OMG! It's sea otters! HOLDING HANDS! This is almost better than BBC Panda Day which almost had me in a dribbling heap on the floor.

Chris Swishblog did this for his dissertation or something (yes: otters holding hands) and he thinks they're not really best friends but battling the current or something. Which is obviously far too disappointing to take as fact and shall henceforth be ignored.

My brother and I are arguing over which is worse: job hunting or flat hunting. I say flat, he says job. Then again I've just got a new job and he lives in a palace where he never has to do any cooking. It also helps the argument that he's looking for dollars and I move out in July – yes it's early, but I've been looking since last March. I do that: I have a domestic clock that yearns for elegant chairs rather than toddlers.

I'd been job hunting for a week before I realised that I'd never actually been job hunting before and had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Before you start chuntering about jobs-in-laps, silver spoons strapped to tonsils etc, I'm not as fiscally helpless as my accent might otherwise suggest. I've had a job since I was 15 and working in the kitchen of a dreadful pseudo-Swiss patisserie in our local town. It was vile. It was run by a vile woman called Mel who got herself vilely pregnant with a child who, if they'd known what they were in for, would probably have stayed in the womb and pretended to be an ulcer.

Other crap Kat jobs include:

- Life modelling. Sounds glamorous and daring, isn't. At the time, The Archers was mid-way through Siobhan and Brian's fling which always meant I'd get over-excited and move, thus engendering the rage of whichever pretentious artist was scribbling my thighs at the time.

- Bars. Every student works in bars. It's part of the course.

- Box packing. Clutching my degree in French and Italian, I strode purposefully to the temp agency in Durham, only to discover that the only thing they needed was people to pack boxes of reconstituted meat. Yes, I packed meat.

- Victorian street tour seller. Trying to make money during an Edinburgh show I donned my best Victorian garb and attempted to sell tickets in the middle of the Royal Mile. Hideously embarrassing, lasted half an hour before scuttling off to the pub.

- School French assistant. Not in any way a crap job – come on, teaching adorable little children how to make convincing French horse noises for their end of year show? – but had immense backfiring effect of my insisting I be called 'Madame' for the two weeks afterwards and confusing myself with having actual teaching abilities.

My favourite job, in the sense of "I love the fact I did that," rather than actually liking the work was when I started temping in Cardiff. My secretarial-ish course, forked out by my mother in the vague hope that I'd marry a banker, was no use whatsoever so I worked as a dinner lady. I had a hair net and was driven off to school everyday in a big black car that looked like a hearse. In the first school, a primary with cheery Welsh doctrine drawn on the walls in wobbly crayon, I was in charge of pudding, which meant that in the eyes of small children I had a power akin to that of God.

The second school was a secondary, whose kitchen was staffed almost exclusively by bullet-faced females and disenfranchised Polish artists who worshipped at the altar of Vitamin Chip. While I would generally sell my own father for a plate of oven-fried and ketchup, the smell of oil and merciless ignorance of vegetables made me feel like I was leading all these nice children to an early grave instead of expanding their frontal lobes and preparing them for the afternoon ahead.

But job hunting, for a real, proper job instead of something to tide me over between bottles of gin at college and university, I'd never done before. It's really boring and un-fun, right up until people start looking at you like they actually want to employ you. The last time I looked, nobody wanted to employ me at all, and I had to combine outrageous amounts of luck and actual knowing stuff to get jobs that I was lucky enough to adore. The fact that people would apparently like to employ me now surprised me so much I've spent the last week bankrupting myself with celebratory eBay purchases/bottles of drink/expensive bottles of drink with £16 off which means I have to buy them even though I'm already hung over and likely to be very sick if I drink them.

The result, somewhat inevitably, is that I woke up on Sunday going "What have you done you stupid cow?" and my bank have sent wolves after me. I'm sure they must have wolves. Film Joe got a letter from our collective bank telling him he was over his overdraft limit that was dated 25 December. Do these people never sleep? Still, with a new job comes great responsibility or something. Bring out my catsuit.

An email! From a celebrity!

Hey Kat

Thank you for your support throughout my time here in the UK.
If you can, please join me on Sunday night at the Shepherds Bush Empire, London, for the final performance of the tour, including aftershow party.

Doors 7pm, i'll be on stage at 8:45pm
Please RSVP **@**.**

All the best
Steven Seagal

Steven Seagal knows my name! Or at least a PR has managed to give that impression through the magic of mail merge! This should be outstanding.

