Friday, April 27, 2007



New Harry Potter in trailer in not looking shit shocker. The Phoenix was such a lumbering dreadful disappointment that it'll be a relief for it to be slashed down into less than three hours. I'm getting excited now: last book, new film. Amazing.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Patrick Wolf's live show at the Astoria was one of my favourite things about the 11th April, but mostly of this year. So it kind of sucks that he doesn't love the press trail that goes along with music and has decided to quit (although he'll still be playing Latitude, hurrah.)

He says...

"I don't think when I was 16 and dreamt of releasing records there would ever be so much crazy speculation about the person I am and what you want me to be.

"I have become so tired of this behaviour, sometimes I wake up and have to do six hours of interviews before doing a show, then go straight to bed to sleep a couple of hours then fly to a new country to be cross-examined in the same way...I don't know what is left of me".

He adds:

"I have made a decision, my final concert will be this November, a retrospective with an orchestra in London.

"I am not sure whether there will be anymore public communications after that, in fact I am pretty sure there will be none.

"Of course, this has nothing to do with my drummer, but a creative clock is ticking and I have many many projects to be creating with my time left on this earth. I hope to share my last shows with you this year".

Hmph.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Why didn't I have a birthday party like this? It was clearly invented just for me.

"Our parties are recommended for children ages 4-13, but emotionally stunted 24-yera-olds are given priority."

Monday, April 23, 2007

I'm going to be in a play on the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.

Blonde Drama Queen texted me a couple of weeks ago to see how much holiday I could feasibly take off without getting fired.

"We're going to do W;t. Come and do it with us." she said. It's a play about a social rockface called Dr Vivian Bearing who analyses her horrific cancer treatment in much the same way as she analyses John Donne poems until it all becomes too much. It's funnier than it sounds, although it clearly doesn't end well. I played her in my last year at Durham and it was amazing.

BDQ made a "serious offer" today, which given my flathunting of late makes me feel like I'm a house. Maybe a maisonette. Or a duplex penthouse apartment overlooking the Spitz.

Other than saying "like, duh" I don't quite know what to say really because I'm actually really nervous. I'm nervous because I've only done two versions of the same play once before, for that time in Edinburgh, and then there was only a three month gap between goes. This one has a totally different cast, a sporadic rehearsal schedule and I'm worried about fucking up, partly because it's very affecting, partly because Vivian doesn't leave the stage, and partly because I'm worried about doing something retarded in front of BDQ's beady-eyed cast from Eton.

"Old Etonians I hope," said Opera Cat, who's singing at the grown-up International Festival around the same time.

"No. Proper little ones." I'm the token old person who's been wheeled in because 50's pushing it for a 16-year-old. Also, technically everyone is little to me.

"This is like your Mrs Robinson moment," she helpfully pointed out. "Only Benjamin's richer than you are."

"Awesome. So if I fuck up that's in front of someone who could buy me in 10 years time?"

"Well look on the bright side. You could end up staying in the castle."
Sheryl Crow, a woman with presumably the tightest sphincter this side of space, has turned her attention to stopping global warming by telling us to use less bog roll. Rather than foisting horribly smug charity concerts on us, she plans to restrict the amount of toilet paper people use, although quite what that's got to do with carbon footprints and fossil fuels escapes me.

She says, "Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating," (like, duh Sheryl Crow, if you don't think that who the hell else is going to?) "I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."

Under the Crow regime you'll be allowed "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required". This had better be Andrex Triple Quilted otherwise that's not just pesky but bordering on masochism. How does she plan to do this monitoring? Someone send her a copy of Monkey Dust for tips.

Paper napkins are also on Sheryl Crow's hitlist as the "height of wastefulness", so just to show how cross she is, she's designed some clothes in protest (Sleb dating forms must run along the lines of design clothes, stop poverty/global warming/orphan crisis.) They have a detachable dining sleeve which can be replaced after you've wiped your mouth after eating. Is this not the most repellent thing ever? Apart from the fact you're essentially a step away from sitting back in a high chair, it's quite hard to get a good clean grasp on your sleeve and do it without making everyone at your table feel a bit ill.

Bad Sheryl Crow. Bad.
Sheryl Crow, presumably with the tightest sphincter this side of space, appears to have got bored of failing to write any more songs and turned her attention to stopping global warming by telling us to use less bog roll. Rather than foisting horribly smug charity concerts on us, she plans to restrict the amount of toilet paper people use, although quite what that's got to do with carbon footprints and fossil fuels escapes me.

She says, "Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating," (like, duh Sheryl Crow, if you don't think that who the hell else is going to?) "I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."

Under the Crow regime you'll be allowed "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required". This had better be Andrex Triple Quilted otherwise that's not just pesky but bordering on masochism. How does she plan to do this monitoring? Someone send her a copy of Monkey Dust for tips.

Paper napkins are also on Sheryl Crow's hitlist as the "height of wastefulness", so just to show how cross she is, she's designed some clothes in protest. They have a detachable dining sleeve which can be replaced after you've wiped your mouth after eating. Is this not the most repellent thing ever? Apart from the fact you're essentially a step away from sitting back in a high chair, it's quite hard to get a good clean grasp on your sleeve and do it without making everyone at your table feel a bit ill.

