art - I have, sadly, not inherited my grandmother's photographer's eye - but they all bring back a specific memory. I have cut them into silly shapes and pasted them into the album with captions. I have juxtaposed my own photos with baby pictures taken by my parents. What jumps off the page of these albums is the sheer joy of everything. Everything was exciting, everything worth recording. Fastforward a few years to early teens. The photos are now of friends. Pulling silly faces, pretending to fall out of a tree, scowling at the camera as I catch them unawares, sitting in a classroom at breaktime, making pot noodles in the common room at night. Dawn, Bonnie, Nikki and me. Dawn was the ringleader, a tall, confident, American girl. Actually, she was English, but didn't take kindly to being reminded of it - she had been brought up in Washington DC and hated the fact that her parents had chosen to send her to school in England. She was the one who instigated the various hate campaigns that we waged against each other. One day she would decide that everyone was to ignore so-and-so, and the amazing thing is that we all did, despite the fact that we'd been the best of friends the day before. And despite the fact that I knew how miserable and angry I'd been when I was the chosen pariah, I still went along with it when, a few weeks later, it was Nikki's turn. When the school closed down after being hit badly in the January 1990 storms, we all went our separate ways, swearing undying friendship. When you're 13 you think you'll be friends forever, but out of sight out of mind is, sadly, a far truer saying than I would like it to be. I heard that Dawn made head girl in her new school and was glad for her. I think Bonnie went back to Hong Kong. Nikki accosted me on Charing Cross Road a couple of years back, having recognised me from across the street. I was totally nonplussed by this pretty, confident girl calling me Katie - last time I'd seen her she had terrible spots and traintracks on her teeth, and no-one outside my family has called me Katie in years. We swapped email addresses and made plans to meet up, but it never happened. The GCSE-year photos are cringeworthily embarrassing. Bobbed hair, Rimmel Black Cherry lipstick, bodies, leggings and DM boots. Ali G, Ali H and me, the terrible trio. The photos taken in a passport booth, all three of us crammed in and laughing fit to burst. Smoking at the bus stop and being told, by a 12 year old boy, that I wasn't doing it right. Photos of hunt balls, of giant crisps, of signing each other's uniform shirts on the last day before exams started. I made out that I hated that school, and I did hate its small mindedness, but Ali is still one of my best friends 15 years later, and I was actually pretty happy and well-adjusted for a 16 year old. Boys start to appear in the photos in the A-level years. I say boys, I mean Dan. My first boyfriend and how I loved him. It took me years to get over him. He's married now, with a baby, and we're still friends, despite me acting like a crazed lunatic towards him on various occasions. Photos of regattas, of getting drunk in the Soc., of the Leaver's Ball. A photo of me in a chinese silk dress, made by my mother, with a rose between my teeth and grinning at the camera. The picture was taken by a guy who I'd spent 2 years having a laugh with in English lessons, paying very little attention to the tutor and instead doing the crosswords in that day's papers. Just after the photo was taken he kissed me passionately and revealed that he'd liked me for ages. I had no idea and dealt with it by taking the piss. Not the best thing to do, looking back on it, but I was 18 and clueless. Photos of my gap year in Stratford-upon-Avon; hundreds of them. Photos of plays, of costumes, of bloody flowers. One of our shows was Dona Rosita the Spinster, and the stage was decorated with pots of geraniums. We hated that show. Heather got hit by a car on the last night and got rushed off to hospital. We delayed the start of the show and she made it back by the time her scene came around, with her leg strapped up in bandages. Her best friend, Kathryn, was playing the title role and didn't know if Heather was OK or not, as at the point she'd gone on stage H was still in hospital. Her face when H appeared on stage was brilliant. Photos of all of us meeting up in a pub in Soho after we'd left Stratford, drinking cocktails and ending up in Trafalgar Square worshipping the lions. We had our 10 year reunion this summer - I never thought we'd still be friends 10 years later, but somehow we are, and it's wonderful. Photos of drama school, my hair the longest and the blondest it's ever been. I cut it all off at the end of first year and felt much better for it. Photos of skinny-dipping at somebody's parents' house in Wimbledon. Endless photos of Dom, the guy that I had a crush on. Photos of my parents' jack russell terrier, who we roped in as Moonshine's dog when we did A Midsummer Night's Dream, and who could pretty much guaranteed to be found with Lisa whenever she disappeared. I was sharing a house with 2 girls and a very morose French guy at the time. One night, Alex was in her room in her pyjamas, with the dog sitting on her bed. Morose French Guy came in and told Alex that he liked her and was that a problem? Trying to think of a nice way to tell him that yes, it WAS a problem in fact, Alex was saved by Tipsy taking against him and scaring him off. Post drama school is where the photos stop. In physical form, anyway. I do have some digital photos, but they're nothing like as prolific as in the early years. Digital photography just isn't as fun. The excitement of getting films back from the chemist was all part of the experience. Even if most of the photos were a disappointment, I could still look at that blurry mess and remember that it was blurred because I was laughing so hard I couldn't hold the camera still. There's a lot to be said for that. |
