The Jews and the Sluts

THE JEWS AND THE SLUTS

Sometimes it’s weird working on a TV show. Like yesterday, where I got asked to check the ladies’ toilets were empty and then act as lookout so a director and first AD could recce them for filming. Is that normal? And then today where we realised that in TV Land we are already thinking about Bonfire Night and Christmas. When you work on a Soap, New Year’s Eve comes round way quicker than you had anticipated.

And then sometimes actors ask you to pronounce words and you inadvertently insult them.

One of our cast suddenly appeared at my elbow a few days and, shoving a script under my nose, pointed at the word ‘brusque’ and asked ‘is that brisk?’ I was kind of caught off guard and said, ‘er, no, it’s brusque’. ‘It’s not brisk then?’ ‘No….’ He was looking a bit unsure and I felt obliged to say something intelligent, and thus carried on knowledgably, ‘it means….’ At which point he looked at me like I was a patronising bitch and said ‘I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, but do you pronounce it brisk?’

There was clearly not going to be a happy ending to this, so I just said I didn’t know. ‘OK. Well I’m going to go with short then’. Fine. I was feeling quite ashamed about being rude to a famous (ish) actor, so I related the story to the Office Blonde, and said how embarrassed I was – of course he would know what it meant. Her response? ‘What does brusque mean?’

SEE? NOT A GIVEN!

So now I had insulted two people.

The actor re-appeared in the office later on, and just shouted ‘SHORT!’ at me across the room. Which of course then opened a whole new can of confusion, surname speaking…. So now I’m avoiding all actors. It’s so much easier that way.

However, to just completely renege on the statement above, I’ve just had a conversation with the Office Bow Tie concerning whether All Actors Are Sluts? This was going to be an amusing little nugget of a paragraph on the dubious morals of artistes and their complete lack of fidelity when it comes to wrap parties/ the Soap Awards/ Thursday nights out at The Plough. However, he very sensitively pointed out that actors are complex, flawed, beautiful human beings, who can’t be reduced to a single stereotype. And was I talking about sluts in the sexual sense of the word, or in terms of agents and castings, or in a slovenly sense…. And suddenly my amusing little anecdote has been lost somewhere under the weight of the complex human beings and of course non-actors can be sexually promiscous liars too and quite frankly I think we should just call the whole thing off.

Tonight we are having our one and only BBQ of the year and, true to British summertime, we have had thunder and lightning and floods on the main road outside our office. We were starting to panic slightly but Warwick the Butcher has assured us that the spit roast is already in progress and the pig is getting ready to feed Letherbridge. On the subject of this, our party coincides with the leaving do for an actress. The pig roast had already been booked before anyone realised that she is, in fact, a Jewish vegetarian.   

So it’s probably not the ideal send off - especially by an organisation as PC as the BBC, but quite frankly we all wanted a pork bap.  My colleague contacted the butcher to ask if the pig was kosher, to which he replied ‘Yes it’s all paid for and above board, LOL’. What a kidder!

On a more orthodox note, we have managed to source a copy of ‘Authentic Israel’ from the post production library, and we will be playing 'Hava Nagila' and 'Dreidel Dreidel' intermittently throughout the night. I feel that my ancestors would be proud.

The (Fitness) Cult of Celebrity

The (Fitness) Cult of Celebrity

So you may be thinking that there really is very little that would be comparable between The British Soap Awards and a Les Mills instructor workshop. In this, my friends, you would be sadly mistaken. When you start to consider the lashings of fake tan and the waxed shiny legs, it really becomes quite difficult to distinguish between the two.

And that’s just the men.

I attended the Bristol workshop for the Les Mills new releases last weekend. For the uninitiated, this is when instructors get to try out all the new routines that we will be inflicting upon our members for the next 3 months. My friend, who had never been to a workshop before, commented, ‘I feel a bit like I’m entering a cult’ as we entered the room. There is a sense of cult-like behaviour: from everyone wearing the same body combat shorts, to the identical Maori tattoos and devotion to one cause, there is something very single minded about the energy in the room. Which I do quite like – obviously I subscribe to ‘the cause’ too – but I am also aware of the slight weirdness of the situation. I couldn’t help thinking what my sarcastic colleagues at the BBC would say if they could see 500 instructors standing in a darkened room with disco lights spinning, all shouting ‘kiah!’ as they kick an imaginary opponent (or the annoying keeno wearing a crop top over her boob job who’s just pushed her way to stand one millimetre in front of you).

What is surprising, is the various body shapes and personality types you encounter at the workshops. You might think you would be surrounded by the ‘body beautiful’ – an intimidating array of strong fit bodies. Well, there definitely are some amazingly toned people at these events, but there are also a scary number of those who, quite frankly, don’t look like they even know where the gym is. And these are all instructors, people. Just like The Soap Awards, the competitive energy in the room is overwhelming. I don’t think I’ve felt so scrutinised and judged since I lived in Leeds and used to go the gay bar Fibre, which was full of mirrors – to make opining on others even more accessible. Even being surveyed by a table of pursed lip Queens doesn’t come close to the intimidation factor of stepping into a room of instructors to compare quad size.

