The Laws of Leaving

The Laws of Leaving


So tomorrow is my last day at the BBC, and I’m pretty sure everyone’s gonna miss me. That’s despite the Office Italians asking me on a daily basis, ‘haven’t you left yet?’ and the Office Gay merrily telling me that next week it’ll be  all ‘Sarah Who?... That’s showbusiness!’ I have been told that they’re looking forward to having the volume in the office being dialled down once I’m gone, although they also informed me that they’re sure they’ll still be able to hear me from New Zealand - carried on the wind. I think they intended this comment to be offensive, but I actually found it pleasantly whimsical.

I also just wanted to write the word, ‘whimsical’.

I do feel somewhat cheeky having leaving drinks, given my previous form for leaving do’s i.e. holding lots of them. In fact when I mentioned leaving drinks the predominant response seemed to be not, ‘Oh yes, count me in’ but rather, ’what, AGAIN?!’ I was telling my Mum that I feel a bit like the equivalent of a closing down sale that never closes, and she informed me that I am the ‘DFS of Leaving Do’s’. Excellent.

I am a bit apprehensive about leaving the BBC (again), mainly because I always tend to hate the next job I go to and cry a lot: I moved to Melbourne and worked at an Italian café I hated. Cue many tears. Researching on Coronation Street. That was about 12 months of hysteria (my colleague asked on a daily basis, ‘have you cried yet, sweetie?’). Hustle last summer. That was a lot of tears for a job that I only managed to endure for 2 months. Although actually when I think about it my friend called me ‘Tiny Tears’ when I was leaving uni in Leeds, so perhaps it’s not the BBC, it’s more that I’m not great with change. So spare a thought for the unfortunate individual who’ll be sat next to me on the plane….

The Office Princess just informed me that, for the next 6 months, anything that goes wrong will be blamed on me. She told me, ‘that’s the law of leaving. You’re not here to defend yourself. Any f***ups will all be your fault’. How depressing. And how true.

So since I’m about to depart the Beeb, I thought I’d compile the following:

The 10 Best Things about Working in Television

1.      The Awesome Catering OK on big dramas this might actually be true, but when you’re at unit base on Doctors… as the Office Gay put it ‘The chef hates his job and it’s reflected in his food. You can taste the minimum wage in every mouthful’.

2.      The Conversations you overhear:

[BUSY PRODUCTION OFFICE. GENERAL HUBBUB. SUDDEN SILENCE DESCENDS AND…]

PRODUCER: I think I’d quite like to be gang raped.

3.      The stringent interview process: ‘Let's look him up on Facebook.... Oh he looks like an absolute twat….’

4.      Judgement Central that is the Production Office: I’d say we give new people about ten minutes before we decide – One Of Us…. or Person I Will be Studiously Avoiding for the Duration of their Block.

5.      The glamour of working with actors: My favourite task ever was during my first week at Corrie, when I had to ask Simon Gregson how much he weighed for a script. He was asleep in the Green Room ‘cause he was ill and I had to wake him up. He pretty much looked like he wanted to kill me. That was awesome.

6.      Everyone who works in TV is kind of flaky Nobody really knows what they want to do - hence why everyone is on short term contracts - except something to do with 'directing'. Or 'writing'. Except for the Media Types who are clearly destined for ‘Development’. Nobody is exactly sure what they do - we just know that they get paid more than us.

7.      You start to lose your grip on reality I spent about a week in 2009 waking up every night at 2am in a cold sweat thinking ‘OH MY GOD HOW ARE THE POLICE GOING TO DISCOVER THE PLATTS’ FAKE SUICIDE??!’ And then trying to remind myself, it’s fictional…

8.      The generous pay packet and benefits. Oh wait...
      

9.      The scripts. And more scripts. Especially during triple banking. Or, as we like to call it, triple wanking…

10. The Audience Duty Log  And sometimes you get gems that make everything worthwhile….

Doctors (Daytime Drama)

TX Date: 09/10/2012

Felt that the content of the programme was inappropriate and should not have been

broadcast. I was rather surprised at the contents of this programme that I watched

yesterday, which I quite like, I watch it on and off. Apparently one of the, I don't know

whether she's a Doctor or she works within the surgery. I think its an Indian lady, she

was honestly somebody that was doing a sex chat line. I'm absolutely astounded

considering what's going on with Jimmy Savell at the moment and there's a debate

about what happened within the BBC, that you include a story line where a girl is, you

know, pretending to spank herself, pretending to have an orgasm at 1:45 in the

afternoon. It was totally inappropriate. Then her friend came in, I don't know whether

he was a doctor or another Indian looking person, and he was laughing cause he was

listening to her and then the next call ..

