The USA @ The Industry, Shoreditch 27 March 08

First things first, The Industry is a shit venue. The Upstairs is full of irritating yuppiesque architect types, drinks are expensive and Plum Promotions have their sticky little fingers deeply in the pie. It seemed that tonight wasn’t promoted at all. The USA came over all the way from the Netherlands to support another band. Said other band pulled out. As a result, there was about five people in the audience. What a crying shame! What a CRYING SHAME!

I hadn’t heard of The USA before and came along because my friend's band will be going on tour with them soon. First impression: wow, there’s a toy robot onstage. And some nicely naff looking keyboards. Unsurprisingly, they were really rather good! Aforementioned keyboards were put to fun use, the robot (I have since found out he is known as Emilio The Friendly Robot) was clutching a comic and his eyes flashed every now and then. I think he even said ‘Thank You’ once. Hooray! Every band should get one!

I have since looked The USA up on Myspace and learned that they’re brother and sister plus a girl from another band (The Cuties, if I remember correctly) who joined them to play drums for the tour (and a girl drummer is always good to have). They used to be in a band called John Wayne Shot Me (possibly the best band name I have heard in ages!).

http://www.myspace.com/wearetheusa

Nine Years!!

Yesterday it has been nine years since I moved to London. Nine years since I boarded that plane to move into a room above a Hoover shop in Acton with my friend. Said friend left again after six weeks. I was pretty much on my own. Quite scary when you think about it. From a village with 600 people, a bakery, two restaurants and a bank straight into the big smoke. But, I’m tougher than I look and managed to make some friends, found a flatshare and a job. The only thing that was a bit iffy was going to gigs on my own. But I soon realized it was always the same people at these gigs, so I got talking to them. I also dragged Tom along, whom I had bonded with over Chicks on the Bis message board. Bless. Then I met Andy, because we were both trying to peddle our fanzines at a Brassy gig.

Has London been good to me? Overall, I suppose it has. If you discount the crime rate (there is no crime where I come from. Seriously, my parents habitually leave both the car and the front door unlocked overnight), the extortionate rents and the fact everywhere takes about an hour to travel to. I only meant to stay for six months. My friend Connie drove me to the airport. She had made me a mixtape (note: Connie was into completely different music, on the tape I found Run DMC, Roxette and a few other supposed gems) and was holding back the tears (Connie doesn’t do crying in public). So was I, because deep down I knew that this wasn’t just for six months and that my life would never be the same again, that I would only see my friends back home sporadically at Christmas and that people would move on. I felt quite bad for leaving Connie behind. We’d been friends for years and years and she didn’t really have many other friends. Which is why she lived on my sofa for quite some time, after her parents turfed her out for being gay. And now I was just going to leave her there.

In those nine years I have learned quite a lot about the world. And me. I learned that I hate baked beans, that flats never have their actual size advertised, that estate agents are evil liars, that the market research crowd is not for me, that terrorism appears to exist, that I can hold down a job and that ‘see you soon’ does not necessarily mean you will see these people again in a hurry. And I learned how to speak English. When I arrived in London, my English was based around what I had learned at school and on MTV. This wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I realised that having an obvious German accent locks a lot of doors, people make assumptions and, let’s face it, Germans are not the most popular of tribes. It is all a bit schizophrenic though, because at the end of the day I am from that village. I tell people I am from Munich. But in fact I am from this village that’s 15 minutes drives from this town that is another hour’s drive away from Munich. I’m not really from Munich at all.

When I go home at Christmas, I realise it’s not quite home any more. I have spent all of my adult life in London and the experience has been more useful than all of the time I spent at school combined. Because school is useless and doesn’t teach you anything useful. All it taught me is a healthy hatred of authority.

I have moved house more times than I care to remember. I have had my heart broken 1.5 times (and nearly broken another 1.5 times). The first and last time I actually pulled at a gig was in London (a mindboggling experience at a Gel gig at the Astoria). And I acquired a horse in London. Who would have thought it? I have met lots of other Germans but soon realised that the only thing I had in common with most of them was a shared country of origin. Not very useful.

