January japes

What were you doing last Saturday night? I was shivering in a church in Leeds, filming a concert by the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra! It was pretty random. A girl I used to work with at the Barbican asked me back when I worked there - I think in September! - whether I would come and film her conducting. She paid for me to catch a train up, bought me dinner and gave me a bed for the night, all for me to use her tiny handicam for 50 minutes. There were no focus, lighting or sound controls on the camera, so I'm sure it looks a bit rubbish, but I did my bit and spent 7 hours on a train! It felt even more bizarre because I was still somewhat jetlagged.

The rest of my week hasn't been quite so strange. Work at iceandfire. Now I'm sitting at home waiting for my new flatmate to arrive - he's a friend of Jake Corbett, who shot the first prison film I directed. He works in post production and seems like a nice guy. He'll help out with the rent for a couple of months, until Ben gets here! Hopefully in mid-March...

I seem to be becoming the charity video girl! Been asked to quote on two charity videos this week, plus I had a meeting with three organisations that want to do a campaign about decriminalising debt problems - you can go to prison in the UK for not paying council tax or TV licence fees. Not surprisingly, many of these people are in debt - usually single mothers. So that's an interesting project.

I'll let you know how the charity industry goes. It's keeping me in the manner to which I hope to become accustomed...!

Chapters 5 & 6

So on to Chapter 5. A bit later than I promised. My new housemate is... Felicity! Yes, little sis has moved in. She finished at Arsenal in June then went on holiday for 4 weeks (to Spain - poor thing!) but when she got back she struggled to get a job. Being unemployed, I offered for her to move into our small room so she could avoid rent until she could afford it again. She has now been offered a job back at Arsenal, so she is working there until she goes back to Melbourne in December. Arsenal really needed her back, so Fliss is enjoying being the person who came to their rescue!

Chapter 6: My crap week. It started with my new bike being stolen... from inside my apartment building! Yes, the one Ben bought me for my birthday. It lasted 2 1/2 weeks. Bikes are just really hard to hold onto in London! I was so pissed off, am still really annoyed actually. I was enjoying riding my bike around. I put in a police report and everyone said to go and look at Brick Lane market, where a lot of stalls sell second hand bikes, but I haven't found it yet. *sigh*

Then the day after my bike got stolen I had the 11 hour shift from hell at the Barbican! In the whole time I've worked there I've never needed to call security or the medic, or even call the manager to sort out an issue, but I had to do all 3 on my last shift! I was looking after the cloakroom at a wedding and the patrons got SOOO drunk. They weren't allowed to take drinks outside while they smoked, but we had to tell them about every 5 minutes. They started sneaking drinks outside under their coats, in their jackets and bags. They only had to put it down for 3 minutes, but apparently that was too much to ask. One gentleman, upon being asked (by me) if he could please leave his drink inside said "What is this, the Third Reich?" To which I replied "Are you calling me a Nazi??"

Later in the evening, there was a fist fight between patrons (thus security was called), then some drunk guys picked up their mate and dropped him on a terracotta pot, knocking him out cold (medic) and my manager caught them doing cocaine OUTSIDE OFF THE PAVEMENT! So wrong. It was the longest shift of my life.

Then I got rejected by 2 agents. One of them, to be fair, liked me and my work but said to get back in touch when things had progressed further because he doesn't have any contacts he would consider useful to me at this stage in my career. AND my rent got taken out before I got paid by iceandfire, so in the middle of my crap week I had £18 in the bank! It's better now though.

I've just drawn a line under that week. Moving onwards and upwards. I hope.

Chapter 4: New job!

I had started to despair over the summer about ever being able to quit my job at the Barbican. I resented them somewhat less when I found out they were going to pay us the London living wage (there's been a big union push for councils/boroughs to pay the London living wage, as opposed to the British award minimum, because it costs so much more to live in London than anywhere else in the country).