Life Without Cake

A Brave New World

So I don’t think it’s too melodramatic to say that studying nutrition has ruined my life. And when I say life, I mean eating cake. Last night I got in and was tired and thought ‘ooooh, I really fancy a hot chocolate and some French baguette with butter and jam’. However, my nutrition/ PT Head screamed ‘STOP!! What are you thinking, you idiot? The carbohydrates and sucrose are going to send your blood sugar sky high, releasing insulin and putting you at risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes. That simple carbohydrate jam is going to get immediately stored as fat. White baguettes are high GI and again are going to cause release of insulin – which is going to turn your body into the ultimate storage device. Basically you are eating lard on a plate. You may as well just inject the fat into your stomach, cause that’s where it’s going to end up. Putting you at future risk of CHD, strokes and heart attack’.

So I had salmon and peas instead. Omega 3 and low GI carbohydrate. Do you see what I have become?!!!

My eating fears have been only exacerbated by reading an article on the BBC news site about the UK’s fattest man – who weighs 40 stone. Do you know what the headline was? ‘Food has ruined my life’. Not exactly true is it, Chub? Food has enabled you to live – you just decided to eat the whole cake. If you need some motivation to diet, I suggest you take a look at his photo. It put me right off my almond croissant.

On the subject of headlines, this week I have also read about ‘Popcorn Lung’ (a real condition, apparently) and, my favourite headline so far: ‘Cat goes for flea bath, is accidentally euthanised’. Oh my god. Apparently the owner had signed the euthanasia papers, thinking they were registration forms:

Reportedly, staff had asked him if he wanted to keep the bodies, which was when realization set in of what had happened to Lady.

"He asked me if I wanted to keep the bodies," says Conway. "It was like a blank stare back at each other for the first 10 seconds, then he immediately grabbed the papers I thought were registration forms and told me I had signed the papers."

What’s the moral of this story? READ THE SMALLPRINT BEFORE YOU SIGN!! IT MAY MENTION DEATH!! And possibly avoid all veterinarians in the greater Boston area.

Yesterday I had my regular meeting in the kitchen with Creepy Security Guard. I feel a bit mean calling him that, but he is. Ever since he told me that I had looked nice at our Christmas party a few years back: ‘You were wearing those high heels weren’t you?’.... Anyway, I seem to always manage to time my afternoon cup of tea to coincide with his break. This is definitely not on purpose. At least, not on my part. It doesn’t seem to matter if I move it forward or back half an hour – there he is. Of course I never bump into any hot actors or camera men in the kitchen, EVER. But Creepy Security Guard? Every freaking day.

Anyway, he said ‘you and me again Sarah’. And I replied, cringing as I said it, ‘Oooh yes, people will start to talk’. He then commented, ‘we should run away together, like that teacher and the schoolgirl.’ As I was contemplating my reply to that one, he added, ‘are you like me? Rooting for them?’ This left me a bit stumped, because the teacher is 30 and the girl is 15 and I’m not really ‘rooting’ for a possible paedophile. So I came up with, ‘Er……’ as he went on, ‘They’re a bit like Bonnie and Clyde aren’t they? You hope they don’t get caught?’ Right. Bonnie and Clyde, the homicidal lovers who went on a killing spree across America. I’m fairly certain, had I been alive in 1933, I would have been on the side of the law. Call me square, but I’d kind of prefer that my potential future murderer was behind bars. But perhaps that’s just me.