I have lived with flatmates from hell. Like the Spanish guy who left his yellowing Y-fronts out to dry all over the flat. Or the quiet Japanese guy who made me tell people trying to visit him he wasn’t in and later informed me they were just ‘fuck friends’ and he had no desire to see them again and could I please tell them to go away?

Then there was uni. Where I made all of two friends. One is now back in Finland, the other I am no longer on speaking terms with.

Worryingly, I don’t think I have grown up much at all over the past nine years. I still have the same posters in my room, sleep in the same dubious duvet covers (I suppose when you’re 28, a Thundercats duvet may not be such a great idea, ahem), still collect He-Man toys and obsess over music. I think the only thing that has changed is that I am now more wary of people. People sometimes say one thing and mean another. It took me years to work that one out, and I still don’t understand the logic behind this. Why don’t people just say what they want to say? Or people who say they will do something and then they don’t? Why bother? This has happened so many times now that every time I encounter new people I view them with a healthy amount of suspicion. I wasn’t like that nine years ago and merrily took everything and everyone at face value. Only to find myself disappointed with the world time and time again. I suppose this could be misconstrued as having turned bitter and cynical. Hm. No, I think I’ve always been cynical.

But, on the whole, I still like it in London. It’s way better than back home and well worth the sacrifices.

Blur!

Today I had the urge to listen to Blur. Only to discover I had already stashed all my Blur CDs at the bottom of boxes I packed last weekend. Had to download them instead.

I LOVED Blur ever since I first saw them on MTV. I was 15 and still a bit confused about what music I actually liked. I had dabbled in Arrested Development (who nobody will remember, they were like an eco-friendly hiphop collective), Bjork and Jamiroquai. Bjork is okay, but Jamiroquai? Whoops. Then there was the ghastly rave stuff most of my friends were into at the time (and I had already been forced to attend a couple of raves. I was way too young to do so, one time there was a police raid and we had to escape through a toilet window. I am not fond of raves.).

I went out and bought Parklife. I listened to it incessantly. I must have spent two month not listening to anything else. Annoyingly, I could not buy the other albums anywhere. Not even the import section of World of Music in Munich had them. I found Modern Life Is Rubbish on an exchange trip to France eventually and mailordered everything else I could find.

Then, rather excitingly, I found out Blur were playing in Munich! In a small venue (couple of hundred capacity) called Tilt! I made my friend tag along (who was into New Model Army, Deep Purple and the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the time …). Off we trundled to the ticket shop to buy out beautiful Blur tickets. None of this Ticketmaster printout crap. Those were real, shiny tickets with the album cover printed on them. I still have that ticket in a scrap book somewhere.

We got the train to Munich way too early. Then we couldn’t find the venue for ages. Then we arrived there at 4pm. As in waaay to early (this was NOT an underage show … but then, this is Munich, people didn’t really check how old you were). Only to find people were already having some kind of picnic outside the venue. Turns out some of them were from our hometown, and the other two were from a village next to the village I am from. Lasting friendships started on this very day. One of them I moved to London with years later. She then moved back home because she ran out of money. We have since fallen out I think. Although she is now back in London and I bumped into her at Camden Sainsburys a few years back. She is going out with the guy from the Sneaker Pimps that noone has ever heard of (possibly a session musician!) and we never met up again.

Anyhow, back to the gig (Echobelly were supporting, by the way!). I had a Blur T-shirt on which I acquired on a trip to London I did with my parents a couple of weeks before. My T-shirt had UK tourdates on it! How cool was I (ok, not very actually … the thing was X-large!)? The doors opened, one of my new friends decided she had to RUN to the front and went smashing into a pillar. Very amusing it was, too.

The venue was small, there were no barriers or anything like that! I ended up in the second row. It was absolute mayhem. Damon Albarn was wearing a green-blue stripey T-shirt (as could later be seen in one of those life-size posters from Smash Hits. The sort that came in 4 pieces you had to collect and glue together). People were jumping up and down, people tried to grab Damon Albarn’s leg (and succeeded for a while. Then a bit of his trousers ripped off and the people let go), there was screaming, someone passed out and I was so, so happy. This was brilliant. Even though this was … god … shit … in 1994 I think (Jesus Christ that’s 14 years ago!!) … definitely one of the most memorable gigs I’ve ever been to (and I have been to quite a lot since then). I can still smell that gig when I think of it. And I got half a setlist. I meant to get the whole one. But as I was picking it up, some stupid girl, who was a lot louder than me, a lot bigger than me and a lot stronger than me tried to snatch it from my hand and ripped it in half.

