:: Jules' Blog ::

:: Sunday, June 29, 2003 ::

Woohoo! I didn't break anything! One of the girls on the counter bent a pin in the FDI machine, thus rendering it useless (yet again!), but that was nothing to do with me. Hoorah!

I've had the quietest weekend ever when I've been at home! One flatmate's gone to Glastonbury and the other one has just disappeared! It's bliss! It's so quiet that I can actually hear the screaming kids next door! Hang on...

I seem to have an awful lot of snottograms to write just lately. To Sainsbury's for not 'Scan 'n' Pack'ing like they say they do on the advert; Internet Cameras Direct because my camera's broken and they don't want to fix it; Greenwich Council for overcharging us on our Council Tax; Boots for nearly blinding me with their crappy products; and Natwest for generally being arseholes. Why is there always so much to complain about?! Then again - it is kinda fun ;o)

:: Jules 8:27 PM [+] ::
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Waaaaaah! What have they done to Blogger?! Change is baaaad!

Well - from what I've seen, my job seems pretty cool. On Monday we were introduced to everyone and everything but didn't actually do any work, and from Tuesday we were shadowing the other runners (and will be for the next week until we get our bearings). I got so very lost today. I was fine while I was working, as I had to go the same way loads of times, but when I came back from lunch I couldn't find the right turning and ended up walking right round Television Centre and ending up back where I started! D'oh! I'll get there eventually...

I made my first contact today! I got talking to John, who showed us round the TOTP dressing rooms, and it turns out that he's an aspiring writer/director, and is planning to make a couple of shorts (films) in the autumn. I said "Ooh - I can do continuity!" which he seemed mightily impressed with. After questioning my motives for a bit, and realising that I wasn't one of these people who say they can do continuity but don't actually give a shit, he decided that I was suitably anal to become involved in his films. (Anal's good y'know - it shows you care!) So we're going to keep in contact. Hooray for getting somewhere in my first week!

...I do apologise - I just realised how bad that last bracketed bit looked! :o)

Went to Dave's Final Fling on Wednesday night, which was rather fab, if somewhat chilly towards the end. There were X-Boxes! (Dave kicked my ass). On Thursday we played pool! (Dave kicked my ass!) I blame the crunchy frogs...

:: Jules 10:31 PM [+] ::
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I'm going to enjoy my job!!!!

The bar's pretty damn fine too :o)

And the star dressing room has pony hair walls!

All together now: #At the BBC! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! BBC1...BBC2...BBC3...BBC4...BBC5...BBC6...BBC7...BBC Heaven!!#

:: Jules 9:10 PM [+] ::
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"I didn't do it nobody saw me do it you can't prove anything!" (Bart Simpson)

Except in this case, I really didn't do it! Trundled to work this morning, as sprightly as you'd expect me to be at 8:30am on a Sunday, and waited outside until someone else turned up to let me in. I'd been left loads of films to do from yesterday, which I didn't mind too much. Switched on all the machines and settled in for a quiet day of film processing. Ha! All was going well until about midday when I noticed that some photos were coming up rather blue on the screen. "Ah well" thought I, and whacked up the red to compensate. Most were fine, I'd just get the odd one that would be weird colours.

Then I started getting a message telling me "Splicing tape incompatible, replace tape". Er - but I never leave any splicing tape on the negatives - you're talking bollocks, Mr. Computer! (And it blatently is a Mr. computer - a woman would never give me quite so much grief as this one does). The only way, it seemed, that I could get around this message was to take the film out, turn it round and put it in the other way. A few blue-tinted films later I decided to plot the graphs which should be done every day to make sure the machines are working correctly. The processor was off the scale! "Oops" thought I, and switched off the hour service. I guessed that something must be wrong with the chemicals in the machine, and I've never been trained to drain those, so I went off to lunch.

When I came back I found Security Guard Steve poking around the machine. "Ooh - I don't think it's meant to be that colour" said he. And he was right. You can see how full/empty the chemicals are because there are clear bars on the side of the machine. The one which has the developer (N2R) in it and should be green - was bright orange! "Someone's put the wrong chemicals in haven't they" I concluded. Steve confirmed that they were very busy last night and that both the N2R and N3R levels were very low last time he'd looked. I'd filled up N3R that morning, so we guessed that whoever had filled up the N2R tank, had used N3R chemicals, hence the orangy contamination and resulting blueness of photos. The culprit (who shall remain nameless - mainly 'cos none of you know who s/he is) won't be in again until next Saturday and will no doubt have conveniently forgotton whether the tank was filled up yesterday evening. Anyway - a quick call to Danny (who was still in bed at 3pm dammit!) gave us instructions on how to drain and decontaminate the tank. Which we did. By then it was time to close down anyway.

