This is a picture that Squib took today of me holding a reflector during a photoshoot in the Abbey National bank in Oxford. Sophie, our model is laughing because no one has told me that they'd stopped shooting about ten hours ago. I, as you can see, couldn't see a thing. The bastards. My arms were killing me. On the plus side, I look like a massive time portal about to engulf Sophie so perhaps her laughter was out of fear...pah, who am I kidding, she was laughing at me - the hige circle with legs. 

Happy Christmas, Kittens if indeed anyone still reads this blog. I'm not sure if anyone does actually - mostly it's people searching fro Susie Dent naked and pictures of Ville Valo. I guess after a year perhaps everyone is tired of reading about my boring life. I know I am. I am thinking of calling it a day. This blog is a year old this week. Happy birthday SKC.

WHatever you are doing - I hope you have an excellent time.

So my last weekend of Xmas Retail Hell (copyright Katy Ross Dec 2004) and it's all gone to pot. Not content with running after shoplifters who are infact not shoplifters at all I just couldn't help myself this weekend. I was on a roll, a bap, a baguette, a ciabatta and indeed, a BAGEL of humiliation, shame and mortification. oh oh ohohohhhhhhhhhhhh why why why don't I just leave and get a proper job?...

Scenario Number One: Saturday busy busy busy, madness, firey flames of customer hell, I am serving ten people at once, cash in one hand, novelty willy-shaped bath cushion/dancing hamster/revolving bookcase in the other, man comes in from outside and thrusts empty drinks can at me, he says...

'Have you got a bin?'
I say, 'er.....yes, (in head: let me just put down the entire contents of the shop, stop what I'm doing and who I'm serving and discard your rubbish for you you lazy, inconsiderate piece of road kill) ok. (Take can from him, put in bin, see him leave the shop. Think - fuck! that guy just came in here to give us his rubbish on the busiest day of the year when there is a bin on the street right outside the shop. I can't believe it. I turn to my manager who is next to me..)
'Can you believe that guy? He just came in here to give us his rubbish and then left? I mean what are we? Binmen? The local recycling depot? Collectors of crap and shit? How bloody lazy! How hard would it have been for him to put it in the bin outside? Honestly, fucking hell, I've never met anyone so bone idol and blind, as if we aren't busy enough! etc etc'
My manager: 'Which guy?!'
Me: 'Well he isn't here now, that's the whole point - he gave me his rubbish and JUST BLODDY LEFT!!!!!!'
Small voice next to me: 'actually I'm still here...' OH NO! It's the man with the can! He is standing right next to me, looking at keyrings on the counter and has heard everything! Holy Jesus Christ on a crutch! FUUUCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! Could I be anymore embarrased? Ummmm, trying, trying....nope, it can't be done. I have reached my full embarrassment limit. Fortunately, he found the whole thing really funny. He even twinkled his eyes at me as he left - probably thinking, ho ho ho - unstable woman at the time of the month. Ha ah ah ahahahaha, bet she's a bit of a handful, god help the man who has to go out with her. Either that or me really brutally insulting him was a turn on. Anyway, the whole incident took some getting over. Actually knowing me, I may never get over it like the million other minor events in my life I just can't get over.

Scenario Number Two: Today, I am eyeing up an attractive artistic type in the card section, he looks at me a few times too, haha! I'm in there! (just for the record: I NEVER EVER EVER think this, it just seemed to fit well in the story telling version of this event!!) He comes over to pay.
Me: giggle, hello!
Artistic type: hello...(his friend comes over too, buys purchases, goes to leave but sees behind me a shelf of edible g strings!) Oh actually, can I have one of these too.
Me: A ha! The lure of the edible g string is strong!
Artistic type: Excuse me?
Me: You just couldn't resist the edible g strings!!
AT and friend exchange glance: I guess not...
I continue: They're great, I ate one off my friend's crotch once! (I look at their stunned faces. I'm getting nothing but shock! SHIT! Bollocky bollocks, shut up Katy, you thought they'd be down with this, they're not, stop talking now)
I trail off: It was just like those necklaces you used to eat a children...only soapier. (NOTHING. PANIC. STOP TALKING!! THEY'LL LEAVE IF YOU JUST STOP TALKING) The g string I meant, not my friend's crotch.

(NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

So there you have it. Diary of a shop assistant gone mad. I think I have now solved the whole 'why is Katy always single?' mystery. Thank goodness....

Tonight from 7 till late into the night on Radio One there is a Tribute to John Peel, featuring live perfromances from many great bands including PJ Harvey, Supergrass, Gorky's Zygotic Mynki, The Wedding Present etc etc. I'm listening to it at the moment and Bill Odie is talking....bizarre!

Dimebag Darrell, guitarist for Damageplan/Pantera shot dead at gig last night

This is fucking awful.

So I joined up to Myspace on the suggestion of a friend at college, it's very much like blogging, in that you can have a daily blog if you want, it's also very much like msn in that you can add people you make friends with to your msn lists but mostly I guess it's just like an online community of on the whole, very cool people. People unlike the usual sexual nutters that try to be friends with you on message groups. If anyone already has a myspace page then let me know cos so far I have no friends in my friend box and it looks a bit sad! I think the idea is you make friends with the friends of your friends that are on there. It's a networking thing. MySpace if you want to look at my page and leave me a message to make me look popular then here it is! Katy Myspace page.

That's it really, make me look popular! I need you to try, lie if you have to - the friend who reccomended it to me has about 4 billion people leaving her messages everyday telling her how great she is so I feel like I have some catching up to do!!

Question of the day is...have you ever had a crush on/been in love with someone you shouldn't/wouldn't normally? Discuss....I may tell you why I'm asking at a later date. Intrigue is my middle name.