This gig was the beginning of the beginning. Suddenly I had friends that liked the same music as me. We went to the international press in the train station together to buy the Melody Maker and the NME. Q and Select we erm took for free because we hid those inside the Melody Maker.

Then, a penfriend of mine (who wasn’t into music at all) somehow telephoned a radio station (I think it was a programme about people looking for likeminded friends?) and announced that her pen friend (ie me) would like to meet more people who liked Blur (WTF?).

I then received a letter (at this point I had no idea about this radio program or that my name had been bandied around!) from a guy from a town near Munich. This guy then turned into the best friend I’ve ever had (I know this sounds slightly OTT but he really was). After I moved to London, he visited a couple of times, but we had silly arguments and we rarely hear from each other now. Sometimes I really miss him a lot.

We did all sorts of bizarre things. He had a car, so we’d go to gigs together and he dropped me off home afterwards (this involved a two hour detour for him). We even ended up following Blur’s tourbus once (shameful, I know. It was all perfectly innocent though. We just really wanted to meet them) and ended up drinking Bacardi and Coke with Graham Coxon in a hotel bar (for the record, Graham Coxon is a lovely man! Alex James is an arrogant shit. Damon Albarn is a lot taller than you’d think and Dave Rowntree is so averagely normal it’s almost painful!).

Oh I nearly forgot my trip to Colchester now! Me, my friend from my village and my friend from town went on a holiday to Colchester. Most of Blur are from Colchester. We spent ages trying to find the house Graham Coxon grew up in. We even found it in the end. Along with his primary school. Once we were there, we weren’t sure what we were meant to do. So we took a photo and left very quickly. Embarrassingly, we did show those photos to Graham Coxon at a gig soon after. He looked worried. I don’t blame him.

This all seems to crazy when I think about it now. All these gigs where we’d turn up at the (very small) venue at 5pm, hoping to meet bands (again, I repeat, this was all very innocent as far as I was concerned. I just wanted to meet them. My friend, on the other hand, managed to shag one of the Bluetones and Placebo’s something or other technician. I was quite pissed off with her, because I genuinely was only there because I liked the music and I thought it was really stupid of her. I love music but have little time for groupies. I find them tedious and annoying. Most of them don’t even buy the records. Losers.). I have a whole selection of photos of bands outside that same little venue in Munich. And it all started with this one Blur gig.

Somehow, I lost interest in Blur after Think Tank came out. I didn’t even buy it, because I wasn’t keen on the direction they were heading into. I like fun pop songs. I don’t like semi-experimental weird stuff that much.

I still have a soft spot for Blur, but it all seems like another world now. I have moved away, lost touch with most of the people I was hanging around with, that venue in Munich has long closed down, I never got to see Blur in a small venue again. The other gigs were quite big, there were barriers and stuff … I don’t like big gigs as much. I still have my scrap book though, with tickets and that ripped set list in it. And the signed pictures. Sometimes I look at it and wish I was still 16.

Thoughts I had today

Shampoo!

A friend helpfully provided me with a link to ALL Shampoo songs recorded (or so he said). Fantastic! I downloaded the lot, even the ones I already had. The live ones are (as would be expected) a little, er, ropey (ok, they’re ropey as fuck! I don’t think Shampoo ever claimed they could actually sing!). Still, hooray! Feeling a bit nostalgic now. I had a T-shirt that said POW! On it, too! And me and my best friend at uni bonded over Shampoo in the canteen queue (along with her home made Kenickie T-shirt!). Said friend disappeared into thin air years ago. We had lived together, which led to disaster, because I got a bit fed up with her alcoholic girlfriend who was around all the time. The 4am ambulance calls because said girlfriend had drunkenly slipped in the shower weren’t that fun either. Neither was the puke all over the bathroom … carpet!

