Friendly bacteria

Rick and I bought some Yakult at the weekend, curious to find out what exactly it does.

It's supposed to make you regular.

We can report that it actually makes you prodigal.

Which can be harrowing if your weekend includes horseriding in Exmoor.

Not Brando

I've spent most of this week on a film set doing background interviews. Not as glam or fun as it sounds, but a highlight was organising interviews with child actors. Done as a group, sat on a sofa in a props store.

"What are those?" asked one of the (very young) kids.

We swung round to look. They were pointing at a splendid array of nude girlie pinups.

While the team tore down the pics, I went to distract the parents. Pictures of talented offspringhad already come out, when one parent paused and said, "Hang on - I know you..."

My heart sank. I knew what was coming.

"Aren't you-?"

***

"Marlon Dingle!" I looked up from the restaurant table. A man's hand was outstretched, a nervous smile on his face. "It is you, isn't it?"

"What?" I said, spilling noodle. Lorraine and Paul had put down their chopsticks, and were watching as the man was joined by a jolly, blushing wife with a camera.

"Marlon! You're Marlon Dingle out of Emmerdale." The man boomed, proudly. Waiters were slowing down, and people were starting to notice.

"I'm afraid you must be mistaken..." I began.

"No, he isn't!" valiantly put in the wife, readying the camera. "As soon as I saw you I knew it was you. We've been watching you for ages."

I stared sadly down at the dirty table in front of me, the pile of crumbs, and the plum sauce on my shirt.

"No, really, really, I'm not...."

There was no stopping them. "Come on mate, I know it's your evening off, and I don't want to disturb you, but we're fans. Great fans. We'd love a signature or something."

"I can't, I really can't-"

A pause. A nasty one. "Don't you have any pictures on you?" He asked.

"No. I'm really not Marlon Dingle." I pulled a card out of my wallet with my name on it.

The man barely glanced at it. "Of course you aren't Marlon, really. That's just your screen name. But we'd love you to sign something. Then you can get on with your evening."

Lorraine kicked me under the table.

"But, I'm sorry. I'm really not the actor who plays Marlon Dingle."

"Well then," said the wife in a steely tone, "If he says he's not, dear, then I'm sure he's not. Let's not disturb his important evening."

She turned and walked away. The man went to follow, but leaned over and said in a way that was both disappointed and matey, "It's alright, mate. You enjoy your evening. Marlon."

****

"It is! Ooh!" cried delighted stage mother. "Of course, I don't watch it, but I'd recognise you anywhere."

There were delighted gasps from the assembled stage mums. Except for one who was slightly hard of hearing. "What's that?"

"He says he's not Marlon Dingle, love."

"He's Marlon? How lovely!" came the reply.

A firm hand shot out, squeezing my cheeks. "You're a little chubbier, mind."

At that point, thank god, a harrassed Assistant Director turned up to give me a bollocking for nicking his child actors.

***

In case you were wondering:

So there you are. Not only will I never be famous in my own right, but I look like a z-list 'sleb. Only fatter.

Cashpoint Danger

Cashpoints are now officially the scariest places in England. If you use a Barclay one, you stand a horrible chance of winning a day at Arsenal for you and ten of your mates.

I shall be boycotting them until I'm sure the promotion is over.

The Real DaVinci Code

Terrible cash-in documentary on Channel 4. Does Tony Robinson take you inside the world-beating bestseller?

Or does he walk across a lot of fields looking scruffy? You decide.

The show had no structure, no sense of fun, and no real desire to actually reveal anything. It was a complete shower of cold piss for any fans tuning in for the real story behind our favourite characters such as Noted Royal Historian Sir Lee Teabing, how Dan Brown got the idea for the book, or how the book can be so cack-handed and yet rivetting.

We got a hint of it in the few opening moments, with a micro-interview with Dan Brown claiming the book is accurate in every way, cutting to Robinson failing to find a completely made-up university department. An hour of this would have been quite fun, but instead, it went rotten, abandoning the built-in structure of the book in favour of... well... stuff like this.

ROBINSON: (grimly driving a hire car at sunset) I'm off to visit a man who claims to own the real grail.
(Cut to Robinson walking alone through field. In grubby mac)
MAN: (holds out marble eggcup) My grail!
ROBINSON: Are you sure? Is this tiny object really that which held Christ's blood?
MAN: No. It's a grail. It's not that one.
ROBINSON: So this frail, cheap object with "MADE IN EDIBURGH" might not actually be the only link between mankind and our creator?
MAN: Probably not, no.



ROBINSON: (driving another hire car) I'm off to meet a priest. Does he have the true grail?
PRIEST: We think ours is from the Eleventh Century. But it's covered in nice gold bits.
ROBINSON: It looks like an Easter Egg.
PRIEST: 74 per cent cocoa. None of your Cadbury muck.



ROBINSON: (striding alone through Jerusalem) Is the real secret of God's bloodline concealed here, at the Dome of the Rock?
NICE MAN WITH BEARD: Well, the Templars dug here a lot. But they didn't find anything.
ROBINSON: Ah yes. Tell me more about the mysterious Templars.
NICE MAN: Not really. The pope killed them all.
ROBINSON: But not before they revealed their arcane knowledge...?
NICE MAN: 'Fraid so.



