Fame (kind of) At Last

As a joke, my brother was given a crap low budget video for his birthday a few weeks back called 'Oxfordshire Ghosts' made by a guy called Richard Felix. It looked like it was going to be rubbish but it was - excelling itself in bad film making and lack of self awareness. Felix is a man in a black suit who, considering he claims to work for Most Haunted on Living TV, has no idea about the art of film making and speaking on camera. He talks so exceptionally slowly and with such weighted pauses for (lack of) dramatic effect that years pass and you realise that you have died of old age and have come back to haunt the living and he is still on his video introduction! At the end of each segment he freezes, staring at the camera like he's fallen into a coma until the cameraman remembers that he is supposed to pan away at the end of each part and shakily moves to focus on a bit of floor or wall. You can tell Felix is making the script up as he goes along and that his research has consisted of asking a few locals if they've ever seen a ghost. Now lets face it, when you ask this question it's a bit like asking if you've ever been on a reality TV show i.e - who hasn't?!. We don't actually see a ghost on the video, despite the suspense-building crap classical music but we do see Felix's arse climbing some stairs, a haunted toilet, a gate outside Oxford Airport and shockingly, a grave yard (who'd have thought it - on a ghost video...). This graveyard is 2 mins away from my shop and I have often sat in it amongst the discarded syringes and used condoms and contemplated my life (the syringes came in useful here). Felix tells us that apparently there is a ghost of a woman who walks around shaking her head in this graveyard....I can't bring myself to break it to him that this could be me (see life pondering above for explanation).

I was finding Felix's commentary and lack of camera awareness so funny (at one point he interviews two people in a hotel bedroom half a mile away from the camera and actually manages to stand right in front of one of his interviewees so you have no idea what she looks like, the other interviewee hides behind a wardrobe - I have seen better presenting skills at the junior school I used to work at on show and tell day) that I was almost crying with laughter when all of a sudden we noticed something familiar about the setting of his final haunting. 'I am standing inside one of only two haunted phone boxes in the UK' Felix tells us as he stands inside the phonebox at the top of my lane. 'Oh my god - that's our village!' my brother says, 'fuck'. We sit stunned as Felix tells us that this phone box has been known to ring in the dead of the night and those who have answered it have received a 'ghostly message' and have been traumatised for life. Now as anyone who has been to my house will know, I don't exactly live in the throbbing centre of civilization. Here is not where the action is, here is a small hamlet that barely features on the map, doesn't even have an original name and no one has ever heard of it. If you search for my village on multi map or wherever it doesn't recognize it or gives you a map of a straight line through some fields. It is not really a place that exists - so to be featured on any kind of video, no matter how crap is pretty amazing and to actually have something notable here is surprising to say the least. Although it did cross my mind that the most surprising thing in this story is mostly that if this phone does ring in the dead of the night - who the hell is it that answers it? There are about 3 people here and they barely go out in the daytime. Spooky...Someone must of though and this person must have reported this experience to the ghost hunting world and Richard Felix (a Derby man) saw fit to come all the way down here in 2003 to stroke the phone boxes shiny BT walls. Since the pub closed down, the phone box is the only actual feature of the village. My friend and I used to go and call people we fancied from school on it when we were about 12 and try and get their parents to accept reverse charge calls - had we known it was haunted I think we would have probably stayed the hell away (perhaps the ghostly phone calls are these boy's parents ringing us back demanding we leave them the fuck alone) none of them ever did accept our reverse charge calls....Tonight I drove past the phone box slowly, looking at it with new eyes and I had to admit, Felix has a point - it is a scary phone box - mostly because it seems so out of place - there is nothing else here. I wonder who it was that decided we needed one - perhaps it was a psychic medium workign for the phone company who knew that this precise point could be a direct line to the spirit world.

So there you have it, ghostly goings on seconds from my house. The scariest thing out of all of this however, is that Richard Felix, who has the cold dead eyes of a serial molester has been within metres of my front door. Shudder. To get your local Felix ghost tour video/DVD - go to Ghost DVDs and enjoy, you'll laugh, you'll cry - you won't be scared in the slightest, well maybe by the wobbly camera work but not by the content and you never know, maybe the post box at the end of your road has a ghost in it. Or your garage or your left shoe or your toaster.

I'm so bored I could vomit out my brains and then eat them and then vomit them out again and then...you get my drift. Today I have been tearing stuff off my walls and ruthlessly throwing cds out - I thought I had some great music in my cd collection but last night my eye fell upon a Linkin Park album and things have not been going well since. I blame university, I aquired a worrying amount of nu metal whilst I was there. I could try and console myself with the fact that this was 1998-2001 and the beginning of the genre and it probably seemed cool and edgy at the time but I don't know if I believe myself. So now I have detoxed my music collection of nu metal and I have a large box containing aforementioned L****n P**k cd, Papa Roach, Lostprophets etc etc and I will go and distribute them amoungst the homeless tomorrow. Or something, I don't really know what. The good news is that I have never purchased anything that Fred Durst has been involved in so I'm not totally unsavable.

So did everyone see Courtney Love on Jonothan Ross on Friday? I caught most of it after stumbling in from an evening out - I think she was pretty marvelous, a true survivor. She was more or less together and coherent and intelligent. I loved the fact she admits she still falls for troubled, artistic men that are a mess. Join the fucking club...I was hoping to grow out of it but if Courtney Love can't do it then I sure as hell won't! JC however was an arsehole, as always - apparently before the show Juliette Lewis invited him to her gig the next day but after he'd been interviewed and was a total tit about Americans and the environment and all that bollocks no one backstage spoke to him so he figured the gig offer was off. I can't type his actual name cos my good friend works for him and gave me this info confidentially and don't want to get her into trouble but you all know who I'm talking about.