Today a bird crapped all over my car. Literally ALL OVER IT. It couldn't have crapped anymore if it had tried and I think it tried pretty damn hard. Bizarrely, the cars either side of mine in the car park were untouched, but my car - coated in shit. I couldn't see out of any of the windows on my way home from work, it was quite spectacular, spectacularly dangerous I should say. Anyway I am excited because, doesn't this mean that I'm going to have good luck? I hope so. I hope this good luck extends to getting all my work done for collage by next week, and then not dying from over-exposure to Christmas shoppers at work.

Anyway, it's that time of year again when the 'I heart Christmas' cd comes out at work and we have to listen to 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday' and 'Feed the World' etc on loop until we have a Michael Douglas 'Falling Down' type moment and start beating the living crap out of the cd player/customers/till/shop owners/each other with packets of chocolate willies. Or perhaps that's just me. Last night was our staff Christmas do, a bit bloody early if you ask me but then Christmas day would be too early if you ask me so no one does and I just shut up and grit my teeth and survived barely by the skin of my neck. At one point there was a break in the 'what are we going to do about all the shoplifters' conversation we always end up having EVERY BLOODY DAY at the moment (complete with 'don't worry Katy's on to it' type jokes - am I ever going to live down the whole After Eight Mint thing? Possibly not...) and my manager said she was annoyed cos her husband had rung her at work the other day when it was really busy to tell her that he loved her. She said, 'I had to leave a queue of about 10 people and I thought something was wrong and all he wanted was to say I love you, honestly!' and everyone was all, 'hahaha, honestly! What is he like?' etc and I quietly said, 'well I think you're lucky, no one ever says they love me' and bam! Silence. Nice one Katy, party killer. After a few minutes of awkward coughs and nervous looks, my manager goes, 'well that's cos you're not married or going out with anyone, Katy' and everyone kinda breathed a sigh of relief that that little mystery was over and carried on - 'pepper spray, we could keep some behind the till and if we see anyone shoplifting...'

BLOODY HELL!

Ok, people. We've all got to go over to Phill's new MP3 blog, Louder Than War and check out bands he says we should. Who knows, we may even learn something. The second Ikara Cult track is very good.

Something terrible has happened, I have decided I like Keane. This takes some getting used to. That'll teach me for listening to Radio One on the way to college in the car because I am sick of my cds and have run out of music to listen to. I blame John Peel. If he hadn't have died, this would never have happened. Please, someone guide me back onto the road of good taste...I'm lost. Sniff.

I haven't really been blogging regularly recently cos I have lost the will to (live) blog but I feel I must post something so that my bruised arm is no longer the first thing that people see when they look at this page, thanks for your advice about that Tracey - I have since consulted a nurse who tells me that I don't have very good veins which was a bit unkind of her I thought but then the rest of me is pretty disfuctional hence the need for a blood test in the first place so I guess this is to be expected...

So here's some randomn events from my life recently for anyone who's intersted and I have to say that I am not interested so god help anyone else who is but anyway...so I was in the hairdresser's the other day having my colour redone and the fresh-faced colourist says to me, 'ooo, you know who you remind me of?' and I'm thinking, 'please don't say Sophie Ellis Bexter...please please please...' and the FFC says, 'do you watch the X Factor?' and I'm thinking, 'please God, don't say Rowetta!' and the FFC goes, 'Tabby!' Bloody great. That'll teach me for humming Bon Jovi in public. Just cos we have black and red hair, honestly. I hate talking to hairdressers, not cos I'm anti-social but because I feel inferior and self conscious enough in hair salons as it is without having the rest of my life scrutenised too. I once made the mistake of lying to make myslef sound more interesting when I was unemployed and at the hairdressers by saying I was a music journalist or something. Unfortunately the hairdresser I was being styled by got really into this and asked me loads of questions about who I wrote for, which bands I'd met, what the pay was like and I had to work so hard to come up with natural and believable sounding answers that by the end of the cut I was exhausted and left with wet hair just to get away. I also think I had agreed to get her and her sister backstage at a Blue concert. Sigh, so anyway when this FFC said I was like an Irish rock wannabe on a tv talent(less) show I didn't argue, I paid her and left. I watched the X Factor tonight and decided that a dying mongoose has a better voice than Tabby, who resorted to letting the audience sing the chorus of his song which to me means he can't sing it himself and to the judges seemed to mean that he gave a 'powerful performance' and 'owned the audience and the stage'. It's a funny business...who's really got the talent? The wannabe contestant or the stylists, musical directors and mentors who have picked a look and song for them and told them what to do?...You decide. Still, it was nice to hear a version of 'Living on a Prayer' worse than the version Rosie and I sang at karaoke at our friends birthday party when we were teenagers. Being 'a little' completely off our faces we started off an octave too high to begin with and then by the time it goes up an octave at the bridge we were only decipherable to dogs and garage doors and many glasses had smashed in the process. Happy days.

After a bout of shop lifting incidents in our shop and our owner basically threatening not to pay us if we let anymore go by (incidentily all incidents happened when I was on a day off...)I decided today that I would show them all how it's done and catch one of the theiving bastards myself like I have done (to no gratitude or acclaim, if you remember) in the past. Only it hasn't got off to a very good start when today I falsely accused a guy of shop lifting what I thought were a box of our chocolate willies, after I had chased him down the street they turned out to be After Eight Mints which are in an identical packet. Fortunately he didn't realise what I had thought he'd taken as he probably would have sued for defamation of character or something. At least I didn't start my assault with 'Come back here with those chocolate willies you big gay shop-lifter you!' At least that was something. Sigh. And life goes on.