Bad Sheryl Crow. Bad.

Friday, April 20, 2007

I've no idea what this is, other than lyrics to a song a friend of mine is using to make her mind work better and transport her back to being 15. It mostly transports me back to feeling useless and panicked at university about the unlikelihood of my ever doing anything with my life, failing my degree, and ending up living in a gutter because I'd get thrown out of everywhere else. Which is cheering. Anyway. It reminds me of things being far more clear-cut. You know when you think that the world only existed in black and white and the shades of grey that my friends and I had battled out over drink and endless, stretching time. It didn't feel like it was endless though, things never do: rather like standing on a treadmill and watching the bit where you drop off coming closer. It's nearly summer now which always reminds me of being at university, idling around doing a play, singing, going for picnics and late-night jaunts. Happy, but terrified at the same time.

Kick the sheets off get out of bed
Good morning, de ja vu
Is this the best thing in my head?
Good morning, now what to do
Look at my day
What's the first appointment?
Lunch in heaven
What a disappointment

I could run away with Captain Courageous
I could live on fruit in Montego Bay
I could run a bar in a war torn front line
I could do it all
But just not today

Good morning T.V what's been said
Around the world whilst I'm in bed
Nothing changes cos we're still being fed
On little white lies and stale white bread

The latest soap show misery
Four hours, every day
I live for them and they live for me
For hours and hours every day

I could free my mind
become a rich man's guru
I could take the time just to feed the world
I could drink all day until I find all the answers
I could do it all
But just not today .....
I meant to mention this yesterday - some fucking fuckers are planning on closing down The Spitz.

This is rubbish.

I've seen some of my favourite people play some of my favourite gigs there, and been introduced to some of the worst support acts ever along with some of the best.

If you're remotely bothered, sign a petition. It probably won't do shit, but if people can get het up about the Astoria, they should certainly get het up about The Spitz.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Gumtree's opened up a whole load of new sections for people who can't find a flat/job/fuckbuddy to waste time on while praying for the fjb to materialise. It includes a thank you section which seems to be a place for people to vent ("St Thomas's Hospital is corrupt! If you're a journalist email me for the truth!") or write little private messages ("Thank you for last night. It was amazing.") and also to write little secrets that nobody will ever find. It's like postsecret all over again, an old curiosity shop filled with the spillings from people's lives. Like this one for instance.

"Thank you Maria for who you are! Thanks for being such a great, lively, friendly person. Thank you for the beauty and warmth you spread around! Your friends all adore you so much! and your smile is the most beautiful thing I have seen.
You take my breath away every time I see you. I can't speak my mind when I am near you - being close to you always makes me a bit shy and wish I could be more assertive with you. But I wish you liked me more. Thank you for allowing me to be your friend .....

I wish I could tell you how much I love you."
Dr David Lewis, formerly of the University of Sussex, and now of the Mind Lab, and most definitely of the “I’m never getting laid again” brigade, has done some research, probably to prove to women that men really are wholly unnecessary and there’s no need to get your legs waxed when you can buy a better snog from a machine.

Unsurprisingly, this essential study was funded by members of the food industry, although nobody’s owned up to forking out, although a MASSIVE clue comes from the chocolate they used was a new dark chocolate from Cadbury’s, so expect that to turn up in an ad campaign soon. It’s a crying shame that dark chocolate is hideous and vile because it is apparently quite good for you: my heart rate would probably go up in leaps and bounds too once I’d realised what I’d just eaten, shortly before washing my mouth out with bleach.

"There is no doubt that chocolate beats kissing hands down when it comes to providing a long-lasting body and brain buzz,” said Dr Lewis, who got a load of 20-somethings to melt chocolate in their mouths and then kiss which seems a bit messy, although also the best thing in the world EVER.

Of course chocolate is better than kissing, it’s utterly selfish. It’s delectably, thrillingly egotistical. You can break a piece off and give it to someone as a cursory wave towards the concept of sharing, but only you decide how much to eat of it and when. It’s up to you whether you mechanically munch your way through, or whether you press it against the roof of your mouth and suck off the layers one by one until your jaws are coated in luscious fragments of goo. You get the breaking waves of goodness smoking their way into your serotonin receptors. Cor…

Still, unless you’re in 9 and a half Weeks, you don’t generally share chocolate with people in the way you do kissing. Passing a box of Roses around the room doesn’t quite have the same frisson as curling your tongue around the inside of someone’s upper lip (unless it’s a seriously good praline in which case kissing be damned).

Although the study found that kissing raised the heartbeat, the chocolate increased heart rates more from a resting rate of about 60 beats per minute to 140. When you bear in mind that the volunteers were standing in a lab wearing electrodes attached to their skulls, and heart monitors, they’re probably going to be scared out of their wits. I’ve had electrodes on my head before and it makes you feel like Frankenstein about to sit an exam. I reckon the volunteers stressed out a bit about not getting the right result that the excitement of finally being on the test made their heart rates soar, and then getting the kissing afterwards calmed them down a bit. Either that or they were too busy concentrating on getting the chocolate off each other’s teeth to notice that their heart rates had stopped doing the tango. Funny that they don’t mention the exact results of the kissing except to say chocolate did better…

I’ve tried giving up chocolate for Lent a few times, and other than the fact I waved goodbye to the Church when I was 9 and therefore have little interest in keeping my distinctly grubby Lenten vows, it didn’t work because I love eating chocolate and have an acrimonious relationship with self-restraint.