There was one good thing about the Barbican job, which ironically came out of the worst ever shift (which I talked about in an earlier post) During the dreadful Carpark 5 shift, I met Graham Sheffield, Artistic Director of the Barbican. I chatted to him briefly, and the next day I cheekily sent him an email about iceandfire's season at the Edinburgh Fringe. A couple of weeks later he wrote back and said he'd like to come, and he did! Christine saw him in the audience, shaking his head and tutting in the appropriate places (it's a show to make you angry!) So I then sent Graham another email after the festival was over and asked if he would meet with iceandfire to discuss a potential collaboration. Not only does iceandfire fit many of the Barbican's artistic aims/vision (as discussed at some Barbican staff meetings) but Graham is also on the board of advisors for freedom of speech organistion Index on Censorship, whose editor is on OUR board! And they have commissioned one show from us and we are working with them on another.

Anyway, on a fateful day about 3 weeks ago, Graham's PA got back to me and said he was keen to meet and talk about a collaboration. Very exciting for us - the meeting is in a few weeks (late Oct) and the Barbican is definitely the most high profile venue/arts collaborator we have spoken to. About one hour after receiving this excellent email, I had a phone call. From Inside Job Productions, with whom I made the prison film in May, offering me another job! A more long-term project, to take me (working part-time) til late February!

So I feel like I must have been working at the Barbican for a reason. Putting up with the less-than-generous pay and unexciting work in order to get this meeting for iceandfire with Graham Sheffield... then the universe rewarded me by allowing me to quit!

My final shift at the Barbican was another doozy though. I'll go into more details in the Crappy Week chapter...!!

Barbed

Had the worst shift at the Barbican last night. 5 hours in the carpark supervising a photo/sound installation. About 30 people came in the whole time and there was this music on a loop, which, I kid you not, sounded exactly like the theme to psycho played at half speed. Did the artist think of the poor sod who had to work on his stoopid installation?? That music went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

In better news, Ben and I have booked a holiday to Portugal! After the Edinburgh trip, just before Ben will go back to Aus. 4 nights in a nice hotel on the beach... Yeah!

I gotta get out of the Barbican though. Driving me crazy. I applied for some funding last week for a video participation project with some refugees in Wimbledon, through iceandfire (partnering with FilmAid). So fingers crossed for that coz then I can ditch the Barb and do basically full-time hours for 3 months working on bleeding heart do-gooder projects!

The week that was

I've still been a bit crap with the blog. Oh well, a week's delay is better than 3 months!

The Barbican screwed me around a lot last week. First of all the woman who looks after the rosters refused to tell me when my shifts were, beyond my first one ("check your rota in your pigeonhole" is all she would say!) Turned out I had 3 shifts. Then I got a letter saying I was about to be fired for not turning up to shifts... which was untrue! It was quite a harsh letter as well. I found it a bit upsetting, even though my manager had no trouble believing that it was their error and not mine. I'm a good employee and feel a bit hard done by!

Saturday night it was my housemate's birthday (technically it was her birthday all day, but she had a party in the evening!) Our flat was filled with hip young French people smoking, it stank for a few says afterwards! It was fun though. I stayed up until 2am! Shock!

Lots of iceandfire work as usual. We sent out a press release on Monday, Al Jazeera are coming to film our performance on Sunday night! I had a meeting today with the producer of the prison film, who said I am now their drama director of choice! However they don't have any drama commissions at the moment. Poo. Also got a meeting on Friday with an organisation called Filmaid who I'm trying to organise a project with, in collaboration with iceandfire. If I can get more work through Inside Job Productions or Filmaid then I can quit the Barbican - hoorah!

It's snow time

Ben has been hanging out for snow. The whole 2 months he was here we didn't see any, not even in Scotland. He left yesterday and I would say half an hour after he touched down in Australia today, snow started falling here! Just light showers throughout the day today, but heavy snow is forecast for tonight.

So I am yet again alone in London. Well not quite alone, there are 4 German girls sleeping on our loungeroom floor! My joke is our flat is like Poland - being taken over by Germans! Considering our flat is tiny I think 4 guests is a bit inappropriate, I haven't been able to use my own loungeroom for 3 days, but I don't feel I can say anything because my housemates have been so good about Ben staying for 2 months. So I'll just put up and shut up (in my room...!)

Last week I called the Barbican because I still hadn't been paid for the work I did over Xmas/NY and after some harassing they told me they'd been paying my wages to someone else! Amazing. I have been paid some wages, so I don't know whose, but they have to go through every payment I've ever been given and compare it to the hours I worked. Hopefully I'll get a nice big payout this week (fingers crossed).