Why does everything seem to go wrong whenever I step foot in that place? It's not that I break it, it's just that it happens to break when I'm there! (honest guv!). so far, the air conditioning unit's exploded, the processing lamp's broken (which I had to fix without knowing how), last time I was there the APS unit just stopped working altogether as soon as I got my grubby little hands on it, this week the chemicals have been contaminated...I'm sure there are more. I reckon it's got something to do with static. Everything I touch seems to give me a static shock - and I'm sure that can't do electical things very much good. God forbid they ever let me near a £40,000 camera at the Beeb!

Speaking of the Beeb...I've got a new job - woo! I start there tomorrow - yeah! I'm getting paid loads - yippee! I'm gonna meet S Club 8 - er!...you get the idea...

:: Jules 5:10 PM [+] ::
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I'm back! Apologies for the lack of bloggage over the past week. I went home for the weekend after finishing at Wildtracks last Friday, getting drunk and throwing up (mmm). Got sunburnt on Sunday after staying in the garden for far too long without any suntan lotion on :o( Then went off for my four-day training course for the BBC on Tuesday. I kept a diary while I was there! But it's far too long to put on here so I've stuck it elsewhere for you to read at your leisure if you so desire. Enjoy...

:: Jules 7:05 PM [+] ::
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Tuesday

:: Jules 7:04 PM [+] ::
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Wednesday

:: Jules 7:03 PM [+] ::
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Thursday

:: Jules 7:02 PM [+] ::
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Friday

:: Jules 7:01 PM [+] ::
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Woohoo! I just came home to an e-mail saying I've won six bottles of wine from Partyoffers! Hooray for free booze!

Saw a fab sticker stuck on a board outside Fitness First this morning. It said "Lift yourself up by your love handles and move your fat lazy arse down to the GYM!" Although rather amusingly my predictive text wrote that as "Lift yourself up by your love handles and note your eat jazz arse down to the gym!"

Yesterday we had Nino, Luke and receptionist Sarah jigging along to Lady Marmalade from the free cd in OK! Today there was no such jiggage, as Luke wasn't there. Boo.

Don't you just hate it when you're not quite certain whether your milk's gone off, or if it's just your tastebuds playing sillybuggers?! I think I'll feed the rest of my glass to the drain...

I've found a fabulous use for my copies of Metro and Girl About Town - rolled up together they make a fabulous tool for jabbing people in the ribs on the tube! Woe betide anyone who gets in the way of my swinging papers!

Speaking of the tube, I realised quite early on to ignore the signs telling you what to do. For example, there is one set of escalators heading towards the Central and Northern line at Tottenham Court Road, with light-up signs above them telling you whether the routes are accessible or not. You can also get to the Northern line via a spiral staircase, and quite often they will put a sign up telling you to go this way for the Northern line. I realised after my first descent down the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN STAIRS, that it really wasn't necessary (or easy on the knee) to go this way. So now I ignore the signs and go down the escalators as usual, then watch the out-of-breath mugs coming from the other direction when I get to the platform! Guess I'll have to find a new way to oppose the evil signage when I start my new job!

:: Jules 7:57 PM [+] ::
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Today I was most amused by Nino (gay), Luke (not), and Alan (also not) bopping along to Nino's Kylie album behind the reception desk. I will miss Nino and Luke's bitchy comments and general cattiness. It's highly amusing.

Ooh - do go shopping at 7pm - it's lovely and quiet! I was rather perturbed at Sainsbury's lack of seaweed sheets though. I've developed somewhat of an obsession with sushi over the past couple of weeks, so decided to make my own (it being bloody expensive and all). I got the rice, some salmon and some tuna (raw), but no seaweed to hold it together. I'm not sure whether to risk eating the tuna raw, as it doesn't say anything about not cooking it on the packet. But it's raw in sushi, so it must be alright. Maybe I'll let Dave try it first ;o) So now my hands smell of trout, from the one packet I picked up to see if that could be eaten raw. (It didn't say, so I didn't buy it). Trouty fingers are icky! I remember when I used to go fishing with my Dad, whenever you had to take the fish off the hook once you had caught it you'd be covered in slime, and stinky for days. And they call it sport...

I've taken to walking around Soho with my eyes closed, to avoid the evil bits of crap from getting under my lenses. I've only walked into a couple of people...