Listening to Shampoo reminds me of that friend. Particularly when we got bored on a Saturday night, drank Absinthe, played Cluedo and howled and danced along to Shampoo. And Catch. And Kenickie. I miss those times. I guess I’m too old for that sort of thing now. Or my friends are. Maybe everyone is. I don’t know. Still, I miss doing random things. I can’t remember the last time when I did something really random and silly.

Work

Had the big annual feedback performance report meeting at work today. Part of this is getting written feedback from my team, peers and random people across the office. I was a bit worried about that, because I’m a notorious worrier who thinks everyone hates me. To my surprise, the feedback gave a very strange view of what I am like. Or rather, what people at work think I am like.

Approachable

This is odd. Because people who know me from outside work and have nothing to do with work (ie my friends) seem to think the opposite. I’m generally quite rubbish at meeting new people (especially in group situations) and my pathological shyness gives me an annoying aloof (sometimes arrogant, I am informed) air. But I seem to be good at hiding this at work, it’s almost like some kind of bizarre game.

Caring

My team claims I care about them. Bless. A few Good Mornings seem to go a long way. Mind you, I did not have myself down as ‘caring’. I’ve been let down so many times at work, in life and so on, that I am fucking careful as to who I care about. And it takes me quite a bit of time to be like that with newly acquired friends, because I need to assure myself I’m not wasting my time first. But then, I do think I’m very loyal to my friends (not to be confused with acquaintances), even the ones that screw up. Heck I even have some sort of loyalty to various ex-boyfriend who were less than nice to me, because I think that, some time ago, I really did care about them. I may not care as much now, but still.

Knowledgeable

This one scared me. People think I am some sort of font of all knowledge at work. All it is that I have an excellent people memory. I could probably still list all the people I went to primary school with, their first names, their last names, where they lived and what their parents did for a living. I never forget a face either. And I figured out which bits are important to remember at work. That does not mean I am interested in economics (quite the contrary!) or consumer credit. I can reel off bits of consumer law, but most of it means nothing to me at all. It’s like I am watching myself in a strange movie called Work.

Friendly

Similar thing to ‘approachable’ I suppose. Why wouldn’t I be friendly? I’m at WORK, for goodness sake. Nobody really wants to be there, but why make my work life difficult by being an arse? I have blown my top at work on several occasions (like when I yelled at my then-manager and told him that ‘I had the right to be FUCKING ANGRY if I chose to be!!!’ and ‘If that bastard is still here tomorrow, I’ll FUCKING WALK!’). People don’t seem to remember that. Good. Most of my work-related fury I save for friends, anyway. Or I sit down somewhere quite where nobody can see me, stick my walkman on really loudly, chainsmoke, kick some dustbins and return to my desk as if nothing happened.

Copes brilliantly under pressure

Again, a mere pretence. I do not cope well under pressure. Only that nobody at work knows this. Because I pretend to be perfectly fine at work. The fact I seem to have developed insomnia and find it increasingly hard to switch off outside work is something they’ll never find out. Neither will they ever find out that I actually chucked up in the loo after my last job interview, because I was so fucking nervous. Some things are better left unsaid.

My mum!

My mum sent me the annual Easter parcel. It’s stuffed with chocolate. And hay. The latter is to keep it authentic and make me feel like I’ve just been to an Easter Egg Hunt in the countryside. I wasn’t. I picked it up at the local post office. Sometimes I worry that my mum still thinks I’m eight years old. I am 28. But still, I like my Easter parcels’ contents. Sometimes I think I should see my parents more often. I go home once a year for Christmas. They visit about once a year. I know they miss me. That’s why I get a lot of postcards and newspaper clippings (look, Julia! The local paper has something about Damon Albarn in it!) sent by my dad. His postcards are works of art. He likes to cut’n’paste weird stuff onto paper. I guess me and him have a lot in common there. Much as I love my dad to pieces, I am not sure I want to be exactly like him. I’m the spitting image of him visually as it is, and we have a lot of character traits in common already, and I’m discovering more of those as the years go by. My dad always knows exactly what is going on in this fucked up little brain of mine. Which is a bit disturbing at times, because it is meant to be MY brain.

Panic! On the streets of …

North Finchley, I suppose.