Have just finished listening to Sharon Osbourne reading her autobiography on audio cd. Not something I would have purchased myself but my brother works in a bookshop and gets lots of freebies - now there's another woman who's lived a life. I must bloody do something with my life, I do try but things always come to a full stop after a while. I'm doing a course at the moment, retraining again, but I had a confidence knock last week and now I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing anymore. I keep planning really interesting photography projects and then losing interest half way through. Agh. I think I may have attention deficit disorder. Attention deficit disorder but no nu metal cds on display - horah. Any ideas for a life/career change, you know where to write it...

Raining. Nothing happening. Send events. Stop.

So I was going to leave retail before Christmas but then I didn't get around to it so here I am yet again wrapping up Christmas decs for people and pretending to be impressed when people say to me proudly after purchasing something 'well, that's all my Christmas shopping done!' and then look at me expectantly for fucks knows what really - a mexican wave? A round of applause? A celebratory hug? I mean really, is it really something to be proud of? I would probably rate saving a kitten's life or travelling to Africa to build mud huts for orphened swans or organsing your underwear drawer more highly than completing your Christmas shopping at the start of November. But we are a deluded brain washed society with our priorities all scuwiff. My pet peeve with Christmas shoppers at the moment is not simply that they exist at all but the sheer amount of plastic bags they use. It seems to be a regular thing that not only will people say they would like a bag when you ask them, despite clearly carrying about a dozen others but that they would also like some spare bags to put the items they have just bought in and give to people as presents. This is amazing on two levels - the first being that environmentally this is shockingly careless and ignorant and secondly - that they think a shop plastic carrier bag is actually special enough to use as a gift bag for someone! I feel that if you don't care about presentation that much then just give the gifts as they are or in newspaper. Hell, just drive by the recipiants house and fling said items at their front door covered in faeces, it amounts to the same message - I don't value you enough to warrent wrapping this for you nicely. A free environmentally damaging plastic bag is all you're worth to me. Happy Christmas.

By the way, I had to get rid of the fridge door cos people were starting to abuse it and be mean which is sad cos lots of your messages were really sweet and funny - thanks to everyone who wasn't an arsehole and used it for positive messages!

Ok, let's get one thing straight. This 'Katy 4 Glyn' business you see above you is a work of fiction and delusion in the mind of Avril Lavigne obsessive and internet radio DJ, David and should not be taken seriously. I have not and never have had a thing for Glyn from last summer's Big Brother - quite the opposite in fact. So please, lets all move along now, there's nothing to see here...lets ignore the fact that David has concocted this little world in his head where I lust after teenage boys with thin heads who don't know how to look after themselves or boil an egg, let's wipe this from our brains and pretend it never happened! And if anyone is interested, being able to turn on a washing machine and make toast without calling your mother for advice is very high up on my list of preferences in a human. If this applies to you and you are available, phone numbers to the usual address please.

For those of you not already in the know, which is probably most of you - the extremely lovely Paul and David do a radio show on UK Nova Radio (Tuesdays 7-9), it is a hilarious mix of genre-spanning tunes and chat with the occasional bit of live music in the form of David on guitar and Paul on vocals and laughter thrown in for good measure. A few days ago David asked me which song I would like dedicated to me this week which is cool and very sweet. Usually they are happy to play anything but this week I couldn't think of anything so I suggested that David play something he thought suitable for me based on what he knows about me and lo and behold last night I was very honoured to be the first record played! Very honoured that is until the opening bars of Whitesnake's 'Here I Go Again' kicks in. Now don't get me wrong - I love 80's rock as much as the next woman, heck - I was even in a band once that got reviewed as an 80's throwback band which went down very well at the time but this particular track is about someone who spends their life alone, walking alone in fact down a road they've always known...let's check out those lyrics for ourselves...

'And here I go again on my own,
Goin down the only road I've ever known,
Like a hobo* I was born to walk alone...'

Excellent, thanks David - based on what you know about me you think that this sad tale just about sums it up! It's the vote of confidence a permantly single girl needs. Oh and what's this? You have just told everyone live on air that I love Glyn off Big Brother too? Embassador, with this musical dedication you are really spoiling me! Tune in to Paul and David's show next week when David will dedicate 'Who Let The Dogs Out' to me and tell everyone about the time I accidentily exposed myself to my swimming teacher.

*Fact fans may like to know that in the 1987 version of this track, this word was changed to 'drifter' for fear of anyone thinking Whitesnake singer, David Coverdale was singing 'homo'. Honestly...

People spend a lot of time trying to enjoy their lives and finding the secret to happiness, having given up on this I like to give myself credit for simply surviving. Three cheers, me.  

I go to a lot of weddings each year for work so I have to survive God on a regular basis. I think to myself during the service - if I can just get through the vows without slashing my wrists I'll be 3 degrees stronger than before. 