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22.11.06 11:00 |
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Building Bridges
It's strange how friendships ebb and flow. 6 years ago I had a good friend, D. After a drunken snog at a party, we started seeing each other. For a long time we told ourselves that it was just fun. Neither of us was seeing anyone else, though. Without either of us realising quite when it happened, it became a serious relationship, and we ended up going out with each other for 2 years. Towards the end of the relationship he moved away from London and things started to go awry between us. We talked about him moving in, but I think we both knew it was just a last ditch attempt to hold things together, and we eventually ended up splitting up. 3 days after the break up I met The Architect. The timing was dreadful and I tried to keep the news from D, knowing that he would be hurt by it. Of course, as nearly all our friends are mutual ones, it got back to him and he was, understandably, not happy. Things became strained between us and every time we met up for the next 3 1/2 years we would end up sniping at each other, the situation exacerbated by the fact that D and The Architect disliked each other. This summer D and I met up at our friends' housewarming party and it was as if the arguments and bad feelings had never happened. We had a laugh and enjoyed each other's company for the first time in years. I remembered why it was that we had been friends in the first place, although I think we both still felt a bit wary of each other, given the intervening years of bickering. Last night we were at a mutual friend's party. D's girlfriend was being hilariously drunk and spouting utter rubbish at another friend. D and I caught each other's eye over their heads, exchanged a look and started to laugh. He headed out for a cigarette, cocking an eyebrow at me and asking if I was coming too. A conversation started that carried on for the next 3 hours, fuelled by vodka and diet coke. We talked about how we missed each other. We talked about why our relationship ended. We asked each other the questions that we hadn't dared ask when we were going out. We told each other the things that we were too scared to say in the past. There were no recriminations, no bad feelings, just an honest conversation between two people who should never have fallen out as badly as they did. I've just regained a friend and I can't tell you how good that feels. |
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26.11.06 21:31 |
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Dear Someone
I've just opened up my handbag to find a strange envelope inside, labelled Dear Someone. There are an email and a web address written on the back of the envelope, and inside there is a short piece of poetry. I have absolutely no idea when this envelope made its way into my bag, but the last time I used it was on Friday night, when I went to see my friend George's show, so I'm assuming it was then. I'm a little freaked out... Edit for Squish: Whizzing freely in a |
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27.11.06 12:04 |
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Fun and Games
On a rare free afternoon while touring in Wales, we spent an afternoon here , at King Arthur's Labyrinth. This was, I confess, entirely my idea - the others were rather grudging about being dragged along, but they soon changed their tune when they realised that we were going to go into UNDERGROUND CAVES and meet DRAGONS. At this point I started to go a little green around the gills - I'm claustrophobic and hadn't fully realised what I was getting myself into. Oops. Still, it was far too late to back out by this stage, so, screwing my courage to the sticking point and making sure that I hid at the back of the group so I could make a quick getaway if necessary, I entered the tunnels. Thoughts of making a run for it swiftly evaporated when we were all herded (by a hooded monk, no less) onto a barge, which travelled along a long, narrow tunnel underground. If I wanted to get out, I was going to have to swim for it, and considering how cold it was, and I only had one pair of jeans to last me for 3 weeks of touring, I decided that might not be the cleverest idea. Damn. As it turned out, it wasn't quite as terrifying as it might have been. There was a nasty moment when we were led through a tunnel with a roof height which equated roughly to my waist level, with a right angled turn in the middle so I couldn't see the exit.* Apart from that slightly sticky moment, however, the caves were generally big and pretty impressive. Oddly, for someone who is so phobic about being underground, I find caves fascinating. It's the geek geologist in me. The exhibition itself wasn't really all that by today's animatronic standards (a few static models with some red and green lights, a bit of dry ice and a recorded voiceover), but the setting was ace. When we came back above ground we then discovered a toy shop . Man, that was a good day.
*Apologies to Jim, who I think pretty much lost the circulation in his hand at this point as I tried to prevent myself from screaming the place down and embarrassing the children. Ahem. |
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28.11.06 13:41 |
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