Another similarity to the Soaps is the sense of celebrity in the room i.e. the presenters. Even if you’ve not met them before, you will recognise the trainers from other workshops, or the training DVD’s. Just like at the Soaps, you end up trying to pretend not to be in awe of the famous person standing next to you in the toilets. Is it wrong that I was far more excited about washing my hands next to Susan Renata than I ever was walking past Ken Barlow on the cobbles? The reverence given to the presenters is definitely tantamount to the red carpet at the Soaps. They might not be walking to a television studio surrounded by screaming fans, but we’re all going to cheer everything they say on stage. Even when, in the case of a body pump instructor, it’s actually quite offensive. One presenter from New Zealand stood on stage and commented, ‘I was last in the UK in 1996, launching body pump, and there were a lot of soft flabby bodies out there (instructors). I’d just like to say, you’re all looking a lot better, good job’ Weirdly, everyone cheered. Er, he’s insulting us guys! It might be an insult disguised as a compliment, but it’s still fairly mean, isn’t it?!

The last thing I’d like to comment on is how you can tell, just by looking at people, what class they teach. Yes yes, most instructors teach a lot of different programmes, but they can also sense what class in particular they are affiliated to. All the aggressive, slightly angry looking girls teach body combat. The happy people with ridiculously toned legs teach body attack. Anyone eating seeds/ organic yoghurt definitely teaches balance, and you can spot the body pump men by the slightly mechanical way they move. Anyone wearing leggings teaches jam.

At least, you hope they do.

A friend of mine, who is not an instructor *DISCLAIMER* recently personified all the programmes for me in the following way:

Body Pump – Raoul Moat. This might sound slightly extreme, but she said she feels like it is a mean, threatening programme, who is going to shoot you if you don’t lift the weight it says.

Body Attack – the jock in the changing room who is thwacking you with a wet towel, daring you to go harder and more energetic.

Body Combat – Beyonce. Because it’s on your side.

That was as far as we got. Watch this space for balance and vive.

Overheard at the BBC

Office Gay: ‘You’re always moody’

Me: ‘It’s just because I’m on’

OG: ‘That’s such a horrible expression. ‘On’. ‘

Me: ‘What would you prefer me to say? Surfing the crimson wave? Got the painters and decorators in?’

OG: ‘How about evacuating copious amounts of blood from your c***?’

Eurgh.

Mr Jobsworth

Mr Jobsworth

So it’s unlike me to moan, but so far today has been…. difficult. My eyelashes didn’t curl properly *DISASTER NUMBER ONE* and then when I applied my mascara it came out clumpy so my eyes now look like little spider legs. Not in a cute way you understand - more Bette Davis in ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’. Then I lost my body attack mix CD I need for tonight (somewhere on my floor no doubt – disintegrating under all my sweaty gym gear)…. I’m telling you, those Thalidomide survivors have nothing on me.

JOKE! Calm down, it’s Friday. Although I do have some knowledge of what it’s like to have unusually short levers.

Anyway, I have had a brush this week with the man I like to call Mr Jobsworth. I feel that I have had several encounters with Mr Jobsworth in my working career. He comes disguised in many different forms – not unlike Satan. There was my manager at the country club in New York, James - or as we liked to call him “Beach Club JAMES SPEAKING!!”  - who informed us that ‘if there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean’, and made me line up all the sachets of tomato ketchup in perfect order. That was a worthwhile job – 30 minutes of painstaking precision ruined instantly by some American brat unaware of the British graft that had gone into arranging said ketchup.

And then I had to line them up all over again.

Then there was my café manager in Cairns, who warned me, “don’t be Jewish with the ice” when making drinks. There was the retail manager who insisted we ask everyone about saving 10% off by opening a store card – which resulted in my asking a customer if she would like to make a saving on a £2.70 pair of pants. She stared at me incredulously and then said “So, do I want to save 27 pence?”… The production co-ordinator who made me re-do the unit list about a thousand times until everything was millimetre perfect, and told me that I couldn’t really justify taking a 20 minute break in a twelve hour day. As she pointed out to me, quite reasonably I’m sure you’ll agree, “I’ve never taken a lunch break the entire time I’ve worked in this industry”. Well, you’re the idiot who’s gained about 3 stone by never leaving your desk then aren’t you? Fat Bitch. Not that I’m fattist. Or bitter. Oh who am I kidding? I am Bitter Fattist Extroadinaire.

It’s my mother’s fault.

So the present Mr Jobsworth is the co-ordinator at one of the gyms I teach at, and his beef this week has been the studio microphone. Apparently it went missing after my class on Sunday, resulting in an antagonistic phone call to me on Monday that went something like this “Hi Sarah, so I’m looking for the head mic…” I explained that I had left it for the next instructor to use – as I have been doing for the last 2 years. “Riiiiiiiight….. well…… guess we better hope it turns up……” Or you’ll shoot me? I then had a phone call informing me there was to be a FULL staff meeting, attendance is COMPULSORY, concerning new procedure regarding the head mic. Apparently I (a) must ensure I only take one mic up to the studio (despite the fact that, inevitably, the microphone I choose will be the one that doesn’t work) (b) If I’m passing it to the next instructor I MUST PHYSICALLY PUT IT IN THEIR HAND and (c) if it does go missing, I will be teaching classes for free to cover the £400 cost of said microphone. This might have all carried a bit more weight had it not been for the fact that the co-ordinator frequently leaves the door to the reception ajar – thus allowing anyone who wanted to steal a microphone (why?) to easily reach in and take it.

In fact the door was ajar even as he was delivering these procedural guidelines to me.

Overheard at the BBC

“I need a break. I’ve been working flat out for twenty minutes”.

That is all. Enjoy your 4 day weekend. We at the beeb are still working. Nope, not even the Queen’s Jubilee can halt the unstoppable juggernaut that is award winning (not this year though) daytime TV. As my friend used to tell me when I was near suicidal working in Manchester “remember – you work on the Nation’s Best Loved Soap”.

Yay!