Back in 5 milleniums 

Magic in a cup 

I'm changing a few things around here

Look! My photos have gone! The 'Make Poverty History' Banner has gone (I think Bob's sorted all that out now so we don't need to worry anymore) which I'm sure you're devastated about and most importantly - the music section has gone cos man, those links were old! I will replace it soon with something a bit more up to date and by that I don't neccesarily mean I am going to start linking to bands like Razorlight and The Klaxons, if I do this - be sure to wait for me in a bush with a sniper gun and put me out of my misery, I simply mean I will hopefully just link to current stuff I'm actually listening to. I'm not really sure I understand why I think you people out there in Cyberspace give two craps about what I'm listening to but it seems to be what us bloggers do. Speaking of Razorlight, have I ever mentioned my intense hatred of them to you before? It all started whenever they were born and has gone on from there. It's funny how that happens, some bands are just not your thing or don't interest you and that's about it. Some bands however, cause such a physical reaction in you that you have to wonder if they didn't once attack you in a dark alley, steal all your clothes and give you a nasty disease and you were so traumatised that you blanked the experience out but the feelings and a vague sense of who they're directed at remain...but I digress. Oh yes, changes to my blog...music etc. I will post some more things soon and try and replace those hideously old photos with something more current too. God, maybe I'll even change the name again - or the colours - maybe I'll get in touch with Satan and see if she fancies blogging again. What do you think? I was touched by Phill (hello!) emailing me last week or the week before for advice from Satan and to make a confession, that brought back memories. His confession truly was shocking and filthy and amoung the worst I've ever heard. It was almost beyond my Satanic powers of recovery, but I think I helped the best I could and definitely enjoyed getting back into my old shoes and getting my horns out again. It's been too long. All those in favour of Satan's problem page returning, please scream 'I hate Razorlight' after the tone....see you guys soon with newness!

I think I may have actually died.

There is nothing to say - the past few weeks I have photographed a thousand weddings smiling on the outside, numb on the inside, crying at the back of the church each time. Also I was in charge of the shop for 3 weeks whilst Kate was in India, during my reign as head shop girl monarch type person we were robbed, I realised I hated one of my work colleagues so much that I could actually kill her, one half of the shop collapsed because of paranormal activities (we have a shop ghost who really really doesn't like me in particular)and I accidentily signed away a lot of my bosses' money to someone is a fit of stress and unclarity. Then bizarrely, I got head hunted by some posh furniture sellers but seeing as I am trying to get out of retail and away from rich people trying to haggle me down on the price of a cheap Indian sideboard they could afford ten times over every fecking day of my life, I wasn't tempted. All in all - it hasn't been a great few weeks and I realise that I have also lost contact with everyone I once loved, or at least they've lost contact with me, I can't tell which it is. I don't know if there is anything left to talk about really.

I think I may have actually died.

A recurrent pattern for maths fans to ponder..........

* You are alone, no one likes you for ages
* Someone likes you
* You aren't sure about them because you have been alone for ages and don't really know what you're doing/if you can trust them cos you have been really hurt before
* They really like you and pursue you a bit
* You are scared - what do they want from you? Do they want a relationship? You don't know if you can cope with that, what if you don't live up to their high expectations? What if everyone they have loved before is much, much better? What could they possibly want you for, after all they hardly know you, when they get to know you, surely they will leave like everyone else...you back off
* But they seem really keen, perhaps you could just give it a go, it could really help you overcome all of the above, after all you can't be alone forever...
* You start to warm to the idea, you start to like them a lot, maybe they could be the one? Maybe you can do this after all...
* You give in to their advances a bit, you start to say nice things, things that suggest you like them and want to see them
* You start to really like them, thank god - at last! Normal positive emotions! You are saved! Someone loves you!
* Something is wrong, they start to not return your calls, they stop telling your friends they love you and you're amazing, they back the hell off, you ask their friends where they are, they say they don't know
* You start to pursue them, you don't understand...they said they really liked/love you? Where are they? What's wrong?
* They disappear completely
* You feel like an idiot for thinking someone could actually be interested in you, YOU - ha! What were you thinking, have you seen you recently?! Well you won't make the same mistake twice/three times/more than a dozen times in one life time, that's it - you're done with love, it can fuck off...
* You are alone, no one likes you for ages...(Repeat cycle indefinitely for the rest of your life)