The Office Gay has been reminiscing about his favourite actor’s names. The winner? ‘Fiston’. When this unfortunate guy was filming with us, the joy the crew took joy in saying ‘Fiston in Make-up’. ‘You’ll be getting Fiston in about 5 minutes’. ‘They’re getting Fiston in the office right now’…. It really is the joke that keeps on giving. Poor old Fiston.

OVERHEARD AT THE BBC

ME: I’m just enjoying a Kitkat.

OFFICE SARCASTIC: Did you slip a few fingers inside you?

ME: No.

[PAUSE]

ME: Cause I’m on my period.

(Sorry).

Don't Take on the Americans

Don’t take on the Americans

So I’ve discovered why Coke is the most universally understood word on the globe. It’s not because it’s the world’s favourite drink – it’s because it’s very easy to understand. Whereas, apparently, the word ‘water’ is not. I have tried to order water several times in American restaurants, and the conversation generally goes something like this:

Me: Please can I have a water?

Waitress: I’m sorry?

Me: Water?

Waitress: (IMMENSE CONFUSION) War-ter??

Me: Yes, a waaaar-ter?

At this point generally one of my cousins interjects to explain I want a ‘waaaaah-da’. And then everyone looks relieved and the waitress flees before I can ask for tomatoes or yoghurt. Hence why I tend to suffer from dehydration whenever I leave the UK for too long.

After careful consideration I think I can say I have had 5 really terrible hangovers in my life. Depending on how long you’ve know me you may recall the 3 day hangover I had in Tenerife, where I was left throwing up into the vegetable bin from our fridge after downing straight vodka on our first night. I didn’t even make it out to the bar. (Particularly proud of that one). Or perhaps you’ll recall New Year’s Eve of the millennium – also my 19^th birthday – when at exactly midnight I was stretchered into an ambulance and taken to hospital. I was eventually pushed out in a wheelchair, by my parents, in the early hours of the new century, after being given oxygen. If you work with me on Doctors you will probably think of the wrap party I organised, the one which resulted in me flashing my pants to the world as I was carried out of the bar. That’s the same party at which one of the runners projectile vomited onto the back of the bar’s general manager and then asked our executive producer if he was a taxi driver. The epitome of class, BBC parties.

So the common theme in these events is that (a) I’m a total lightweight and obviously my Irish blood is being dominated by my Jewish genes (did you know that Jews can’t handle their alcohol? Apparently it’s all to do with the gene ADH2*2 – true story) and (b) I always forget to eat. Which is admittedly surprising, given how much I can usually put away in a few hours. Anyway, my 5^th horrendous hangover occurred a couple of weeks ago in the states, when I stupidly tried to keep up with Irish Americans.

There’s nothing like walking sober into a room full of drunken Americans to make you feel like an Uptight English Bitch. This is what I’m blaming my subsequent enthusiasm for drinking games upon (have you tried ‘Flip Cup’? My advice: Don’t) and extreme enthusiasm for beverages I don’t usually touch (Quadruple Blueberry Stoli blended with blueberries, strawberries and lemonade? Hell yeah!) And thus, even though I switched to water at 10pm (obviously I had to ask someone else to order it for me – I made some new best friends at the bar of ‘Daddy’s’), I was still throwing up at 10am the next day. Nice. My sister found me lying on the floor of my bedroom, pathetically licking the salt off pretzel crisps and trying to keep down a glass of ginger ale at midday on Sunday.

And to think, some people my age are mothers.

You’ll be pleased to hear that the Snow Leopard bikini went down a storm. I think I managed to suitably embarrass all my family on the beach at some point. I was also told by my sister that my belly button piercing is “so 1996”, and my Nokia 2810 was named a “Zack Morris” phone by my American cousin: “is that the phone you use in Britain? Really?!!”

Consider yourself judged.

The Hull Times Police Log

For those unfamiliar with small town America, the local newspaper lists all the police reports for the last week. This is what people call 911 for in Hull:

Sunday 6/3: 1:02am Newport Rd. Officer reports that a vehicle is covered in some type of pudding substance. Owner notified and doesn’t want to do anything…. 8:55am Newport Rd. caller reports that someone put salad dressing all over her car. Officer on location for photos and reports ranch dressing and some other type of food item on the vehicle. Photos taken….