The Cadbury’s sponsored-advert of my life will go as follows. I will be played by Julia Stiles( who will be flawlessly attired in a Petite Salope dress and Chanel accessories._

It’s Sunday. Kat (played by Julia Stiles) lies curled up on the sofa with the papers. The delicate tendrils of a Cadbury’s Picnic unfurl in her mouth. She probably makes a Bisto face.

CUT TO

Summer. SFX: The hollow ‘click’ of a barky strip of Magnum breaking off and girl then curling her upper lip around it to stop it falling down her front and making her look like messy toddler.

CUT TO

Most days in Autumn. K (pbJS) making a really gorgeous chocolate sauce and pouring it onto ice cream, then mushing it all up. Or not. Depending.

CUT TO

Cake.

CUT TO

Maltesers Easter Eggs: that lovely cloying malty chocolate in a whole egg. If you haven’t ever had one, you haven’t truly eaten chocolate. Fuck what Europe says, I like “family” milk chocolate. Cocoa content be damned.

CUT TO

Cake, also, éclairs.

CUT TO

Mavericks. Chocolate you can’t get anymore. Guerilla chocolate.

CUT TO

The massive chocolate montage. There will be a tap dance, chorus girls in a can-can line, a large pond and unleashing of doves and it will climax with everyone stringing up Johnny Depp and Gene Wilder and setting the original Roald Dahl free.

ENDS.

(No, not quite ends. There needs to be a kiss at the end, and one that makes K (pbJS) heart go significantly above 140bpm.)

That’s better.

ENDS.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

I got an email from someone at Surrey university a week ago. If this was you, could you email me again as I forgot to put it into my inbox and junk's deleted it, sorry.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

What I did on my holidays: got drunk mostly. And threw sticks down a very steep hill for my parents’ ridiculously over-excited dog while my mum and I sat down and soaked up spring sun.

Last week I went on holiday to Brighton sort of by accident as I’d got fed up of thinking up fun things to do and failing, and so instructed someone else to do it instead. Skirting past the surprise grannies and our general poverty it was utterly, utterly wonderful. Why haven’t I been to Brighton before? Well it’s quite far away, and I have one a bit nearer. A beach, not a Brighton. Brighton is amazing.

I drank Champagne on the beach, sifting the pebbles with my feet. I went paddling, and soon regretted that fact once the charm had worn off and I had to hobble back up cascading stones to my cigarettes. I ate a whelk (or a cockle, they both look like sticky sponge) and it wasn’t disgusting. I bought ice cream off a French man, and walked along the beachfront at night. I was spun around like a gangly carousel, and drank Old Orleans cocktails like I did when I was 17.

It was brilliant.

Later that week I got very, very drunk. Childishly, university drunk, the sort of drunk where you play pool at 3 in the afternoon and can barely see to do so because someone called Harry has just given you sambuca. I even had cocktails, bonding with my brother’s housemate in a ludicrously over-priced faux-Indian bar called Mint Leaf run almost exclusively by thickly-tongued Russians. We discussed the seemingly endless merits of Jilly Cooper and decided that Wicked was probably a recycling too far. There’s only so much sex you can have where you plunge in joyous as an otter, and seeing as Rupert Campbell-Black is pushing 60 I very much doubt he’s still Mecca to most women. Gold diggers, probably.

Falling back to Hampshire, my brother and I had a drink in the eye-gougingly awful Reef bar at Waterloo. If you haven’t had the misfortune of being drunk and thus unable to spend half an hour in Smiths instead, Reef is the sort of place where alcoholics get priests to bless their gin beforehand in case of unwanted reprisals from the dark side.

Peering over the balcony I saw Camilla Batman-Ghelidja below: she’s fairly impossible to miss because she generally wears a colourful kaftan and matching turban. She is also one of my very few dead cert heroes. I flung myself down the stairs and went starstruck. She was lovely and said “wicked” (Jilly would be proud and probably put her in her next book verbatim). I went back upstairs in a total haze and spent the next ten minutes trying to explain to my brother why that was probably the coolest thing that would happen to me this year.

I have no idea how to pronounce Ghelidja, so isn’t it rather wonderful that today’s Mother Theresa is basically Camilla Batman?

Let us now play the first line of article Kat is writing game.

“Until last week I thought that the most exciting thing that would happen to me and a lift would be if the Diet Coke man stepped out of it. How wrong I was!”

Guess what comes next. I dare you. Clue: it doesn’t involve sex or the Diet Coke man.

It’s a bit odd to be at a new job now, having been somewhere else for two years. Sort of lonely. Still, nothing the Edith Piaf film and a trip to Patrick Wolf can’t temporarily sellotape together.