There are certain roles in life we end up assuming on a regular basis. These roles may actually be highly exaggerated or even artificial parts of ourselves that exist to prevent the real us from being revealed and ridiculed. A role I have been playing for years has been that of the joker which compared to how I feel most of the time is quite a role reversal. All too often I feel pressure to take on this role of 'provider of jokes and smut' because people expect it and rely on it, whenever life gets too serious, quick get in there and save us all! I think it's as much to save me from the despair I feel when the world seems bleak, as anything else. This role was decided for me a long time ago. One person who always relies on me for this is my best friend R, she always bigs me up to her friends who haven’t met me and asks me to come to things so I can make her and everyone else laugh with my stories of the time a goth threw up on me or the time I did a porno shoot in my bathroom or the time I beat up the milky bar kid. It’s very flattering but sometimes exhausting. Anyway, such a time occurred on Saturday when we went out for R's birthday. Muchos wine was consumed on my part to make up for the fact that I really didn’t feel like being that girl but I knew I would have to be and also to compensate for what at first felt like rather conservative company. Didn’t take long for the rebel inside me that likes to shake things up a bit and test people to their natural limits started to rouse itself as the very sweet girl next to me started to tell me about her garden and how they'd spent all afternoon clearing...ok, I have to stop there with the description of her gardening cos it's too boring but you get the gist. We were in some Thai place that comes highly recommended - I am ignorant of any food that isn't chocolate and was letting everyone else order for me until my eye fell upon the 'Sticky Rice' option on the menu. This is when I saw R looking expectantly at me and sighed internally, 'I wonder how they make that...?' I pondered to the table, R flashes E a 'here we go, Katy's back' kinda glance and normal service is resumed (‘I think they use some sort of glaze…’ sweet girl next to me offers). Then when it arrived in a small, heated bag resembling a condom and was in the shape of a perfect bottom I was like Homer in chocolate land...R breathed a sigh of relief, she later told me she had been worried about me cos she relies on me for entertainment and ice breaking and I had been quite quiet at the start of the evening. However after an evening of being the filthy clown of smut, telling my various Top Ten hilarious moments of Katy's sad life as hand picked by R and attempting to lure R's straight female friend M into an intimate game of 'I know I'm a girl and you don't normally but you know you want to really' I felt I had earnt my wage for the night. Especially when afforementioned quite sexy straight friend who looked and sounded a lot like Shirley Manson planted a kiss on my mouth (obviously lesbianism was beginning to appeal) at the end of the night followed by an invite to Glasgow to check out sticky rice up there any time I wanted to (r - 'You rock, you even managed to pull M!! ahahaha - next time I'm bringing F, she hates the thought of girl on girl'). I would have staggered home to bed happy had it not been pointed out after all my hard work that I was ‘just like Richard off of Big Brother’ GREAT. You know it might be time to tone down the sexual innuendo and suggestive comments when someone compares you to a 'sexual terrorist' everyone hates….yikes. I'm not a sexual terrorist, I just like to be held - will people please stop expecting me to be filthy and spank them?! Plus, can I help it if the other condom of sticky rice looked like a vagina ('what did she say?' chorused around the room, ' your rice' I repeated, 'it looks like a vagina', ‘I can‘t believe you just said that‘ - sweet girl next to me ‘oh for god‘s sake woman, get a life and a hand mirror‘ - me) - someone had to say it. Maybe taking the sticky rice arse to the pub with me afterwards was a step too far but R loved it and I love her and she's the only person's opinion I care about.

This is the sort of thing that makes me almost interested in football, but then I get over it. It's the campest referee you'll ever see! Camp Referee. I'm not sure if it's for real but I really hope so! Enjoy.

At last! You can now download a whole Nailbomb Cults album FOR FREE! Artwork and everything! Just released, 'Built??? Nailbomb Cults 2001-2004' is a collection of the best of the frantic musical attack on the senses that is Will Nailbomb. View it and download it here! Then check out the cats below.... 

Cats that look like Hitler, anyone? Go on, you know you want to. That's made my day.

People ask me when I will blog again. I just don't know is the answer, when life actually starts being funny again. Ok, here's something that was funny, Laura told me today over cocktails after work - each time you leave your make-up on when you fall asleep it adds 8 YEARS to you. Wow. Oh no, wait she got it wrong, we laughed a lot - it's 8 DAYS. Can you imagine if it was the former though?! Oneday you're young, light-footed and nimble, you leave your make-up on over night and when you awake - bang! Grey hair, wrinkles, you can't remember anything and when you sneeze you pee a little. Actually that's me now and I'm only 27. Bugger. Speaking of sneezing, I have become addicted to it, I just can't stop - I can't sleep at night cos I want to sneeze, I wake up early needing to sneeze - I sneeze many times before and on the way to work and sometimes I even sneeze infront of customers. It has taken over my life, it's getting harder and harder to diguise, I'm sure people are starting to talk. I wonder if there's a Sneezers Anonymous I could go to ('for those about to sneeze - STOP'). Anyway, it's destroying my life and seems to happen to me every year in the summer, it drains me and makes me really unattractive and snotty. If I don't get help soon I may never have children cos I will sneeze out my ovaries and plus no one will fancy me to inpregnate me in the first place because I look so horrendous. It's time for some action. It's either an addition to sneezing or hayfever, I can't decide.

I was in a bad place last night and I don't mean Milton Keynes, but the one thing that did make me smile briefly was seeing that the Finland metal outfit, Lordi had won the Eurovision Song Contest. Sometimes the world looks like it may be improving, sometimes there is a flicker of hope that everything isn't just a string of random uncontrollable events that lead to great amounts of pain, maybe the world has a sense of humour after all.

I'm at work, listening to Aretha Franklin as rain lashes down outside....feeling tired, jaded and poetic. Hope everyone else is happy.

Absolutely nothing makes any sense to me tonight.

Hello world, you disappoint me. More on that later. I haven't posted in a while - this was purely a ploy to make it look like I have a really busy and exciting life. Ho ho ho, if only. No actually, I have been occupied with many things - mostly photographic. Firstly I must answer your pleas to know why that bastard customer called me disgraceful a few weeks back, well it was all over a piece of tissue paper would you believe?! Yes you heard me right, A PIECE OF TISSUE PAPER. But my friends, in my opinion it was a piece of tissue paper too far. I'm not going to explain further, it's really too dull but it was just one of thsoe bizarre retail situations that gets out of hand and I'm not standing for it anymore! I told him what I thought of him and there was a small scuffle, a gun shot went off, the police were called..hang on, I'm getting carried away - there were no guns (sadly, the shop owners knowing me and my fragile sanity, do not allow us to bring guns to work - the place would be a very different shop if they did cos well, I'd probably be in jail by now and not working there...but I digress) Speaking of anger managment, last week in what was possibly one of the greatest moments of my short life, I took on the Milky Bar Kid in a battle to the death in defense of 2 people I love! I think if you're going to have like one fight in your whole life and then spend the rest of the time being a pacifist and encouraging diplomacy and verbal conflict resolution, let that one fight be with the guy who used to be the Milky Bar Kid when he was 7. Maybe I have anger issues, maybe the ex MBK just chose the wrong time of the month to stand at the front of my brother's amazing headlining gig at the Cellar and openly mock him with offensive wanking gestures, beer throwing and booing, but to be honest seeing him push my friend Anna and call her a 'fat slut' would have riled me at any time of the month and I went for the bugger. I can't really remember much cos it was a bit of an out of body experience but apparently according to eye witnesses, I threw my drink complete with mammoth ice cubes in his face, pushed him to the floor and then set onto him like a crazed she-bitch before being dragged off him by my friend and being taken to the loo to calm down whilst screaming the words 'I don't need to calm down, I need to kill that bastard'. What a great experience. I can understand why people go out on a friday night looking for fights, the adrenalin rush was amazing. But seriously kids, don't use violence to solve issues - leave that for the politicians and terrorists.