Tuesday 6/5: 4:34 pm. Nantasket Ave. Elderly female did not answer the door today for lunch. O/ Mahoney reports speaking to the resident, who states she was out for the day and everything is fine.

Sunday 8/ 19: 4:04pm X St. 13 year-old male, possible autistic, is trying to get into houses in the area of Beach Ave. Last seen headed towards the point.  O/ Mercer reports out with the youth. His parents are on the beach and he will be attempting to locate them. O/ Mercer reports that the youth is with an uncle and neighbour. He has just been running around the beach having fun….

Wish you worked for the Hull Police Dept?

Do Women think with their Vaginas?

Do Women Think with their Vaginas?

So my question for Thursday morning: If men think with their members (does that word make you go ewwww….?) do women think with their vaginas? And if so, what implications does that have for world peace?

Yeah, maybe no more coffee for me this morning…..

I’m in a questioning kind of mood, so let me throw a few more curve balls at you:

What would you do if it was your last day on earth? And, if your life depended on it, which Spice Girl would you shag? IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT???

The Spice Girl question inevitably came up on Monday morning, following the Olympic closing ceremony (well, what else were you thinking when you watched Victoria in that taxi?). It was a mixed consensus in the office, with most opting for Geri. I picked Sporty: “No kidding Sarah. I could never have guessed that. You’d need mirrors on the ceiling for comparing each other’s biceps”. Although Mel B might be more fun. Definitely not Victoria. We decided the risk of snapping her – and lawsuit that would follow – just wouldn’t be worth it.

I have also asked the last day on earth question to several people. I was originally working on the theory that whatever your answer would be is in actual fact what you should be doing with your life, until I did a survey and was forced to conclude…. nah, maybe not. I was basing this supposition on my own answer: do body attack and have a shower. Honestly. I love body attack and my favourite thing to do (apart from eating and talking of course) is to take a shower. Just call me Super Clean Sarah. Anyway, the answers I received have included ‘go to the pub with my Dad’, ‘spend the day with my wife and children’ (yawn) and ‘get all the fittest women in the world, line them up, and then shag them all’.

I think the latter answer is my favourite. Surely the most honest at any rate.

So today is my last day at work before I go on holiday to Hull. Hull, America that is, not the teen pregnancy capital of the UK. I was packing last night and my sister came in just as I was opening my new swimsuits I had ordered from Topshop. Lesson One: when picking swimwear, NEVER ORDER ONLINE – SNOW LEOPARD PRINT BIKINIS MAY NOT LOOK AS GOOD IN REAL LIFE. So when she saw said leopard print bikini: ‘Oh my god Sarah, the eyes are exactly where your nipples are!! I am not sitting next to you on the beach wearing that’. I then had to reveal that I had, in fact, ordered the same bikini – but this time as a tiger print. At that point she totally freaked out. ‘What is wrong with you? You can shop in stores other than Topshop. That's the worst bikini I've ever seen. Why would you order two of them?!!’ Unfortunately, given that in less than 24 hours I will be on a Boston bound plane, it is far too late to think about returning them. I will be wearing tiger eyes on my breasts for the next 2 weeks and I refuse to be ashamed.

I’m starting my own mini revolution on the beach. I feel not unlike Rosa Parks.

On a separate note, I have decided that I am, in fact, more Roseanne Barr than Carrie Bradshaw. Following MarcoPierreWhite-gate (don’t ask), I ended up staying in with my sister, drinking beer in my pyjamas and watching Seinfeld. This may sound sad to you, but in fact was a fairly brilliant Friday night in. So, I have to conclude that whilst I like to think I am a vodka martini with a twist, I am in fact a six pack of Kronenbourg on sale for £4.99.

Whoop whoop.

So the Virgin Gay has been having a bit of trouble recently with the whole gay dating thing. He had a disastrous date last week with an Art Curator Vegan. He's the Rugby Playing Sonnova-Butcher. There's a match made in heaven. (That's not a new insult BTW - is Dad really is a butcher). Then the week before he was having a lovely date with a guy who then asked his friends, when he went to the bar, "Do you have any drugs? It's doesn't have to be ketamine. Heroin would do." Who said Cinderella can't go to the ball?