The man is, of course, mad. I was going to interview him last year (on Boxing Day for some ridiculous reason) so a friend who'd also interviewed him sent over these extra treat facts gleaned from the interview with the suavely fruitlooped one:

— He once encountered a mystical white dog that spoke to him in English and told him his dojo was on fire. He never saw the dog again.

— His favourite film is Regarding Henry.

— He also loves Ringu and other "Chinese" ghost stories

— He owns many pets, including a llama, several cows, Rottweilers and cats. He doesn't have to keep the dogs and the cats separate, as they are all friends.

— The last film he saw was the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. He liked it but had a problem with the lighting.

— He rewrote all of Tommy Lee Jones' dialogue for Under Siege.

Good times.

On another email tip, I am currently locked in battle with some man called Daniel Miller about a preview I wrote for le-cool.com about 300 at the Imax. I loved 300. The big screen version is incredible, really beautiful and spectacularly well choreographed. I didn't find it particularly gay, or particularly hot, just fascinating. The people I was with thought it was the gayest thing they'd seen in months, so I put this into the preview.

Now, despite not apparently having seen the film, according to DM 300 is a "racist, fascist, chauvinist film" and I am a "glib propogandist" for saying otherwise. Bollocks. If I were any form of propogandist I would smoke a cigar and have posters with me pointing my finger angrily at conscientious objectors.

(EDIT: This no doubt mature and in no way poorly endowed specimen of a man has now posted our entire email exchange on his website. Is it just me, or is that really rather rude? While it's quite exciting to be subject to a smear campaign, I do rather wish it had been done by someone capable of using English and not making it cry in the process.)

Three emails later, he urges me to read reviews before I make my mind up (because seeing a film with your own eyes counts for so much less) before finishing with this magnificent line: "In the meantime you are cheerleading fascism, and as such making yourself a friend of the fascism which is presently engulfing our planet. I leave it you to consider whether or not you think that this is a role that you are happy to play."

I pointed out that no, actually being called a fascist made me rather cross, but this got no reply. I asked him three times if he'd seen the film which he's totally failed to answer - I mean god, if you're going to argue about the content of a film, at least watch the bloody thing before clambering up onto your giant high horse.

So then, facts to beware of. If you like 300, you are little better than the Mosleys because while you might think it's about a story that came to life as pottery decoration it's really about how the West is so much better than the East (and how English is the only acceptable accent for anything to do with Ancient Rome/Greek heroes) and that being portrayed as straight is infinitely better than being portrayed as gay (dear lord, Spartacus anyone?) Also, READ REVIEWS. Because they are the law. Pitchfork will be thrilled, Jet probably less so.

Interesting debate on the Guardian about same.

In other news, I went to Slough this morning for a job interview. It is very annoying to get to at 7am, and its Debenhams has the worse underwear department I've ever seen. It was sunny though and I got to do some grammar tests, so it wasn't a total loss, although after my second interview I noticed that my frothy coffee thing had left chocolate powder all the way up the left side of my mouth so I looked like a grubby toddler rather than an efficient and desirable employee entirely deserving of a significant pay increase. Damn.

I've spent the last week re-learning about girls magazines in order to write a feature for Mizz. By re-learning, I of course mean reading, and since that was mostly on a bus in the unfriendly wilds of extreme North London I felt like a paedo of extreme proportions. Although paedos probably live in other parts of London, but still.

Anyway, the feature is done and I had to write a QUIZ to go with it. Now, ordinarily I love quizzes more than I love golden syrup on ice cream, but in this instance I kept on wanting to write "GIRLS! Don't have sex."

Take the quiz, but be warned, you'll spend the next hour using words like "goss" and "snogs".

WHAT'S YOUR STAR POTENTIAL?

1) You’ve got a supercool party to go to, but nothing to wear. Do you:

A) Refuse to go to the party and stay at home moping.
B) Get the girls round and make new outfits from all your clothes.
C) Throw a hissy fit and DEMAND that your mum buys you a new top.

2) You’ve got a school project to finish but it’s really boring. Do you:

A) Completely panic and paint your nails instead.
B) Do it as quickly as you can, then reward yourself with something fun.
C) Bat your eyelashes at the school geek until he does it for you.