I've seen some amazing films recently - for anyone who wants something to rent here's some suggestions.....

*****Me and You and Everyone We Know (a truly beautiful, vibrant, unique portrayal of two odd balls falling in love and all their various children, neighbours, friends etc - such a positive message and upbeat ending and makes you feel good about life)
***Happy Endings (starring the gorgeous Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Coogan - darkly funny, original, painful, brillinatly acted)
***Jarhead (if you were unsure about whether you fancied Jake Gyllenhaal or whether war is pointless and disgusting and if men don't need much encouragment to become arseholes in that situation then after watching this you will know that yes you do, yes it is and no they don't)
*****Inside I'm Dancing (so very very very life changing and funny, 2 disabled friends break away from the secure unit they live in to have the independence of their own house, it'll break your heart and make you think about things differently)
**The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (watch Marilyn Manson have sex with a small boy dressed as a woman - ok, so not actually - they couldn't have filmed it but that's what is happening, disturbing and raw)
*****Mysterious Skin (god, this was upsetting with it's scenes of child abuse and the rape of a rent boy but so well acted and such a departure in style for Joseph Gorden-Levitt who is best know for his roles in Third Rock From The Sun and 10 Things I Hate About You)

Ok, I have lots more to say but I'll leave you with this to be going on with. Sleep tight, kittens.

A customer told me he thought I was disgraceful today. I guess I am, I mean not half as disgraceful as I'd like to be. In fact if I didn't spend so much time worrying about the consequences of things or what people think or what I look like I'd probably be disgraceful all the time.

As I may or may not have mentioned a couple of zillion times, I was not supposed to spend my working life in a shop selling leather furniture to city dwelling academics and novelty aprons to students, there was a time when it was expected that I would do a drama degree and then become a working actress, playwright or something along those lines. When I was doing A Level Drama my teacher was a fromidable midget woman who struck fear into the hearts of many and reduced teenage girls to tears on a regular basis during each big production/exam piece/lesson/minute of the day. She, however, was not too horrible to me. I didn't technically like her too much but I think she liked me because I would quite often end up writing the plays we produced for our exams and doing extra bits like composing music and learning my lines on time. I wasn't doing any of this to please her, I just really loved it. So she fully expected me to go far I think, further at any rate than 10 miles down the road to a gift and home furnishing shop - where the most acting I do is pretending to give a crap every day when talking to customers about whether that lamp will look good in their art deco lounge or about the fact that the mirror they bought last Thursday smashed on Friday and disfigured their gerbil. I am not guessing that she expected more of me, I actually know she expected more because once a month she comes into my shop to buy a card and tells me. The first time it happened I was offended, it went a bit something like this..

Her: (In complete shock at seeing me behind counter of shop on a Saturday, 6 years after leaving school) 'Katy!'
Me: Hello Mrs X
Her: 'Do you work here? (Complete disgust)
Me: 'Yes, yes I do' (hangs head in mock shame)
Her: 'But...(struggling to understand)...you went to university, didn't you?'
Me: 'oh yes'
Her: 'And you finished your degree, did you not?'
Me: 'Yes I did'
Her: 'And now you're working here (in a shop)?!
Me: 'Yes I am. You aren't imagining it. I have a good drama degree from the third best Performing Arts university in the country and now I'm working in a shop - anyhoo, it's been a blast catching up but if you don't mind, I have to serve the next person....' (Mrs X leaves shaking her head in amazement)

Basically, we've had pretty much the same conversation every time she's been in over the past 2 years - except now instead of bewilderment, she looks at me with this sarcastic twinkle in her eye, like we have this great 'in joke' together about how disappointing and crap my life has been and how I haven't fufilled any of my potential by not actually having won an Oscar yet.

Last Saturday morning, almost directly after the whole Kiera Knightly thing, in walks Mrs X for her monthly dollop of self esteeem destruction. 'Still here, Katy?!' she chuckles to me, eyes laughing, eyebrows raised, voice scornful. 'Of course' I say to her, unblinking 'we don't close until 6, it would be irresponsible of me to leave sooner' and walk away. Next week I am going to go back to my old secondary school where she has taught for the past 15 years, walk confidently into the drama department, look amazed to see her and gasp with disgust,

'STILL HERE, MAUREEN?!'

Because, quite frankly, enough is enough. No one should have to be ridiculed on a regular basis by their teachers 9 years after leaving school!! It's just not how life is supposed to go. Anyway, what with all my acting training I should be able to get the tone and pitch spot on so she knows never to darken my (shop) doors again. Wish me luck.