Don’t you just hate it when blind panic sets in. Happened to me yesterday. The kind that only lets you get two hours sleep and then you’re on the bus to work, because you fucked up somewhere along the line, and you think you may either hit someone or burst into tears for no apparent reason (and no, don’t give me that PMT theory!).

When you think everything is about to come crashing down on top of you, reducing you to a little pile of rubble in the process. Best of all, there isn’t actually any valid reason to panic. Everything is fine. Could be better, but nothing life-threatening. Just lots of little niggly things piling up. You sort out one, two more will appear.

The niggly thing called work. The niggly thing called trying to find a new flat (okay, that is in fact quite a big thing. Someone once compared the moving house experience to going through a messy divorce, stresswise), pony woes, friend upsticksing it to Canada for six months, mother threatening to visit, bills to pay, will Helen Love play Indietracks in the summer?, my friend had a breastcancer scare (and it was only a scare), will I ever be a grown-up?, another friend split up with his fiancé, will he be okay? Am I sending too many text messages? Maybe I should actually ring my friends more often, is it really March yet? And what if my friend is right and my fierce independence will be my downfall eventually?

Nothing too major, really. So why panic? What’s with the insomnia? Maybe I am hooked on minor crises? Hooked on blowing things out of proportion? Hooked on worrying? Like my friend’s mum, who was only ever happy when there was at least a nuclear war going on.

Maybe not quite that bad, but certainly with melodramatic headless-chicken tendencies. Trouble is, I can’t keep the melodrama to myself and am often found embroiled in hour-long telephone conversations, raving and ranting about nothing at all. What the hell is wrong with you?

I don’t know if everyone else has these tendencies, too, but they’re just better at hiding them. Maybe everyone else‘s brain is mental, too. They’re just very good at keeping up the pretence that they’re all well-balanced individuals without a care in the world. Happy fools even. Good morning, and how are you today?

In the meantime, I am trying to thrive on total chaos.

More on moving house

I have handed in my notice! Unfortunately, there was a 24 hour delay between my letting agency finding out and my flatmate finding out. Oops. Now I have a somewhat sour flatmate. Who will remain in the flat. The lovely, lovely, big flat I found and quite like. Oh well, at least she gets to spread out even more once I’m gone.

What is it with London and never being able to stay anywhere for more than two years maximum? Or is that just me? Mind you, it’s usually people that are to blame, not the houses themselves. People are a pain to live with, I’ve come to realise this once again. I don’t seem to be able to do it. I still have a friend’s words ringing in my ears. Yeah that’s because you’re a bit weird, with your fierce independence. You just can’t compromise about anything with any flatmate, no matter how nice they are! Yep, he probably had a point there. The prospect of moving out, being able to find a flat by myself and leaving my stuff lying around everywhere is quite appealing at this moment in time. I can just say I shall take this flat, put my deposit down and move in. Nobody to consult with. Nobody to agree with. No man is an island. Wrong, some people are! I will be an island with my own flat. And I won’t be fucking Ibiza. I’ll be Galapagos. Maybe. Galapagos kitted out in Ikea. With tortoises and dinosaurs.

No more of these pointless dinner conversations. No more how was you day? When I know for a fact that neither my or my flatmate actually wants to know what happened at the other’s work. No more squeezing past her horrid, horrid boyfriend in the kitchen. No more zero freezer space.

Instead I’ll be crammed into some kind of studio room enjoying my own company. If I want to talk to someone, I can either phone them or they can come round. If I don’t want to talk to anyone, I won’t have to. If I want to drag hay and woodshavings onto the carpet, I can. No more questions about why the washing machine is full of horse hair and no more hands off my looroll!

And I can have people round for dinnerparties if I feel like it! Heck, I can even have two dinnerparties! One for the horse-friends and one for the other ones. And they won’t be glowered at by flatmate and her biochemist pals.

A little rant about the horse world (and some horses!)