All the staff were made to stay behind for a staff meeting at 6pm today. Very ominous, we thought. It turned out that the managing director is giving his job to the assistant studio manager, and that the studio manager will now take on the role of financial director. Not that this made any difference to me, as i'm leaving in three days. So was there a "By the way - congratulations to Julia on her new job!"? Was there buggery! I'm sooo drinking their beer fridge dry on Friday...

:: Jules 10:08 PM [+] ::
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Funniest item of graffiti seen today: "We're not strangers, we haven't just made friends yet"! Ah the joys of the illiterate Soho public!

I was working on my own this morning. Sean wasn't there, and James was doing training, so I had to do all the Monday morning things on my own, which included (in no particular order):

Buying and arranging flowers for six studios and three reception desks.

Unloading the dishwasher.

Buying bacon sarnies for Studio 7.

Distributing fruit bowls (complete with fruit) and coffee to all studios.

Loading the dishwasher.

Two runs (delivering and collecting tapes) to The Cartoon Network. (approximately 1 km each way)

Vast cleanage of kitchen which still mung from Friday (is mung the plural of ming?)

Restocking loos with towels and tampons (I discovered the best tampon in the world yesterday! But a lot of you won't want to hear that so I'll shut up now...)

Making toast while simultaneously buying espressos for Studio 5.

Unloading the dishwasher again.

Replacing the depleated stock of beer in the fridge.

Taking the banking to the, er..bank.

...while all the time keeping a happy smiling face and jovial manner whenever asked to do more stuff. No really!

And then I saw a little old Chinese lady rummaging around in a bin outside Soho Square, and it put everything in perspective for me. We have no idea how good we have it...

:: Jules 8:26 PM [+] ::
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Ok - I've told him, so now I can tell you.

Well - you know this wonderful job I have at Wildtracks? Next Friday is my last day. I handed in my notice last week because...

I have a new job!

Working in Post Production!

Earning lots more money!

At the <drum roll please> (please imagine a sound byte of "hallelujah" coming from your speakers about now. Thank you)

Yippee! I went for the interview a couple of weeks ago, and was told the following Monday that I had the job! My job title is "Post Production Runner", and there are twelve of us on a year's contract. I'll be going on a four day piss-up...sorry - training course next Tuesday in Marylebone (we're put up in the Hilton!), and then I start my job the following Monday.

To give you an insight of what I might be experiencing, when I went for the interview, the runner that collected me said that there were lots of tour groups wandering around, because Top Of The Pops is filmed today (it was a Thursday). Yes - I shall be working at the place where Top Of The Pops is filmed! "Dadadaaah dadadadaaah daaah". Sod Kylie (who, incidentally didn't turn up because she was "too busy"), I'll get to see them all! Muahahaha!

I'm happy. :o)

p.s. I have yet to celebrate this accomplishment, so if anyone would like to take me out and get me rat-arsed - I won't say no!

:: Jules 8:10 PM [+] ::
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Well - I've been waiting for him to call all day, but Dave's obviously not that bothered about knowing my news. So blame him, not me...

I am now a member of snafu! Yippee! All hail Rob - for he is the snaf-god!

So - Buffy then. We all saw it, I assume. Good eh?! I didn't think it was that impressive until the final scene, when I went "oooooh". Now I have to wait 'til autumn for my next fix.

Only 86 days 'til my holiday! Woo! I'm going to Zante with my parents and Dave. I quite like having holidays later in the year (i.e. September), as then you tend to see some of the British summer, which we always used to miss when we went in July. 'Cos obviously there'll only actually be two weeks of continuous sun in Britain! Plus - no screaming kids! Bliss!

...Which reminds me...Aren't the kids of today little shits?! I went to the Co-op after work yesterday to get some milk. There was a woman standing in front of the (closed) door who let me in, and then when I'd finished, she said "Can you wait five minutes?", as there was a group of teenagers standing outside trying to get in. So the manager asked if I wanted to go out the back way. So I went through the stockroom (now I see why the Co-op never has any stock - it's tiny!) She was about to open the back door hatch when we heard a load of them out there, banging on the door! "It's a raid!" shouted one of the assistants! I got out the front way in the end, with a security guard and two blokes standing in front of the door so no-one could get in. They called the police after that. Not that it would've done any good. I saw the police car speeding past me, lights a-blazing and sirens a-bleating - which seemed a bad idea tome. Surely they'd have stood a better chance of catching them by sneaking up on them, rather than giving them enough warning to scarper. What I can't understand is what is so fascinating about hanging around outside the Co-op, drunk, on a Friday night. Surely they have better places to go? I blame the parents...