I was walking down Walton St today and three chav type kids cycle past and the guy walking towards me on the pavement suddenly shouts at them 'Oi, that's my bike!!' and they stop and after a brief exchange of expletives hand it back. What are the chances eh? You steal someone's bike and then you cycle right past them? Doh! That's the type of luck I'd have if I was a theif of any kind. I let that be a lesson to me and walked on.

This is the inside of my arm. No, I haven't been the victim of some nasty domestic violence. This is what happens when I go to the doctors for some 'simple' blood tests. Perhaps I shouldn't have made that joke about the nurse being a heroin addict. But seriously, is there anyone with medical knowledge out there reading this? Is this actually normal? It seems to be getting worse! Why is nothing ever simple?! 

This is brilliant, for all you cat lovers and general animal dancing fanatics! Turn on your speakers and try to work out what the guy is singing about.

Kittycat Dance

Donnie Darko pic 2 

Donnie Darko pic 1..... 

Some Frank masks I painted. 

This week I am mostly being a lesbian and talking like Goldie Lookin Chain. I fucking love those guys. Oh and I have to say hello to my lovely friend Zoe cos she is currently in GLC land at university and is so far into the valleys that she has had to purchase a pair of fucking WELLIES! I am LOVING this piece of information deeply.

I hear your requests for pictures of my Donnie Darko project, I feel your need and I will give in to your demands soon enough my pretties but I am too busy looking at a great website I ound of men and their love for their various manhoods. Oh yes, it's a site purely of photos of you know what, with other men and the occasional woman giving opnions on the verious members! I would put the link here but I don't want to encourage you all, I know what you're like. I know you'll find it anyway. Behave.

If I have to ask my boss for less hours so I can do my college work one more time I'm going to scream. Oh right I just had to; 'agghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'. I'm a woman of my word. Managed to squeeze a day off out of the slave drivers on Friday though and used it to take a willing model and his bike up onto the White Horse Hill to lie in his pretend pyjamas, barefooted on a high up road, freezing his nads off whilst I took photos of him. The pictures will be used for my Donnie Darko project. Maybe I'll let you see them one day. Maybe I won't, maybe you don't care either way.

Today a homeless man I see everyday outside my shop told me that someone had just left £40 in a cash point on the street I work on and he had run after them with it to give it back to them only to have the ungrateful recipient snatch it off him and treat him like he was a theif. As he told me this, his eyes filled with tears. All I could say to comfort him was that his actions had gone some way towards making the world a better place. Do you believe in karma? Who knows, I normally feel like life is a brick wall that you are constantly throwing yourself against by being nice to people and only getting crap back but on some days I notice that the sun has come out for the first time in ages at the exact time I wanted to take photographs and this is enough to change my mind briefly. I hope karma does exist, I'm looking forward to great things happening any second now if it does....nope, nothing yet...still nothing...

Final thought: congrats to Squib for the great cover photo of Smilex on this month's Nightshift. Is that the sound of royalties rolling in?...Oh my aching sides.

Everything went to pieces a bit this week. You see there's some things that make me feel good about life, some people who restore my ok-ness about things. These people need to stay alive, if they refuse to and remind me of the awfulness of life I am a bit thrown. So anyway, my car who is my best friend (we spend most of our time together, I tell it things I don't tell anyone else etc) and gets me through life, quite literally, decided that in the week that one of these crucially important people should die it just couldn't go on and died too. My little car who has been so supportive and good to me and not minded not seeing much of the world, had had enough. On Thursday it started to shudder and shake and cough out smoke and just stopped. It let me get as far as the garage and then it just stopped. How thoughtful. I still don't know what the verdict is but it's not looking good, guv. So that's John Peel and my car gone. For some reason, the fact I couldn't go anywhere and was completely stranded meant I had enough time for a routine mental breakdown on Friday. Being aware of the outcome of such a turn, I had no choice but to divert the worst by making cakes. Lots of them. I now have lots of cakes. And John Peel is still dead and my car is still broken. I still have a crap job, 4 big photography projects to do in 6 weeks and no time to do them, a sense of emptiness and loss when I listen to music and lots of cakes.

I was pretty devastated to learn today that John Peel died last night whilst in Peru with his wife. I have never met the guy but he is like the father I never had. I mean, I have a father but he isn't responsible for bringing Jimi Hendrix's music to the masses or championing punk in the 1970s or promoting music that sounds like a washing machine breaking down at twilight hours on Radio 1. I know many people who have expressed a wish that John Peel was their dad - it's just one of those things you talk about. I remember listening to his show on Radio 1 in the nineties when I was a teenager and recording bands that I thought were going to be important. I particularly loved a cassette I bought in a second hand shop of a Babes in Toyland Peel session loads and would play it repeatedly. Later in the nineties John Peel came to Oxford and made a Sound of the Suberbs documentary for channel 4 about the local music scene. He interviewed Dustball in bass player Tarrent's back garden and those of us who had done squealed things like 'I've sat on that chair! I've drunk from that mug' or things to that effect. He also talked to the Samurai Seven at the now no more Manor Ground about, if I remember correctly, drinking girly drinks and being sick on themselves, and listened to James from Nought playing the electric drill in his house whilst a neighbour banged on the front door to complain about the noise. What a legend. It's really hard to imagine what young bands will aspire to now, as 'doing a Peel Session' is somewhat of a land mark in your career to build up to; I'm still waiting to do mine. The Rock Of Travolta's Peel Session was an exciting event for everyone who knew them and JP was very complimentary in supporting them and many bands I know. He was a truly sweet guy who is to thank for so much, I really wish he hadn't died so young, it's a massive loss to the human race and music in general. I can't imagine what his family and in particular his children must be feeling now. RIP JP, you are much loved, I wish I could have met you and told you in person.