3) You win a prize at school and have to make a speech. Do you:

A) Get your mum to phone in sick and pray nobody notices.
B) Thank the people who helped you win the prize
C) Grab the mic and thank everyone you’ve met in your entire life – for 30 minutes.


Mostly As
Scaredy Cat
You’d like to be famous, but it seems like too much hard work. Be brave and you could surprise yourself!

Mostly Bs
Hollywood Sweetheart
You’re dedicated and great to be around – the perfect girl next door, just like Kirsten!

Mostly Cs
Diamond Diva
You want it bad but your attitude’s a bit scary. Fame’s no fun without people to share it with, so lighten up!

According to the Guardian's cutesie little career profiler I am a stress loving mercenary mother hen. Now, pardon me while I entirely fail to realise how it's possible to only care about me and my job when "the people you work with are like your babies. Little children to be protected". Also, stress is rubbish. I'm not fond. Although the whole deadline/last minute thing is quite good I suppose. And I did all my university coursework at the last possible minute. Oh, hang on...

My nemises have ganged up on me: either that or Sainsburys staff are more twisted than I thought. The vegetable section has changed into something out of Silence of the Lambs. The bananas are on the right, breathing their spider-harbouring odour at you, the brussel sprouts are on the left, probably about to masturbate onto your ear, the oranges sit wussily on the end trying to look like they're only there by accident (not Lecter-like, just being oranges).

This being a particularly yoga-organic area of South London, the banana section stretches on for a good three or four feet more than it ought to, but what's with brussel sprouts? You eat them once a year and then they go away to wherever it is brussel sprouts go when they're out of favour. These are the rules, this is the only reason kids will eat their one solitary sprout, because they know it's the only time of the year that they have to.

The idea that people eat brussel sprouts out of choice is incredibly disturbing. It's like those people that enjoy eating cabbage and cauliflower. Cabbage tastes of squeaky dishcloths. Cauliflower tastes of flowery, mouldy dishcloths. They both taste of nightmares. Whenever people try to convince me otherwise, that these are actually delicious vegetables, it tends to be along the lines of "You really need to sprinkle on some nutmeg and lemon juice to bring out the flavour, or whip up a really good béchamel for the cauliflower," basically telling me that these delicious vegetables only taste good when they've been DISGUISED, in much the same way as the Grinch trying to steal Christmas by putting on a Santa suit. Either way, in the end they both fuck up and nobody is fooled.

On the way home I was disappointed to see that my only Sunday religion, the Style section of the Sunday Times, was having a man's week. The Style men's issues are mostly quite boring and this week their bit of totty was the tamely underwhelming lady from the M&S undie ads. Crikey. A few pages on, AA Gill was being reliably vitriolic, this time about the concept of having a hero, with some fairly rushed interview jobs with Style-friendly stars tacked onto the end (Stephen Jones the milliner picks Stephen Jones the rugby player because "We share the same name and my mum fancies him". Shudder. Also, Stephen who?)

Heroes the TV show, I'm fully on board with. It's brilliant. The concept of having heroes though, personal ones, I'm a bit unsure of. I don't even think I have any heroes anymore – lots of people I admire, absolutely, people I get a bit nervous around, definitely, people I'd freak out at the idea of meeting, maybe a handful. All the literary, musical and cinematic heroes have been dulled a bit through having met a lot of the last two sides and realised they're mostly normal and non-starry, except Richard E Grant who I asked to sign my copy of Withnails and went back to work in a gibbering state grinning like some insane lunatic.

So, heroes as of now.

1) Mam'selle at my first primary school. She held regular reading hours with my class where we'd read along to books like The Witches. She read like my dad: every line felt like words were being stitched into our heads on a big tapestry, lots of drama and excitement. If kids had that sort of thing now, they'd read more.

2) The "Angel of Peckham" Camila Batmanghelidjh. Born into a wealthy Iranian family, she studied in the UK before the Iranian revolutions basically wiped out her entire personal history and she had to stay permanently. She become a psychotherapist, and then stopped her mortgage repayments in order to found Place2Be, and later on founded the charity Kids Company. Both help vulnerable children. A woman who makes you feel better about the world really.

3) AA Gill and Dorothy Parker, for making words dance on the page.

4) Whoever invented the name Bohemian Raspberry as an ice-cream flavour. Being Ben and Jerrys it is of course, disgusting, which is why I got Pralines and Cream Haagen Dazs to mop up the disappointment afterwards.