Have you heard that advert for Natwest on the radio where the bloke is trying to get through and the guy on the other end starts saying "no, no, no, no, no....."? Well apparently Natwest now have direct lines to their banks to avoid this. Which is bollocks. Complete and utter pap. I called their "direct line", having failed to get through on the local number that I had previously been given (it was disconnected), only to have it ring five times, and then be put through to an automated voice, saying "I'm sorry, there is no-one available to take your call...blah blah blah". Having tried calling sporadically over a couple of days, and maybe getting through once, with the bloke I wanted to talk to not being there and failing to call back when I left a message, I got utterly pissed off and just called continuously for an hour. Once it had rung five times and was about to be transferred, I'd hang up and hit redial. It worked eventually, but must have pissed them off in the meantime :o) I hate banks.

Aaaaaah! My cd player just broke! It's one of those ones where you push on the lid and the top flips up, but the catch has broken so it won't stay down anymore! Must...have...music!

<pause for panic>

Panic over. I've found that balancing a dictionary on top holds down the lid sufficiently well for the stereo to believe that the catch is in place - and it works! Hoorah!

:: Jules 5:07 PM [+] ::
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Thanks guys. I feel better now. Although I can't help thinking that Max and Bex may have been coerced into coming by a certain someone.

I have news. I have big news. I have exciting news. But I can't tell anyone until I've told that same certain someone 'cos I'm nice like that. If you can wait 'til after his exams are over (Friday), then all will be revealed. Come to think of it, make that Saturday 'cos he'll be rat-arsed and won't understand a word I say on Friday.

I saw a bloke with a huge afro in Soho Square today. Quite amusingly, it was covered in the bits of crap that fall from the trees. The same bits of crap that keep blinding me whenever I step out the door. Yay for summer!

Speaking of Afros, does anyone else disagree with R. Kelly's sentiment of "running her hands through my 'fro", from "Ignition"? Erm, afro? Where exactly? And a car doesn't have hands! ('cos that's what the song's about y'know - not sex at all - oh no...)

I started training in Maintenence today. And it was lots of fun. Mainly because I astounded Chris and Daimon with my soldering knowledge, but also 'cos I got to make random crap, which is always good.

I got worried earlier. My university e-mail system seemed to have disappeared! In fact, the whole university website seemed to have disappeared. Yes, I know, I shouldn't still have a university account. But I kept using it, and they never closed it, so why not?! Anyway, it's back up and running now thankfully - I need my daily fix of astrology! Let's see, what did the stars have in store for me today?...

"Do things with passion today and take care of any detective work that may need to be done, Julia. You should be feeling emotionally strong right now, and you will find that there is an added bit of intensity to just about every aspect of the day. Your psychic nature is extra strong, and you will find that, though a barrage of stubborn personalities might challenge you, the bottom line is that you know what is right."

So there - I know what is right! Respect my authoritaaaaah!

When I was shopping on Saturday, I made the obligatory trip into Boots, and saw J-Lo's Glow on display, so had a sniff. And I can honestly say it smells like toilet duck! Felt a bit ill after that so didn't sniff any more...

:: Jules 8:58 PM [+] ::
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Well - for those of you that didn't understand Friday's entry... I work at Wildtracks, which is an audio studio. We record the voices for Bob The Builder. At some point next week (I know when but I'd better not say), there will be a special guest voice on BTB in the form of a certain Miss Minogue. (I believe we're also getting Gary Linekar and Sue Barker in over the next few weeks).

It's been a very relaxing weekend, which is a lovely change. I probably won't get another one for a while, as the person who runs the minilab on Sundays has now left, and I've been asked to cover her shift whenever I can until they find someone permanent to replace her, and then to train them in the fine art of photo developing. Which I've agreed to. But only because I get double pay on Sundays and I need the money. Damn bills...

Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, and I went shopping. If I'd have known that it was going to be cloudy today I'd have sunbathed yesterday and gone shopping today. Such is life...

And now it's raining. Just when I'd decided to go and sit outside too. Damn.

p.s. Can everyone who reads this entry please comment. Doesn't matter what you say, doesn't have to be relevent to this (or any other) entry. I just need to know that people read my blog. If they don't, then I have a very lonely-looking paper and pen-type diary next to my bed which I will be quite happy to use, rather than sharing my thoughts with the world. Thank you.

:: Jules 4:15 PM [+] ::
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