ROBINSON: I'm walking across this lonely field towards a castle. It was here that the last of the Cathars, a group of knights more weird than the Templars, met their end.
WOMAN WITH TOO MANY TEETH: No they didn't.
ROBINSON: So, some escaped? Taking with them the knowledge of Christ's true passing on earth?
WOMAN: Well... four of them sneaked out with a bundle.
ROBINSON: Ahhah! The grail! We've found it! Which way did they go?
WOMAN: Ah. Whatever it was, it took four of them to carry it. The grail's very small.
ROBINSON: What if it was well wrapped in lots of newspaper?
WOMAN: I don't think so. Sorry.

He walks away across a lonely field, hands in scruffy pockets...

Wales Today, Tomorrow the World

Hilariously, there was a local news piece on Wales Today about the new series of Doctor Who.

There was much excited fanboy specualtion about what it might contain. They've obviously never watched local news. They were expecting glossy revelations, exciting costumes, new series clips, and Russell T Davies speaking from the new TARDIS set. Instead...

"wobbly sets... long scarves... disused quarries.... laughable monsters...."

... cut to large fan getting Far Too Excited About New Toys (against background of Franklin Mint Who plates)

... cut to Alpha Centauri Clip.

... cut to nervous man from Art Department surrounded by rubber.

... cut to Monoids.

... cut to Russell outdoors, looking cold, "Fabulous! Marvellous! Wales!"

... cut to rubbish looking toys.

... and now the weather.

Hoxton Hoax - Trashbat

I was taken in completely by trashbat. The tube posters of an Smug Hoxtonian holding a Nasty-Shaped Phone and declaring "It's well weapon" have been irritating me for the last week.

I know people like this. I work with people like this. I despise them and their nasty-haired, sneering cool. I was agonised that finally these fools have their own kind of phone. These twats who think DJing involves merging one R&B record slowly with another, who once owned micro-scooters, who snorted fat dot-com redundancy packages... oh, i loathe them and their twatty hair.

I loathe them for their secret collection of Oasis albums. I loathe them for the fact that they secretly know about wine. I loathe them for admiring Kate Moss's heroin twat boyfriend while secretly hoping he doesn't smell too much. I loathe their collection of ironic corduroy. I loathe that they feel they own the Millennium Falcon.

I love the fact that there's now a Channel Four show dedicated to mocking their horrible, stupid, back-hair infested, flicky-highlighted and self-deprecating fisherman's hat-wearing lifestyle.

Wigs! Commuting!

Ann on her journey in: "I sat next to a transsexual. They were reading an Alias novel."

Paperwork exercise

My brilliant sessions with my Management Coach have sadly ended. They've been rather lovely, if a bit off from the point. I wanted a coach to make me stop hating work so much. I adore my job, but loathe my employer. It's the old trade-off. And luckily my coach understood this, and was terribly helpful.

Out of the door went the Sympathetic Listening, the nodding, and the "How does that make you feel?", and in came "Now, I was once working for a complete shit and... well, do you want to know how I got him fired?", and, "Yeah, people often turn nasty when you sack them. Buy security a box of chocs, and they'll get him out before he's done anything to wreck your career."

When The Big Changes here were announced (and oh, we've had many), he was always there with the right kind of word for the situation. "I dunno how you feel fella, but I think we're screwed this time."

Best advice was about paperwork "Either don't bother, or take the piss." He once found a form so irritating, he confiscated all copies of it, including the masters, locked them in a cupboard and threw away the key. He waited for the storm of protest from the department who logged the forms.

Nothing ever happened.

He currently adores 360 Appraisals. He had to write one for a colleague, and praised his "ability to bond with on-air talent." His colleague was shagging a weathergirl.

So, when the inevitable "Post Training Assessment Form" came through, I filled it in as a tribute to him...

1. Since you have been on this 6 month leadership journey, how would you say you are expanding what you do as a leader? What are you doing differently as a leader that you are most pleased with? Please give illustrations as specifically as you can.

I’m afraid he hasn’t been able to solve the problems that I came to him with. He’s made me realise that it’s just a job, though.

But, sadly, in these last six months, most of the reasons why I turned up to work and enjoyed it (no matter how tiresome and stressful) have pretty much gone.

Thanks to the changes here, my team are demotivated, fearful and rather bored. As am I. I don’t feel I can honestly offer them any reassurance, and don’t feel I can deceive them about it. Just as my job has become unrewarding, I can’t promise to make theirs fulflilling or exciting. But at least they still have jobs.

My coach has been brilliant at listening, being sympathetic, and reassuring me that nothing I experience is new.

I’m now better at writing to-do lists.

Business Meating

Well now. There I was, off to a Terribly Important Marketing Meeting. One I'd been dreading for days.

One of the heads of picture publicity would be there. A man who's suddenly so eye-catching that last time I met him I spent the meeting mumbling and giggling. And tossing my hair. Even though it was shaved.

But I'd completely forgotten that he'd be there. Or what he looked like.

On my way past the meeting room, I noticed a devastatingly handsome man, and couldn't help cruising him in a "oh my word! The Face! The Hair! Those Eyes! Those Arms! The packet! Ooh! The flat stomach, ooh the face..." way. It wasn't subtle.

"Oh! Hello!" said the nice man from picture publicity.

I was mortified. Spent the next two hours staring at the faux-wood-grain pattern on the meeting room table.

The kind of day i'm having

I've just moisturised. With hair gel.

Make. It. Stop.