Overheard at the BBC

DIRECTOR: I like to think of actors as a pack of cards. You might be giving me an Ace but I’m asking for a King. So right now you’re a seven. Can you give me a nine?

Hands up who'd be an actor....

The World's Worst Dancer

The World’s Worst Dancer

So, turns out it’s actually quite difficult to be a personal trainer, who knew? Well, all the personal trainers in the world, obviously, but quite frankly this course has been a bit of a shock. I consider myself to be a young(ish) lady of reasonable intelligence  - let’s not forget I won the English prize for form D in year 8, pipping 31 other people to the post – but the sheer volume of learning involved: different muscle types, insertion and origin points, what bone is attached to what muscle… has quite frankly rendered me in tears of despair. I thought you just had to look good and say in a positive tone of voice ‘come on, four more’ when it looked like someone was going to give up? No? Well, someone mis-sold me on this one. And quite frankly I’m blaming Billy Blanks (Tae Bo anyone?)

I had a training day on Saturday for taking physical measurements, with this guy who can best be described as the Gil Grissom of personal training. You know how Grissom always links everything back to the evidence? Well this guy just kept telling us to link everything back to the ‘data’. I never knew that personal training was so scientific, I feel like I’m doing some kind of advanced anatomy/ physics degree. On the plus side he measured my body fat and told me I had 0% body fat on my stomach (thank you CX WORX). On the down side he asked me how old I was and then said ‘so Sarah’s doing pretty well for her age’. Cue 21 year old students looking smug.

‘Sarah’s doing pretty well for her age’. Right.  So I’m not 109, I’m 31… As I said before, I think this still pretty young, no? As my friend told me at the weekend, ‘Men mature, women age’.  So that’s lovely.

In other news, I’m sure I used to be a pretty good dancer. The word ‘amazing’ has even been used on occasion – although admittedly not since Shaggy was last in the charts. And the Vod -Bull was flowing... My sister and I went to a Body Jam last last night and I realised that my brain can no longer compute a simple 3-2-1-stop foot shuffle. It’s even more devastating when I'm surrounded by people who attend my other classes and therefore are accustomed to seeing me at the front, looking like a shining example of precision. Or at least not falling over every few minutes,  bearing an uncanny resemblance to Ricky Gervais attempting to do Beyonce. My sister loved it – ‘you get to look like a d*** and nobody cares!’ Well, I never said I didn’t care…. The class was also full of straight white boys who picked everything up immediately – and managed to look funky doing it.

Yeah. Hate them.

Is anyone else Olympic-ed out? I’ve enjoyed bits (Gymnast’s arms)…. It’s been very useful for motivating my classes (‘who wants a body like Jessica Ennis? Well in that case get lower!!’) but after 2 weeks I think I’ve got the gist. Quite annoyingly the TV in our office is right over and behind my head, and my colleagues insist on having the Olympics on all day. This means that (a) I have a constant running commentary of something I can’t see going on behind my head all day and (b) everyone who comes into the office asks me how we’re doing and who’s winning whatever’s on TV, and generally tries to engage me in conversation about the screen. Er, hello! You can clearly see I have my back to the screen, ergo I CAN’T SEE WHAT’S GOING ON!

Capiche?

Overheard at the BBC

Office Gay eating a jam doughnut (again).

ME: Oooh, what does that face say?

OFFICE SARCASTIC:  That the Paralympics are missing a mascot.

The D Word

The D Word

Right, so it’s Sunday night, and for some unfathomable reason my family is still watching The Olympic Opening Ceremony. Well, I say family, it’s mainly my Dad, with everyone else taking sporadic breaks to come and watch. I’m not exactly sure why we’re still watching it 48 hours after the rest of the world saw it, except that he watched it last night and claims that he can’t remember anything he saw. Which of course is worrying for many reasons, not least because how can you possibly forget the delirium-inducing sight of huge punk heads springing up and down to Pretty Vacant? My sister and I have just had to introduce him to pretty much every band beyond the Beatles, his excuse for his ignorance being ‘it’s not my era’. Okaaaaaaay… But you were (apparently) alive in the 70s? And also the 90s? (The Prodigy also proved to be a mystery). His comment on being told the rapper was called Dizzee Rascal – ‘Oh, that’s his name is it?’ Er, probably not his real name, no. Oh. My. God. Memories flooding back of when he corrected my sister’s pronunciation of Coolio in the mid-90s as ‘Hoolio’ (Julio). ‘How do you spell it?’ ‘C.O.O.L.I.O.’ ‘Oh right. Yes you’re quite right. Coolio.’ (We often discuss gangsta rappers in my household, that’s just how the Shortt family roll).