OUT NOW!!!!! Freedom Road Records presents A Catholic Education a cd compilation of new (ish) bands, signed and unsigned. It features the man who bangs away every night in my attic, causing my books to fall off my shelves and my nerves to fray, Will. AKA The Nailbomb Cults. To get your hands on a copy go to Polar Bear Records, Avid Records or HMV in Oxford or visit the link to Freedom records above and have one sent to you. Other notable bands/artists on the cd include....Trademark, Days Of Grace, Piney Gir and Nervous_Testpilot.

If you like what you hear you can also try to get your hands on a free copy of the latest Oxfordbands Compilation Vol 2 which features Nailbomb Cults, Boywithatoy and some other local gubbins I can't be bothered to list. Go to Oxfordbands for more info. Right, enough unpaid promotion for one day, I'm off to promote nothing in my pyjamas in bed. And if you could see my pyjamas you'd know why they promote nothing....I don't actually own pyjamas...I generally sleep in my nuddy pants...I am not trying to be suggestive, it is a mere fact...indeed if you saw me in my nuddy pants you may suggest turning off the light and leaving quietly...I have very little clothes, I am incredibly poor...I meant little in amount, I don't have very little clothes - as in Borrower size, although my legs are short, my feet are small and I can wear children's gloves...it is unkind to take gloves from small children so I try to only demonstrate this fact when they are not looking...I'm very tired, 7th day in a row of working/college...auvoir.

Hello kittens, I need your help if possible. I am doing a movie photo shoot for college which requires the following props: an axe, an adult skeleton outfit, an adult clown outfit, a man who looks like Jake Gyllenhall and a 6 ft Bunny. That's right my friends, I am recreating scenes from cult indie classic, Bambi - doh! I mean: ....Donnie Darko! If anyone has any of these items (!!) please let me know! I also may require a high up road that over-looks a valley, a red ferrari and Drew Barrymore but these things may be harder to come by

I have now found my animal counterpart. Check out her 'special skills' - the similarities are endless. Katy.

I'd like to thank my friend Sholan for introducing me to my new favourite band Zlad - I've no idea who they are but the male singer sounds a lot like a French Stephan Hawkins and the band in general are no strangers to spiky mullets and PVC. Also they would like to put their ring of Jupiter onto your finger. Genius! No expense was spared during the making of their video or indeed lessons on miming and lip-syncing! It's time for down-splash! Enjoy.

A shadow of her former self (with killer legs). Please resist all desires to start singing The Rasmus. Thank you. 

Squib shows me another exciting day in the glamourous and well-paid world of photography. One day you're photographing Rachel Stevens, the next...although word on the farm is that this chicken is the next big thing. 

Puss in (Car) Boot - a random kitten jumps into my car as we unload cameras on location. Sadly I am not allowed to keep her. 

What? No diving board? 

Weddings are such happy occasions... 

Yesterday in town I saw a vision in a bobble hat, it was my friend - Suicidal Pyromaniac guy. He's not dead. He was eating a bagel and laughing to himself. Life goes on, I guess perhaps the novelty lighter he bought cheered him up a bit and he decided not to go through with it. Whatever.

Bizarre fact of the week: I am now into my third week of my photography course. So far I have had to trace a picture of Marilyn Monroe, cut a duck's head off on photoshop and paste it onto a desert scene, make a collage of lines and shapes cut out from magazines and have used a camera once. That's once. In three weeks. That's less than in a very long time. How ironic: now I'm training to be a photographer I am not actually taking photographs anymore. As I said to one of my course mates today as we all fourght over one pritt stick, one pair of scissors and three magazines, 'do you think this is some sort of reality tv show where we are being tested to see how long we accept the kid's holiday camp type activities they keep dishing out for us to do before we start to get restless and demand someone teach us about cameras?!' It's entirely possible. How long should we give the tutors to stop arsing about and teach us about photography....two more weeks of collages? A month? You decide. Oh well, even if I'm not learning anything, at least I'm getting a lot of quality passive smoking time. Seriously, I had forgotton what it's like being 16, every chance you get - you smoke! Each break I am stampeded to the door by a nicotine-hungry mob of teenagers, rollies at the ready, lighters twitching. I feel so damn old and healthy! My 28 year old coursemate, G has actually given in already and taking up smoking again after years of being a non smoker. But I will resist! It's my last chance to not relive my teenage years anymore than I am already just by being back at sixth form college! But it turns out that not reliving my teenage years is incredibily hard to do; especially when today I spent my lunch break in G's car in a remote village, listening to the Levellers (can you believe it?! It's like fucking past-life regression!) and passive smoking enough dope to give me the giggles all afternoon. So very, very uncool.

Hello everyone with no social life due to retail sucking the very life out of you (hello Katy). Tonight PJ Harvey is going to be on Jonathan Ross's show, 10.35 on BBC 1. If you miss it and you are upset about this, don't worry you can probably catch the repeat tomorrow night. Today on the way to work I was so depressed at the prospect of queuing in the pissing rain for a bus that over- charges me and gets me to a job i hate late nearly everyday that I could hardly move my limbs in the direction of the bus, and up the stairs and then off the bus again and down the road to my shop. Each step was physically hurting me, I was in such a state of despair that I started to plan my resignation speech but by the time I'd walked through the door and said hello to everyone and my manager had said 'oh thank god you're here can you do a new window display and restock the blurgy blurg and paint the ceiling and make me a coat out of magic wool and solve world debt and I'll have a coffee, black no sugar' I knew I was never going to be able to do it, we have no staff, I have nothing else to go to, I am desperately poor, no one listens to me when I say I'm working too much and for not enough money and I'm tired and ill. I tried to have a talk with my manager about the sheer amount of hours they are expecting me to do on top of going to college and how I only have one day off in the next four weeks but her response was to laugh and say, 'hey, you're young, you'll cope!'. Me thinks I am not quite getting my point across. Of course I'll cope, of course I won't actually die or anything but this is missing the point by about a mile. My job is hard. I'm not saving lives, I'm not on the front line of a war, I'm not inventing new pieces of technology that will further mankind but I am having to be confronted by humanity in all it's many battered forms every day and it's not a pretty sight. At quarter to six this evening, I am on my own in the shop due to the rest of the staff needing a fag break, i don't smoke therefore I work about an hour more than everyone else on average (do I sound bitter? Well that is because I am. No one lets me have Goth breaks. It's an addiction and therefore should be taken more seriously) a guy limps in from the dark wetness of the autumn night. I look at him, I can see all is not well inside him. He comes to look at the lighters.