Today, into my small independent giftshop on a side road off the city centre of oxford, walked Hollywood starlet and Oscar-nominated Keira Knightly. As we gazed at her stunned and all agog, internally screaming 'Jesus Holy Christ on a crutch - a properly famous person who isn't Susie Dent from Countdown or the guy who used to play the doctor in Eastenders, or Anne Diamond but one who has just sat next to Jack Nicholson at the Oscars, starred in two films with Johnny Depp, snogged Orlando Bloom and was completely miscast in Bend It Like Beckham' - she proceeded to head straight for our fake flower section with her male companion and spent a short time playfully putting them behind his ear and generally messing about. Then as quickly as she had arrived in our meagre little unfamous lives, she left again. We didn't speak at first and then slowly, as the hugeness of what we had just witnessed dawned on us, the garbled sentences came out of our mouths, tumbling in uncertain torrents of confusion and excitement, 'did you just see...?', 'was that...?', 'I can't believe...' But a 4 hour stint of rewinding and reliving the moment on our instore cctv camera prooved time and time again that we hadn't imagined the event to brighten up an otherwise dull and monotomous day in shopland - it had actually happened. Wow. Isn't it weird when you realise that potentially anyone that exists in the world today could walk into your life at any time and with this theory in mind there is no reason why Jake Gyllenhall won't be next to peruse our novelty mugs and pearl jewellery. I'm going to have to start brushing my hair for work again and with view of getting back into acting - reciting Brecht monologues loudly at staggered intervals just in case someone influential is listening.

Dear LORD, how could this have passed me by?!!! It's fabulous! Google Idol. When I was about 10 this is totally the sort of thing I would have done had the internet been invented. My best friend at the time, Catherine and I would more or less do this in our bedrooms and lounges - put on little concerts where we would mime and dance to all the latest hits from the top ten in stupid costumes and to great comedy effect. often performing to audiences of family members and other friends who were no doubt in awe of our musical and comedy talents. Fner. I'm sure we'd have won Google Idol! Anyway, go check this out and marvel at how much contestants Kelly adn Pomme (who my brother claims reminds him of me and Catherine 17 years ago) absolutely RULE!!! then click on past competitions and check out Rebekah and Dave - legends in their own living room. Literally. Amazing stuff, I wish I was young again. Also - if Paul and Dave are reading this - I totally 100% think you should enter - you guys would win this!

My latest internet addiction is online Boggle. For the past week I have been playing complete strangers who obviously spend their entire lives scanning dictionaries for 4 and 5 letter words and who beat me so badly I have lost before I have begun. So basically I want you guys to sign up and challenge me so I can at least be beaten by people who know me! Go to Joggle and sign up. Then search for me under players (my username is littlemanic1). I hope to play some of you guys soon and then after that, get a life.

So, as of last Friday I have reached the grand old rock star death age of 27; the age that many prodigal troubled geniuses find it hard to live beyond. Some examples from the '27 Club' are: Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison (The Doors), Kristen Pfaff (bass guitarist, Hole), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (founding member of Grateful Dead)...As I recover from my hangover and pack away the birthday cards I can feel my own will to live waning. The desire to drive off a cliff or shot myself in the face, or inject large quantities of drugs into my veins is growing stronger by the day. Actually these feelings are no stronger than usual, I think I may actually survive the year. I guess this means I am not a prodigal genius....oh well. Having reached 27 and not actually done anything constructive with my life yet I have come to terms with this already.

To mark my birthday this year and possibly to prevent me from joining the 27 club, my brother gave me Pride and Prejudice on dvd and a tub of Clover margarine. This is not as dodgy as it sounds and has nothing to do with lubrication, it has entirely to do with the thing that made me laugh the most in 2005: last autumn, Will and I went to see Pride and Prejudice at the cinema and Will accidentily took a tub of margarine with him. That was the event of the year for me, it made me laugh so much I was almost removed from the auditorium for ruining the opening credits for everyone else. It may not sound like it would be funny but let me tell you, there is absolutely NOTHING funnier than someone producing a tub of margarine from their bag in a cinema at the beginning of a period drama instead of the bag of sweets they were expecting. Seriously, it was the funniest event of the last 12 months. Don't look at me like that, it's been a depressing 12 months.

To everyone who forgot my birthday, I expect pots of marg in the post asap by way of an apology.

I'm so happy that Jake Gyllenhaal won best supporting actor at last night's Baftas. God, I love that boy - he makes me want to be an actress again! He's so talented, so intelligent, so smiley and warm-seeming yet with a hint of darkness! He certainly is a beautiful and unique talent. A very natural actor who seems to work on some kind of perceptive instinct and understanding of human emotion often lacking in so many actors. I hope he continues to choose important, thoughtful roles that challenge and educate the world. If any of you haven't seen Brokeback Mountain yet, shame on you - get yourselves down to the nearest cinema immediately! The world is changing - be a part of it.

Valentine's Day again. Today in the land of retail, loved-up people in a frenzy of last-minute madness bought all the shit cards we had left and frantically tried to decide between the chocolate nipples and the chocolate willies. The manager of a restaurant around the corner who is sleazy beyond words, bought a card that says 'good in bed' on it, winked at me and told me to have a good night . I thought, any night without him winking at me would be a great night. Some poor person, ie: the recipient of the card, is not going to be so lucky. My last customer of the day was a lady on the phone, irrate because she thought we'd over-charged her for a card - she demanded we refund the two pounds and money for parking and petrol to come get the two pounds. And I was thinking, 'where is the love, people? Where is the goddamn love?' Obviously whoever she was buying the card for was not worth an extra two pounds. Happy Valentine's Day, Madam - do call again soon. At least she has someone to be overcharged whilst buying a card for - you can't put a price on that. After work I made my solitary way back through the evening streets - couples setting out for their romantic meals push me off the pavement into the road, smelling of perfume and freshly washed hair, single red roses in hands, excitement in eyes. On the bus I have to stand, a woman with a heart-shaped helium balloon was unaware that it was hitting me in the face everytime the bus bounced slightly. And so it is, over for another year. Thank God.