So yes it was amazing blah blah blah, but can we have some real news now? I opened the Sunday Times today and think I had to skip to about page 18 to read something that wasn’t Olympic related. Even my Mum, surprisingly racist towards the British for someone who has lived here for over 30 years, enjoyed the show. Usually her only concession towards England is that she enjoys the ‘Today’ programme - and would miss John Humphreys if she returned to the states - but I actually found her weeping on the sofa as she watched the opening ceremony, muttering between sobs ‘I thought it was going to be a wash-out, but it’s amazing!’ Yeah yeah, Danny Boyle is a Directing God.

But I still don’t find Mr Bean all that funny.

In other news, apparently I am now at an age which provokes a response of ‘Oh Wow’. I was chatting to a PT at the gym and he asked how old I was. When I replied 31 he looked gratifyingly surprised and said, ‘Oh wow. You do not look that age at all’. I wanted to ask if he has misheard and thought I said 41? Er, surely 31 is still a relatively young, down-with-the-kids, could-still-be-at-uni-albeit-as-a-mature-student age?! Well, wonder no more my friends, the 15 year old PT has spoken and declared me Officially Old. *Sob*. To add insult to injury, one of the Fat Security Men at my work asked me if my ‘Forever Young’ t-shirt was ‘Hopeful?’

Case closed. I am a relic.

You will be pleased to hear that on Thursday I managed to prevent the F word being broadcast on (Soap) award-winning daytime TV, and thus have no doubt prevented the cancellation of our show and in fact the collapse the of the entire British Broadcasting Corporation. I arrived into work on Thursday morning to be greeted by an email from the company who write our subtitles: apparently they had noticed that the Black Eyed Peas song ‘My Humps’, which we had used in the episode due to be broadcast that day, did not contain the line ‘I drive these brothers crazy’ but in fact clearly said ‘I drive these fuckers crazy’. I duly went in to relate the good news to the producer, who turned white and said ‘WHAT?!!’ We listened to the line about 20 times, decided that we couldn’t actually tell what it said but we had better change it just in case, and then realised that the tape was in London. Brilliant. Anyway, the rest of the story is pretty dull but all you need to know is that by some wizardly of post-production they managed to replace the offending line with a musical overlap, and I got inducted into making a ‘circuit booking’ – whatever the hell that is – where someone they ‘play the tape down the line’ to London. To make a great situation better, the switchboard at the relevant company in London couldn’t transfer me directly to anyone, and Kristal, the only person I managed to speak to directly, was on her first day - poor lamb - and seemingly failed the grasp the concept that we were broadcasting the episode in 3 hour’s time. Anyway, the replacement edit was broadcast and no doubt millions of letters of complaint avoided. Yep, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Oh no. Hang on a minute. They don’t.

Overheard at the BBC

SCRIPT EDITOR: Ganache is a funny word isn’t it?

SCRIPT EDITOR: Isn’t that Denis the Menace’s dog?

Yep. These are the people who make the magic happen, people.

The Cycle of Learning

The Cycle of Learning

How has your Friday the 13^th been so far? My sister’s has been about as disastrous as it gets. First of all she woke up with a One Direction song playing endlessly in her head (‘Baby you light up my life like nobody else etc.’) and then she discovered that she was sharing her morning shower with a gigantic spider. I like to think that the moment she saw said spider was a bit like that scene in Arachnophobia when the spider jumps on the girl’s head. Although, let’s be honest, the spider was probably more upset than she was to find a blonde giant in his new hotel. And now she’s had to go and teach a class of Italian teenagers how to speak English. It’s their last day of summer school, they don’t care, and apparently there’s already a web of complicated love triangles between The Three Eduardo’s. I like to think of them as not being unlike The Three Musketeers, but with Italian accents, raging hormones and a packet of parma ham in their backpack.