Guy: Are these torches?
Me: No, they're lighters.
Guy: Need to keep buying things, so I don't kill...
Me: (In head) Oh fucking great, someone even more mental than me. Kill what? Time? The moment? Me? Yourself? Your family? The person who ran over your leg?
Guy: How do they work? (I show him) Good cos I'm going to pour petrol over myself later, slit my throat and set myself on fire.
Me (In head) oh actually, perhaps we're about the same...(out loud) Really?
Guy: (mumbling, flicking lighter on and off maniacally) Consumerism....mass....crap....culture of....no one buys anything they really need...(I see a pornographic magazine in his jacket pocket)
Me: (In head) Well I wouldn't say that...
guy: So I'm going to fucking slit my throat and set myself the fuck on fire
Me: Ok. That's £1.50 for the lighter then, please.
Guy: Oh right (finds money) there you go. Thanks.
Me: Would you like your receipt?
Guy: Don't fucking do this to me you fucking bitch.
Me: Ok then, bye.

And to sum up the infested minge that is my job, I would just like to point out that this exchange was the highlight of my day...goodnight.

I really don't know what to say about this but just click on the link and you'll find out. It's my namesake in America. Look at her address, look at her picture. Look at her willingness to service you. Katy Ross

Wonders will never cease, the Manics are still going (!!) AND releasing a new album of brand new material AND going on a full national tour this autumn. Wow. It's like I can't ever leave my teens behind. Time for bed, guys. Come on now. If anyone still cares and I'm not sure I do but it's a habit I just can't break, then full details of tour and album can be found at The Official Website for the Manics.

Me and R met up with E today (the angriest homosexual in the UK) for our 2 or 3 times a year ear-battering on our lifestyles, choice of men, fashion sense (or lack of) and eating habits. We all love each other dearly but it's always a marathon of insults, cutting remarks and derogatory asides followed by hugs and promises to call. I am most at home being a complete bitch and not having to worry about apologising afterwards or pretending I was joking, I also love being insulted directly to my face. It's a refreshing change, it toughens you up. I am slightly sadomasochistic I guess. I could be a gay man, I practically am - I certainly have the breasts for it. It's always a bit of a worry before hand though, 'Am I up for a meeting with the one man slanging match hurricane that is E? Do I have a clean pair of boxing gloves ready? Am I too hung over to even come up with 5 minutes of insults, let alone 4 hours worth? Will I ever convince him I'm actually not a lesbian?' But all performance worries soon disappear when E walks into the basement cafe of the art gallery we agree to meet in, Mohawk sharpened and claws at the ready. 'So, bitches. What's new in the world of Rock Chick? Obviously not your choice of colour I see. For goodness’ sake. I can't tolerate you in black anymore. Every single time we met: black, black, black! It's like being at a fucking funeral, only unfortunately you're still alive and you're still in black! It doesn't even suit you, no wonder no one asks you out they probably think you're going to cast a death spell on them, either that or they think it's an eclipse of the sun. I mean it's dark for 12 hours of the day anyway, why carry the look into the other 12 hours? You are contributing to world sadness. Have a social conscience, have some variety. I'm taking you shopping and you can't buy anything black or I'm going to divorce you! You're on your own, you can be miserable, you can marry Robert Smith, you can live in a hole but I will not be calling you and telling you about my new men anymore - whom by the way is lovely, but I can't talk about him because it'll jinx it (wait’s a beat) he's 6 ft 5, 26, works in fashion and drives an Audi. We have a date this afternoon, does this top look ok? Ah, what would you know, it's not BLACK. Are we going to order coffees or am I going to have to hear all about your pathetic sex lives without the support of an injection of caffeine? (Then directed at each of us individually) Only if YOU’RE still in contact with that man on the verge of suicide, I'm not interested because you don't just have to be involved with manic depressives just because you are one yourself (changes direction of insults) and if YOU’RE still pursuing that hideous ex who has less brain cells than Garath Gates in a coma then kill me now, I can’t take it anymore and you can both do better. Waitress! God the service is terrible in here (me: it's self service E) Well still it's terrible, you haven't got me anything yet, I'm sitting here dry as a boner and you miserable lesbians haven't even offered. I'm appalled. I can't believe I have such insensitive friends and you haven't even asked me how I'm coping with my split from Alfonzo..' It was a lovely day. Later on in the afternoon I bought a black skirt and a black jumper. E loved them.