Love is a gay Flamingo

The cockles of my cold, dead heart were warmed today when I heard about the enduring love story of Carlos and Fernando - Slimbridge's first gay Flamingo couple! The two male Flamingos have apparently been together for 5 years and have raised 3 chicks between them. Apparently the other Flamingos around them have completely accepted them and don't question their right to be parents, call them names or graffeti their nest with homophobic slogans. This is probably because animals are more intelligent than humans. You can read more about the happy couple at Pink News. Aw.

OK, MSCL fans - prepare yourself. This is Jared Leto. No, not Daniel Beddingfield and Elton John's lovechild after a meal of 18 pies, 42 crispy creams and a small hippo, Jared Leto. Beautiful, delicious, sex symbol, teen dream, Jared Leto. Fat for his new movie role as Mark Chapman, John lennon's killer in Chapter 27. What? Crying? Me?...I just have something in my eye... 

Today’s topic is what to do if you are, like me - a shop assistant and the world seems to think you will put up with anything and any kind of treatment because the customer is always right. Well as I'm sure you will know by now, in my opinion the customer is very rarely right. In fact - they are barely developed human beings with social skills and morals and I have had to put up with them and their annoying ways for far too long (we're talking years here, best not state how many or I will lose my high somewhat). Today, I made a stand for mistreated shop assistants everywhere and told a customer to simply just fuck off. It was one of the most cathartic experiences I have had in a long time. It was more up-lifting than most therapy I've had and the equivalent to a 30 minute jog or a Terry's Chocolate Orange in mood-liftance. I feel so much lighter now. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I have asked my brother to come and visit me at work tomorrow and pretend to be an annoying customer just so that I can tell him to fuck off and have the experience all over again. So anyway, back to today....

Imagine the scenario, I am a young female shop assistant minding my own business, looking around my shop for signs of customers in distress when I spy a man in his fifties staring at me in the kind of way people do when they want to get a shop assistant's attention but have lost the ability to speak and simply say 'excuse me, can you help me?' (This happens all the time, it is one of my major retail gripes - after all, when you sign up for the job no one offers you mind-reading and eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head training, but I digress) So I smile at this staring man and say, 'hi, can I help at all?' to which I am surprised to find that said customer does not need help, he needs to make the fatal error of joking, 'no thanks, I'm happily married!' OH NO! BIG MISTAKE, MATEY! BIG MISTAKE! I was not offering you sexual favours, I am not a prostitute, this isn't that porno you were watching last night after your wife went to bed early, you should be so GODDAMN lucky. RED LIGHT! WARNING! I am not amused, I am so far from amused, amused is a dot to me. Although for some reason, a girl next to him is, she is laughing - she has no respect for her sisterhood and should be shot. Upon my failure to die laughing, said gentlemen says to laughing girl 'oh at least someone around here has a sense of humour!'

In my brain, you could hear a pin drop. It's one thing for some disgusting old man to joke that I was offering to have sex with him on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of a gift shop but it's quite another for someone to attack the only thing I have - my sense of humour - which as you all know is bloody fantastic. I literally could win awards for it, I can see the funny side of many a thing. So needless to say I saw red. It wasn't pretty - I said a few things about appropriate jokes between men and women, young and old, sexism, sexual harassment, offensiveness, I may even have used the word ‘saucy’ which I never normally do, I don’t recall, the only bit I remember is finishing with 'Fuck you' and walking away with Mexican waves and rounds of applause from adoring fans and supporters in my head. That was the best part, that was the climax of many years of customers and their pathetic jokes you are obliged to laugh at out of some strange unspoken etiquette between customer and shop worker that says, 'the customer is not just always right, they are also hilarious, intelligent, interesting and have great views on things like race relations, animal rights, immigrants, sexual politics and the death penalty that you totally agree with' well no fucking more.

Only last week 3 ladies from London were in the shop complaining to me that you can't park anywhere in the city close to the restaurants and shops which is so frustrating, every time they come to Oxford they can't park etc etc. This is because oxford is massively congested and polluted and is attempting to be green by enticing people away from driving into the centre. I suggested the park and ride which is convenient, cheap and green and they poo-pooed it, cos like, they didn't know where the bus stops were! It's only a matter of asking ladies, I’m right here, a fountain of knowledge - in front of you - just hit me with the questions, come on - do it! Then they started talking about how the Japanese kill whales and isn't it terrible and they have funny ways over there, very much like those Hindu people who don't hold the door open for women and the Chinese who...and they looked at me as if I was supposed to agree with them and their racist generalisations and misunderstanding of other cultures....what am I? Brain dead to the point of agreeing with whoever speaks the loudest and most convincingly?!

Also, don't get me started on the woman complaining that the animal rights protestors were blocking the centre of town again so she couldn't get to Marks and Spencers and don‘t they have any consideration for the elderly?!

I hate people sometimes. But I got a moral victory today so I must sleep well in the knowledge that I have done my bit for stopping pervy old men in their tracks.