And just when I thought I’ll manage to avoid her for the entire winter … the single most annoying horse owner I know appeared at the stables last night. Irritating daughter in tow. Ok, the daughter has attention deficit syndrome, so she can’t help it. But, sometimes I really can’t be arsed to play babysitter for a hyperactive six year old because her mother has pissed off somewhere round the corner. Mind you, I disapprove of the way that child is handled in the first place. Annoying as they may be, there is no excuse to call your daughter a bitch and a whore. No matter what she does. No wonder the child is deranged. Anyways, moving on. Annoying horse woman. She is one of those people that acquired a horse in some half-arsed rescue mission. Those people that probably shouldn’t have a horse at all. You don’t see her all summer, the pony is dumped in the field and getting obese (last summer he looked like a hippo and waddled). By obese I mean not just a bit porky, but obese in the sense that there could be serious health implications for the poor blighter. The fact said pony also has ‘issues’ (he rears up randomly and can fly off the handle for no reason. He also lacks any sort of manners and displays some very bratty behaviour) doesn’t help either. Rather than trying to sort it out, this woman turns up once in a blue moon and is then surprised the horse still isn’t well behaved. Erm, no, it doesn’t know any better. How can you expect the poor sod to play nicely the ten times a year you actually bother coming up to see him?

Then she went on and on about how she sacked her latest sharer (note to non-horse people: a sharer is someone that rides your horse a couple of times a week and sometimes pays you for the privilege). Said sharer was a really nice and very competent Swedish girl. But annoying woman managed to fall out with her over money. Annoying woman falls out with everyone. So there she is, ranting and raving, completely ignoring the fact I just spent the whole day at work, my head hurts, I am hungry and would like to go home. Cue another rant. This time about her farrier. Well, not really her farrier either, as she just leeches on to whoever has the farrier up when she randomly decides her pony’s feet need doing. No wonder no farrier wants her on his books. She is annoying, the horse is nuts. No idea why she is yelling at me about it though. The farrier doing the no-show isn’t even mine. In fact I’m keeping my farrier’s details from her, because I’d rather he didn’t have to put up with her or her deranged horse.

She then proceeds to give me tips on how to keep my pony healthy. No thanks. Since I actually bother looking after mine and since I’ve been doing horse things since I was about eight, I don’t think I need advice from someone who doesn’t feed their horse properly, bought it a saddle that doesn’t fit on Ebay and relies on other people to look after her pony without doing anything in return … nope. Pull the other one.

I just wandered off with my friend and left her standing there in the end. She wouldn’t stop talking.

Moving on …

Pony Angel and I have found a new nemesis. Melody (why would you call a horse Melody?) arrived some time last week. Rumour has it she was at the yard down the road before. And Sarah heard that ‘the mare is a psycho!’.

Imagine my delight when I took my friend’s horse down to the field and found Melody The Psycho hanging over the gate wanting to leave the field. The gate opens outwards. Melody was pushing at it from inside the field, my friend’s horse got scared and tried to hide behind me (this didn’t work, he’s a big horse!) whilst I fumbled with the chain that holds the gate together. Eventually, after flicking a rope at her numerous times, waving my arms about going ‘SHOO!! MELODY! GET LOST! AWAY! PISS OFF!!’, she sauntered off and I could get my friend’s horse in there.

Then I collected Angel (who by this point was quite pissed off because I hadn’t taken her to the field FIRST) and stuck her in the field, too. Cue Melody running up to her like a crazed Banshee and booting her for no reason. And again. And again. Then Angel had enough, bless her, and went into pony attack mode. Unfortunately, Angel’s co-ordination at times of retaliation is rather rubbish, so it was mainly handstands, pinned back ears and impressive double-barreling of thin air. Still, it was enough to scare of young Melody. Phew.

Later it was time to get Angel and friend’s horse back in from the field. Got Angel out fine. Went back to get the other one. By this point Melody and Grace (the other horse in there) were positively desperate to come in from the field and looming by the gate in a somewhat menacing demeanor. My friend’s horse cowering somewhere in the distance, too frightened to go anywhere near the gate. Great. I had to go INTO the field and try to chase off the unruly lady horses. And somehow retrieve my friend’s horse without the other two legging it out of the gate.