Today I (and many other people of a more appropriate age) went back to college. It was an experience to say the least and instead of feeling completely different this time around, what with me being many years above school age and what with having done the higher education thing already, I felt exactly like I was 16 again starting my A Levels (this was reinforced by a pointed talk on punctuality after I was 15 mins late - well, I'm used to uni where you can turn up at any point during or after a seminar and no one cares...!). It's hard to say what my course is going to be like because all I did today was numeracy and literacy tests and stand in a queue for two hours to have my photo taken. Also I think I may have signed up for 'Ricky Gervais teaches Stand Up Comedy' by mistake as photography was barely mentioned the whole day and RG appears to be my lecturer - when we were doing aforementioned tests RG (for it is him, looks and acts just like him) had to leave the room to have a hysterics fit in the corridor because something in his head had made him laugh so much. We later found out it was because he had climbed onto a raised bit of ceiling behind us and nobody had noticed. Hilarious. When we were looking at some photographic slides he made comments such as, 'that's Adam's (other lecturer) mum' when it was quite clearly an old man and an elephant or something. I think it may have been the first time he'd been out of the house all summer. I did make friends with the only other person there who wasn't 16, a very nice guy dressed all in black who was popping painkillers all day for a mystery leg condition (this I found out about ATFER I'd made him accompany me on a long walk into town at lunchtime to go to a second hand record shop I knew of...opps) and I suspect is no stranger to capes and the odd game of Dungeons and Dragons. It's early days I know but I don't know how much this course is going to change my life yet, if at all. Here's hoping something will soon.

The lovely Bella came to visit me yesterday. Because she lives in the ghettos of Birmingham I thought it would be nice to take her out for a spot of punting down the river in Oxford, just to give her a taste of how the other half live, so to speak. Only I can't punt to save my life (now there's a funny thought, can you imagine being in a situation where you'd have to do that? Perhaps escaping from the slowest shark in the world? Or a murderer with only a 10 metres swimming certificate?) and Bella can barely walk or swim so didn't fancy her chances either so we pretended that we wanted Will to spend the day with us too so he would punt for us. It was a lovely day messing around on the river and here are some photos to illustrate the occasion.

Hey Bella, did you see that cute barman? Was it just me, or was he looking at my punt? 

No I suppose you're right, who would?  

Will, punter extrodinaire, asks if Bella or I would like to punt back from the pub to give him a break.... 

Anyway, now we've made it clear our thoughts on the matter - back to drinking....is Bella looking at Will, the champion Punter's pole?! 

I'm trying to decide whether to apply for a job or not. The deadline for applications is tomorrow and I haven't got a decent CV since my last computer blew up so I'd better hurry up and decide. Only I can't cos I really just want to live in a hole and do nothing. I'm so crap. I need to get out of retail at some point in my life though, and that point had better be within the next 4 seconds cos I'm tired of feeling shit all the time. On Thursday an old woman I was being helpful to called me a cheeky cow, on Friday and Saturday a woman yelled at me for about an hour about a furniture order that was nothing to do with me and then the owner of the shop told me he thought that things had been stolen under my supervision (which was entirely wrong as I could account for everything he listed as missing). Then today the PDQ systems went down. Tomorrow is my last day in charge and I'm going to rejoice by getting another job. That'll teach them. Except I just want to not work anywhere and be left alone really, I'm not cut out for work. I'm crap. The only good thing about work is that it fills the day and stops you thinking so much about stuff, although on the downside things that happen at work can often make the things you don't want to think about a whole lot worse. It's a catch twenty two.

On a brighter note, Phill has printed up the first part of the amazing and epic in-the-back-of-my-car MC Lars interview from Truck. It's unedited down to the very last sneeze. There is also the part where MC Lars gets my back seat wet but lets not go into that in too much detail! Read it here!!

In honour of Phill's Birthday, which is today (happy birthday Phill!) I thought I'd share with you all this stunning picture I took of him earlier this year. It brings a tear to my (third) eye just looking at it. Sniff. 

Ray's shed, where many a book was written. Now locked. 

In Jo's new house in Banbury. 

I took this last Tuesday in Leicester's Botanical Gardens, it was apt at the time but it doesn't feel so relevant now. 

Angel Gateway - I thought heaven would be prettier than this.... 

Yesterday my chiropractor told me that my nose has issues. She's just started this new cranial-osteoblurgy-something type treatment on me which apparently unlocks your bodies' secret history and helps you release past hurt. Apparently your body parts store all the times they've been hurt in a kind of individual body part memory database. Each bone having it's own history of pain and mistreatment. This concept exhausts me (I mean think about it - each sodding bone suffering individually and needing help? And that's before you even get to the brain?! Kill me now. Life is hard enough) but I am prepared to accept that my nose has major issues, I mean - join the freakin club, matey. Actually my nose is probably aware that I don't see eye to eye with it at the best of times. I can't, for instance, understand why it has to be allergic to literally everything and it probably still resents me for cruelly piercing it when I was 16. Anyway, after 10 minutes of squeezing it and doing various things which hurt a lot, she thinks she may have unblocked something and today I've decided that perhaps me and my nose should go back to councelling cos things can't go on being unresolved forever can they? Time to crack open the emergency therapy piggy bank again and prepare to reveal to yet another complete stranger with no actual answers just how dysfunctional I really am. Can't wait.

Little devil... 

Hello from Leicester! I'm having a rare change of scene and going back to my (university) roots. If anyone else happens to be in Leicester city centre tomorrow about midday you may see me photographinga peace protest that happens every couple of weeks there called Women In Black. Nothing to do with goths more to do with war-related innocent deaths, at least I've got the clothes for it! See you soon...

Oh yeah, Phill told me today that MC Lars said that I rock! This rocks cos he rocks and now I rock, everything rocks. I OFFICIALLY ROCK! I love MC Lars he is such a dude! I'll shut up now. (Did I mention I love him? Right.)