A few years ago I read a book called Don't Sleep With Your Drummer by American author Jen Sincero, I think I even wrote a post about it on here telling you all to read it. The book tells the hilarious story of one woman's last ditch attempt at being a rock goddess by starting a band in her late twenties. It's so bloody funny I felt the desire to tell the world about it, especially since having been in bands myself, I found her account of the experience completely spot on. So, I wrote some worshipping review on Amazon.co.uk which I forgot about until I read that she'd published another book on my second favourite subject called The Straight Girl's Guide To Sleeping With Chicks. This book is a literal handbook on all things girl on girl for anyone considering it. Again, you will need to wear some kind of adult nappy whilst reading this book as Sincero writes with such humour and sass that you may lose control of your bladder a few times. It's a pleasure for someone to write in such a refreshing way about the lack of need for sexuality labels in modern life - after all, we girls are bloody lucky, it's so much less of a personal disaster for us to dabble in homosexuality. No really, it is - get over it - you know you all want to. So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I decided to go to look at the official Jen Sincero website for the first time last night, don't know why it took me so long but hey - look what I found on the book review page - me! Lil old me - she has read my words and wants others to aswell! It's a joyous moment in Katyland - up there with the summer I wrote 5 whole reviews for an independent music magazine and single-handedly had a hand in it's bankruptcy and eventual fold! Horah! Go see for yourself kittens, your favourite sometimes photographer sadnessmonger, destined for a life in retail is now a published reviewer! Jen Sincero. la la la la la!

Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in my teenage years indefinitely, perhaps no one ever lets go of those feelings and experiences completely. You hear people say how great it is to leave behind the insecurities of youth and to finally be comfortable in your skin and sure of yourself and your direction in life - oh how great it is to be an adult and not have to worry about any of that shit ever again! I hear these people say these things and I think 'YOU LIE, SIR!' (I even think this when it is a woman who says it). Perhaps it's just me being massively unlucky - perhaps I am literally the only person approaching 30 who is still mentally insecure and prone to self-doubt but somehow I think not. I still have absolutely no idea what I'm doing in life and I still find myself going 'what?!!!!!!!' on regular occasions when life really doesn't make any logical sense and people are strange - I still feel like the ugly one that gets over-looked at parties, except the party is the whole world everyday and I probably wasn't even invited. Adulthood, if you ask me, is massively over-rated. Where is the fun? The love? The excitement? The hope for better things in the future? And for these reasons My So-Called Life is still the best thing I ever saw on tv. I still feel like I can completely identify with the emotions and experiences the teenagers in the show went through, even now. Do we ever get rid of those teenage demons? Perhaps they are actually just life demons? Maybe it's a slower process for everyone. Maybe I’ll get there one day.

My So-Called Life is still, in my mind the most beautifully correct representation of teenage experience I have ever seen. I am having a resurgence of love for it at the moment, thanks to talking to my friend Paull about how much we loved the show when we were teenagers in the mid nineties. Having borrowed the dvd box set from me recently, Paull has written a piece on his blog about the impact of the show on him, and I think if I were to write about the impact it had on me I would probably write more or less the same thing. As I know many of you loved MSCL as much as me I thought you might like to read it too Paull’s MSCL article.

And to any fans that didn’t know - it seems that the wonderful A.J.Langer who played Rayanne on the show, got married in 2004 to an English Lord! Bizarre. Other cast news - the incredibly sexy and talented Claire Danes is about to star in Shop Girl, a film based on the novella by Steve Martin - it opens on January 20th in this country - I read the book recently and it was amazingly perceptive and well-written. Go and see the film, it's surely going to be powerfully acted, moving stuff.

You Are... The Jesus And Mary Chain.

You are moody and unpredictable. You are the
underdog who refuses to sink to the bottom. You
have more talent than you ever really let
anyone know. It almost seems as if you try and
sabotage whatever good things may be going on
in your life, and you often feel like you may
be giving people a bit too much of yourself.
Being in the spotlight is something you find to
be rather uncomfortable though you secretly
yearn to be loved by everyone. You lean toward
things of a darker nature and are prone to self
destructive tendencies. You struggle with
happiness for the simple fact that you seem to
be in love with your misery. You are a realist.


what Creation Records band are you? (complete with text and images)
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Hey, look - it's official! What did everyone else get on this?

You scored as Goth. You're A Goth! Goth 90% Emo 65% Rocker, Mosher 60% Skater 35% Prepy 20% Trendy 15% Chav, Townie, Rude Boy, Ned, Kev 5% What Group Are You? Chav, Rocker, Skater, Emo, Goth, Trendy, Prepy E.c.t created with QuizFarm.com

Happy New Year, Dream Kittens Everywhere!

Last night I went to a party where a huge fireball from an over-petrolled bonfire almost wiped out most of the guests. I then became obsessed with the fact that no one was calling or texting me at midnight to say happy new year so I texted nearly everyone I could think of in an attempt to remind people I am here, it didn't work - so I fell asleep feeling unloved. The first thing I heard when I woke up this morning was a selection of drunken answer phone messages from the early hours from my photography buddies Kathryn and Mark telling me that they loved me, that they really loved me, that they loved me so much which made up for the lack of messages from loved ones the night before until these declarations were followed by apologies for not inviting me out on the great night they were having, but that they really loved me. Oh well. I want to do great things with this year, my new years resolutions are to have more friends that text me at midnight on new years eve, take more photos, to do an exhibition, to start singing again, to train for a new skill so that I can achieve the last resolution, that old classic - to leave retail. This last one probably won't happen. Whatever, the most important thing of all is to try and be happy.

I hope you all started the year in a positive and joyful way and that you too have great plans for the new year. Lots of love, Katy x