I love hearing her stories about her kids at the summer school. Apparently the Italians never shut up. The Chinese are very studious but they hate playing games. The Greeks are all there to learn. She has been playing the ‘yes/no game’ with them, where they are not allowed to reply yes or no to a question. Question (Destiny’s Child): Did I need to explain that? What does it say about me (or YOU) that I did? Anyway, moving on…. Apparently they were asking the boys, ‘Is your boyfriend Justin Bieber?’ Cue panicked looking Italian 14 year old, desperately wracking his brains for an answer, eventually coming up with, ‘Maybe?’ At which point all the kids repeat ‘maybe, ha ha!’ and fall about laughing. Do you feel old when I tell you that none of the kids know who Britney Spears is? Alana said, ‘come on, ‘Toxic’?’ Nope.  Nothing.  Zilch. And here I was thinking that I was relatively on trend having ‘Circus’ on my i-pod. Relative, that is, to the rest of my playlist. (Neil Diamond and Joan Baez anyone?)

In other news, my new American passport has finally arrived, yay! They haven’t rejected me! I have somehow slipped under the Yankee net once again. It was taking so long to come that I was starting to fear they would say ‘not this time’ on the grounds of being a Bad American i.e. I’ve never actually tasted pumpkin pie and we have never had a Thanksgiving meal in my house. However, I do feel I have just the requisite amount of WHOOP WHOOP! attitude, self-belief, outlandish size teeth and partiality to trans-fats to keep me in dual citizenship for the next ten years (when my current passport expires and I’ll be 41. Oh God.) It’s a relief since it was such a bloody nightmare getting my photo done. For American passports you can’t just have a regular photo booth picture done. Oh no. It has to be done in colour, by a specialist photographer, with ridiculously specific details on mm distance eyes from mouth etc. It’s a bit like measuring the shorts of a flea when it comes to how much white background you can have from the edges. And then the dude that took my picture kept complaining that my hair was ‘too fluffy’ and I needed to smooth it down more. Well, sorry mister, I have frizzy hair, it’s called GENES!! I already had about 500 Kirby grips in my hair, but he kept frowning at every picture he took, muttering ‘no, no good, too fluffy, America is the strictest you know’. Eventually, obviously despairing of my hair’s refusal to stay down, he came over and smoothed it all down for me himself, rearranging all my grips for me.

That was fun.

 This weekend is the last of the Les Mills launches I am required to do THANK GOD. Don’t get me wrong, I obviously love teaching and the launches are really fun, but it is also incredibly stressful. Every three months we (instructors) get sent new choreography to learn, and you have 3-4 weeks to get your head around what might be 1 to 9 routines to learn – dependent on how many programmes you teach. The cycles goes like this: Excitement about new releases – deciding which tracks are your favourite etc. Enthusing to all your members about how much you love the new attack. Listening to the music endlessly – in your car, at home, at work etc. Practising anywhere you can (for me, this means standing outside our offices with a stick at lunchtimes practising pump, getting weird looks from the crew if they happen to be filming nearby). Then, as the launch date approaches, mild panic starts to set in and you wonder how you are possibly going to learn 8 tracks by 5pm tomorrow. You swing between panicking about the choreography, and feeling totally fed up. You decide that you never want to learn anything else in your life again, EVER. At the 11^th hour you have to get real: the cool down is going to be freestyle. 10 minutes before the launch you have no idea whether it’s a double step touch or a squat tap, or a 2/2 or 3/1. The launch starts. Everyone else seems to know more than you. Without fail you get something wrong – never the part of the choreo you were worried about though. The launch finishes. You feel a massive sense of relief. Cue champagne, relaxed shoulders, sleep, excited messages on Facebook.

Then you realise there’s only 2 months left before it all starts again.

OVERHEARD AT THE GYM

Fitness Instructor: I only make £6 an hour on the gym floor. Rubbish. I used to make more than that selling drugs.