I'm coming out of a black hole and it's fucking great! I can't believe this is what you normal people feel like all the time! You're SO LUCKY. I'm practically dancing and I'm not on drugs. Thanks to everyone who was concerned recently when my blog took a sudden turn for the worse and everything was a little bleak. Well fear not, it's going to be sweetness and light from now on. la la la. Kittens. la la la. Satan. la la la. satan's kitten club. Give me an 'S', give me an 'A' give me a...that reminds me - there are actually some Satanic cheerleaders on the web somewhere, I remember them from way back in the days of Satan's Playground (RIP). Let me go find a link for you lovely people....Satan's Cheerleaders. There you are! Don't know what they're up to these days.

What have I been doing this weekend? Glad you asked cos I went to a truly abysmal wedding on Saturday, where i sat on a balcony way above the miserable congregation (which mostly held all of the bride and groom's children!) all by myself and cried. I cried because one of the hymns reminded me of when i was at primary school and i loved singing hymns even though I had no religious upbringing because i just loved to sing. Something about remembering that happiness and youthful innocence made me feel so sad, also it was quite lonely up among the cobwebs and the couple had all the same hymns and readings at the other 140 weddings we've photographed this year so it was probably sheer boredom really. Then I went to a house party which even though everyone was very nice and nothing awful happened and there was even a damn good freestyling mc stand off to watch, I still felt like I shouldn't be there and wanted to escape. But this was because I was in a black hole and I'm not there anymore, it's all ok! I could go to ten house parties all at once now and probably dance on the tables and mc myself. Actually it's probably best I don't ever attempt to mc. Shudder. I'm cringing at the thought.

Hope you all are well. xxx

I saw Rosie last night, which made me feel nice cos she lives so far away and I miss her. And here is a lovely picture from her birthday last month which makes me feel nice too.  

That woman, who shall remain nameless because I don't want any more traffic getting through to my site of people searching for her naked, was in my shop again today. With a small child that is obviously her offspring, which makes it even sicker that you freaks continue to pursue her like this. Let it go, just because she is a brain box doesn't mean she has no life and will want to sleep with you all. Some people have standards, as R always says to me. She says, 'Katy, the reason you haven't got a boyfriend and don't sleep around is because YOU HAVE STANDARDS'. It's like a bloody disease I tell you, once people sense you have standards they don't come near you. Anyway, this is just the sort of statement designed to make you feel better about being single. I don't have standards, I don't have anything, I am an open book. I have nothing to compare anyone to really apart from utter devastation, horrendous mistreatment and rejection, so there's a good chance that most people will come off better with that in mind. AD says to me today at work...'so how come you don't have a boyfriend?' me, 'because it wouldn't match my outfit, because it's a luxury item and not a necessity and if I have to take the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare then I'd like my luxury item to be chocolate, because the world is round, because there isn't a man gay enough, because I'm actually a badger disguised as a woman...'but she's not interested in my witticisms, she's waiting for me to admit it's all my fault and I'm going about everything the wrong way. She says, 'what are you doing wrong? Are you going to the wrong places?' and I'm like, 'there's are places?' and AD says, 'where do you go?' and I think, 'where do I go?...Well in between stays at the local asylum, I hang out in cemeteries, cattle markets, old people's homes, local records offices, dental surgeries...'I mean where is the wrong place to go?! People are everywhere. That is not the problem, meeting people is not the problem - I meet at least 150 people everyday in the shop. The problem is they don't meet me. I don't register on anyone's rictar scale. Actually the main problem is I have just spent the last two weeks agonizing over something I shouldn't have, over someone who once was awful to me who apparently is in great emotional pain. The problem is I want to help them. The problem with that is it makes me a dickhead. The other problem with this is, if I help them it will involve talking to them and this will involve me probably having a nervous breakdown as I revisit the past. This is the problem. The problem is this prevented me from noticing that apparently some guy 'definitely fancied me' today in the shop when I served him. According to K an D, who were watching 'he went all twinkly', I think it was probably just the new shop lights we've had fitted but I have no idea what has been going on recently. People have been talking in corners and having secret meetings and I'm on my own, thinking 'I served a man?...Was that before or after I nearly took my own life with the pricing gun?' Today two men lying on the grass in the park looked up at me with real distaste and scorn as I walked past them. I am reading a book called 'When I was Five I Killed Myself' by Howard Buton. I've left it in the office at work by mistake, I think this will make my manager say odd things about me.

The point is, there is no point. There is no logic, or reason for the way things are, you don't get what you deserve, and things are just the way they are. For no apparent reason. I need to go to bed now.

Warning: this cat is alarmed. 

Lonely as a solitary balloon on a summer's evening... 

Tonight I nearly got crushed to death under Ricahrd Branson's big red balloon. Sadly, it managed to regain altitude just before impact. Sigh. What's a girl got to do to get brutally squished these days?! 

Oh god, I've been trying to blog all week but I can't be funny and light hearted and give you a link to a website about kittens or cock rock like normal cos I have been lying in a ditch somewhere on the depression bypass, next to confusion junction with a map of the past and a return ticket to a destructive relationship of pain in my pocket and no bus due for decades. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. So I will do nothing. And wish this was a film with plot progression and reasons for events and a conclusion at some point. But this is life and there is just randomness, injustice, lost people and crap. I know this doesn't explain anything but there you have it. I'm sorry if I am neglecting you.

Oh one thing though, I was in Kerrang today. In the feature on Truck, I'm taking a picture in the crowd of Winnebago Deal. Wow. Fame at last. Now I can die happy.

An exchange about facial hair...

Woman with massive moustache in my shop picking an outfit for her son's wedding: oh thanks for your help, I love the dress. One last thing, I have a moustache, do you think I should shave it off?

Me: (brushing it out of my eyes and not missing a beat) Yes.