Equipped with a rope, arms flailing and trying to be as scary as possible (the trick is to somehow get the horse to think you’re bigger and stronger than it. I am not very good at this and have previously been informed I resemble a chicken with a death wish when I attempt to outscare horses …) I went in. By this point Melody is busy kicking Grace and I’m stood in a VERY dangerous spot (eg between to horses having a fight. NOT a good idea!). As I attempt to scramble to safety, one of my wellies gets stuck in the mud and comes off. Argh! I hate it when that happens. Lost balance, my socked foot straight into the kneedeep mud. Then this stupid horse decides to make a beeline for me (probably worked out I’m her ticket to freedom because she just saw me opening the gate. Horses can’t open gates themselves, you see). I am beginning to panic at this point. I manage to pull the wellie from the mud but haven’t got enough time to actually put it back on, because this stupid horse is coming straight at me. I somehow managed to not fall over in the mud AND wave the red wellie at her like an idiot, swearing and flicking her with the rope at the same time. Lo and behold! She buggered off. And I managed to retrieve my friend’s horse, put my wellie back on and get him out of that darned field. I really wish people would explain to their delinquent equines that they are supposed to move out of the way when asked by ANYONE. Not just their owners.

And I hadn’t even realized that one of my trouserlegs was covered in mud to just above the knee. This was pointed out to me by the farmer’s kids. Thanks, guys. By this point I really didn’t care anymore and hoisted my muddy trouserleg, mud-encrusted wellies and hat covered in woodshavings onto the bus and went to Sainsburys. The checkout girl looked somewhat disgusted at the sight of me. Oops.

Dear Sir/Madam,

The tables have turned. I am currently embroiled in having to recruit a number of people for this department I work in. Scary stuff considering this is my first ever real job and I’m usually the one clutching the little glass of water in the interviewing room, coughing a lot and laughing nervously. And I’m usually the one agonizing over that application form, desperately trying to find more managementy words like ‘succeeded’ rather than ‘managed’ and ‘enjoyed greatly’ rather than ‘did okay’.

I wrote the job advert and lo and behold! Applications started to arrive. To make things easier, all people had to do was fill in a fairly straightforward form. None of that coverletter-and-CV nonsense. To my horror, I soon came to realise that maybe a CV and cover letter would have been easier for some of the (and I mean this in the loosest possible sense!) unlucky applicants.

The form is easy enough to populate. There are boxes for everything. Including the exact skill set asked for in the job advert. Communication! Analysis! Working with people! And so on.

Instead, some people invented their own competencies (decisional skills) or left the whole field blank. Another wrote no less than four paragraphs about his psychological air into the ‘communication skills’ box. I don’t know about you, but would you want to employ someone who basically threatens to psyche you out between the hours of nine and five? Exactly. I wasn’t sure about the motivational speeches either. It’s only an admin job, for God’s sake. And you, my dear, are not a life coach. So keep your excellent grammer and spelinge to yourself. And if you are indeed dyslexic, for goodness sake, ask someone to check the form before you send it off.

And why would you want to explain in great detail how one fillets a salmon under ‘analytical skills’? Don’t get me wrong, it made for a riveting read, but … why? And what about the gluten free party you threw in Lagos? Where your friend provided the entertainment (… he makes excellent music)?

As for ‘organisational commitment’. Well, well, you are applying for a job in an organisation. The clue lies in the title. This was your chance to give the impression you actually bothered looking at the Office’s web site. That you did some research and know what you’re letting yourself in for. It was not the box where you tell us how organised you are and that you’re always on time. Or that you are committed to keeping your desk tidy. Neatfreak!

All this may sound very harsh, and I do realise that filling in forms is a nightmare and that you probably did so in a rush, but … please … all I’m asking for is some sort of connection between the job advert and what you stick on the goddamn form. It’d be nice if I could actually read your handwriting, too! And don’t you realise that answering every question with I was a school governor for fifteen years! Is going to scare the living daylights out of me? Do you not realise you might come across as slightly deranged?

There were three of us sifting through those application forms. Plus gallons of tea. And biscuits. Two hours later, all three participants had started shrieking uncontrollably. Somehow, we decided on 13 (sic) interview candidates. I am looking forward to meeting these people in two weeks time. I don’t know what to wear yet and I do hope I manage to control myself and won’t collapse under the table laughing hysterically when you whip out that salmon.

(and yes, I am a complete bitch sometimes)