We're also hoping for a payout eventually from our real estate agent. We've sent him a letter claiming our rent back for the period when we had no heating or hot water! As far as I know he's not disputing it but it has to go through some kind of legal process.

That's all from me for now. Over and out.

Not such a big town

Had 2 bizarre experiences in the past week which make London feel like a small country town!

Last week we went to see 12th Night with Derek Jacobi (I know - DAHLING! So posh) and were sitting literally 2 seats away from Pete & Thea!! This show runs for about 6 weeks, with 6 performances a week, in a 2,500 seat venue... and we were at the same show sitting basically next to each other. What are the chances? (I'll let you figure that out coz I'm no good at Maths!) But great because I'd been meaning to call them and so we had a beer afterwards.

Then last night I was working at the Barbican selling sweets etc in the foyer for a concert of American folk/roots music and I recognised 2 people over at the ticket desk... Ollie Browne and his Danish girlfriend Metta! Ollie was playing in the show (with CW Stoneking) but was running late and sadly only here for one night so I didn't really get to talk to them. He really was running late too, I saw him on stage about 10 minutes after we'd been speaking!

Such a small world.

In other news, I have my first paid filmmaking job, which I got through iceandfire! The co-artistic director of iaf was asked to make a film with kids with substance abuse problems in Cornwall, but Sara's never made a film before so I'm going to do the filming and she'll run a workshop. So a week in Cornwall in Feb plus some good extra cash. Quite a coup.

PS: I know I usually write initials for people so as not to identify them too much but that wouldn't work for these stories! So I guess that technique is pointless now!

It's been a while...

My apologies. It's been some time since I wrote.

I'm STILL living in the 18th Century. The boiler has been broken for 2 weeks, and we had told the real estate agent there was a problem more than a week prior to that. What a nightmare. It's been freezing cold (I got sick - gee what a surprise!) and we've had to go to friends' and neighbours' houses to have a shower! Thanks to all those friends and neighbours that kindly invited us in.

Plumbers are supposed to have the boiler fixed today. But I'll believe it when I see it.

All the tradesmen who have come to work on the heating and water systems have been very nice, most helpful, but the real estate agents are so difficult. They have this attitude that they are doing us a favour anytime they do anything - when all they are doing is the absolute minimum they should be doing for their job! And not even doing it very well. They keep telling us how much it is costing the landlord - like it's our fault and we should be grateful! Just get the fucking boiler fixed for Christ's sake! Total arseholes.

In other news, started my work at the Barbican, which is quite fun on the whole. Lots of nice people work there, most people do something artistic. And we get some free tickets. Got paid to watch a movie the other day! It wasn't a great movie (Changeling - Clint Eastwood's film with Angelina Jolie. Story is interesting but Angelina is rather OTT and the film is too long, it keeps going for about another 30 mins after the main mystery has been solved) but I liked it that bit better because I earned £17 while sitting on my backside.

Ben is over, which is so nice. We're like a real live couple again! Watching DVDs in bed (can't leave my bedroom coz it's too cold in the rest of the house!!) I'm working a lot this week, sadly, but we've booked a holiday in January. Going to Sicily for a few nights! Will try to avoid being shot by the mafia.

Think that's it for now. Will try to get back into doing more blogging this week.

Une nouvelle expérience...

Living with my new multi-lingual housemates has been really fun so far. My French housemate, AB, made the most typically French dish the other night (no, not snails). It was something her grandma had taught her and seemed to involve balls of batter (boiled) with grilled halloumi and chunks of ham. So pastry, cheese and meat, not a vegetable in sight! The German, SJ, seems to eat more generic food (not just sausages, par example) but she gets unnaturally excited when I offer her a beer! I think she used to share a beer with housemates back home but AB doesn't seem to drink beer, so perhaps she misses the experience. I've never had such a positive reaction to such a simple offer before!

Very busy week at work, which was good, and I have training for my new job at the Barbican on Mon/Tues so this week could be busy too. Luckily I don't have something on every night, like I did last week.

And Ben arrives in 2 weeks!

The next dilemma, now that the house and the job are sorted, is what to get Ben and Fliss for Xmas...! Christmas carols have been haunting me in supermarkets and cafes since the start of the week. And it will only get worse from here. Ugh.