(I have a real problem - I can't lie when it comes to facial hair, not even to preserve people's feelings, it just isn't possible. Everything else I can lie about, facial hair? Non.)

Woman with moustache: Oh...really? You think I should? It's just that I've had it all my life and I'm not actually bothered by it, it's just I thought for the wedding photos..

Me: You should remove it, yes. Get rid of it. Immediately.

Moustache: Well, I've never done anything about it before - where do I go? What do they use? Does it hurt?

Me: Go to the nearest garden centre/carpenters/vets/weaponary store - ask for their largest knife and slay the bastard before it gets any bigger and comes after me, I mean the world. Go! Run, woman RUN! Now - before it's too late!

Moustache: Perhaps you're right.. I don't want my son to be ashamed of me...after all, it's his big day and the pictures will be there forever..OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PUT THOSE SCISSORS DOWN - FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! ARE YOU MAD?! GET OFF! AGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SOMEBODY HELP! THIS GIRL IS TRYING TO CUT MY LIPS OFF!

Like I say, I can't lie. One day someone's going to be really offended...

Hey peeps, check out a really cool interview Phill did with Misty's Big Adventure at Truck this weekend. And whilst you're there, marvel at the great photos by yours truly (and Squib too!!)!

BBC Birmingham Misty's Big Adventure article

Hello kittens, sorry it's been a while since last I blogged - been rather busy. Spent all weekend at the Truck Festival photographing bands for Truck Records. Between me and Squib I think we must have taken about 900 pics in total and now we're spending every waking minute editing them down to the best. It's a freaking nightmare, Jim. As someone once didn't say. Anyway, I have to go now as I am shattered and ill and have started to get repetitive strain injury in my right wrist from repeatedly clicking on crop, auto levels, levels, grayscale, contrast&brightness, sharpen, flatten and save for each of 400 pictures in a row for two days. I may already be losing the plot. I will post some pics as soon as possible but before I do can I just direct everyone in the world to the coolest rapper to come out of America since the beginning of time, MC Lars. Met him on Sunday whilst he was being interviewed by Phill and apart from being hilarious, talented and highly intelligent and doing a rap version of Macbeth (Rapbeth), he just so happens to be one of the most gracious and friendly artists ever. Photos of the great man coming soon...

Other highlights of the weekend included Million Dead, and Misty's Big Adventure. Anyway, gotta go collapse, stay tuned for photos coming soon!....

Me and W just met up with A in 'Oxford's Number 1 Rock Pub' to discuss life since we last met up in O#1RP to discuss life. Topics tonight included: teenage fiction, at what point you are too old to wear cartoon characters on your clothes (A and I both have Emily Strange bags) Tori Amos sightings, life as a shop assistant cos we all happen to be one, A's rabbit being referred to as 'the elderly gentlemen' by it's vet, chinchilla masturbatory habbits, the naffness of Fuji cameras, the weirdness of not being able to talk to someone you were once close to, Tony Robinson being a patron of A's creative writing course, Eddie Izzard, Dylan Moran actually being exactly like Bernard Black in Black Books in real life and what is meant by the term 'fashion jewelry'. As usual, the night ended with me having a massive panic attack and making everyone go home before they wanted to. I say 'as usual', not because this is the only way I ever end nights out but because this seems to be the only way I end nights out with A. This time though I could blame the hideous femi-mullet taht was sat at the table next to us. Shudder. I would like to apologize to A and say that it really is nothing personal, it's merely a coincidence that when we meet up once or twice a year it happens to be when I'm feeling on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This time it was triggered by an argument about grammar between an American and an English person in felt tip on the door of the loo I was in. I spent such a long time reading it and contemplating who was right that suddenly the walls were closing in on me and I was drowning. I guess this is a hazard of living in Oxford - intellectual capital of the world - it would be too much to expect toilet graffiti that just said, 'Susie sucks big cocks' or 'this toilet is shitty'. Oh well. It's all over now, I'm home, I'm calm and no one died. Only, that's really not the point...

(ps: Hello tigra120. I'm not sure what your intentions are, thanks for the link. What is it that you thought I would like? Sending a link to a recovering agoraphobe about how sad it is to live in one place all your life is not really the best way to go about making friends but I really actually agree with you on some other points. I am well travelled if not actually physically. Emotionally. Perhaps if you were in one place long enough you'd find out how yourself catches up with you wherever you are. The biggest journey is discovering how to survive in your own mind, the biggest risk sometimes is staying put and sailing through. The poetry in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is that the hospital is society and rules and restrictions cause more anarchy than freedom alone. Is this what you meant? Good luck in your travels.)

Just finished watching Rock n Roll High School the fabulously low budget and innocent anti-authority 1979 cult classic starring The Ramones.

 

It's actually funny in places and there is loads of almost good acting from Joey Ramone who was officially the skinniest man of the 1970s. I found the fact that The Ramones had the ability to start playing and be amplified ANYWHERE throughout the film, despite not being plugged in and even at one point being in a turned on shower (how dangerous) really amusing. The sound is appalling, the teenage leader of the riot who was played by 29 year

P.J.Soles is the most cring-worthy, clean cut fan of punk I've ever seen. Despite this she has become a sex symbol and Rock n Roll High School is worth seeing if just for a bit at the end where the students have taken over the high school and are about to blow it up and The Ramones start up playing 'Rock n Roll High School', the head teacher covers her ears and screams, 'oh my god, it's so loud!' and a horrified policeman next to her says 'oh my god they're SO UGLY!' So true, so true. R.I.P Joey.

I love a guy who can express his emotions which is why Eric is my ideal man...Eric Conveys An Emotion...what a fabulous website, I LOVE IT!

Countryside graffetti - a rising trend.