The future's got a million roles for you to choose

I have been debating in my mind whether or not to tell you the following story. I feel I should because a) it is Very Interesting, and thus qualifies as a good blog topic, and b) Ray and I did it together, thus qualifying it as a Jess and Ray's. However, I feel I shouldnt because it's not so much a way to spend a lazy summer day, as it is a important step in my career. I have decided to tell you it mainly because it's all just so exciting and I feel that you, my beloved reader, should get the chance to share in the excitement.

On Wednesday, Ray and I went up to London. Actually, we went up to Staines, which my Vati told us was technically Middlesex, and the local bus stops proclaim to be Surrey. Still, off we went. Our destination? Pinewood Studios, Shepperton. As well as being the studios in which lots of interesting films are filmed (I may have mentioned previously how we love films) it is also home to Brushstrokes school of 'professional make up training in media, fashion and hair'. Brushstrokes is soon to become my home. I am doing their three week intensive hair cutting and styling course, which is a long name for a course, but it leaves no question as to what the course is about. Intensive hair cutting and styling, if anything.

We met a woman called Shelley, who's cousin is a woman called Rebecca, who I work with. It took me a while to warm to Rebecca, in fact on her first day I shouted at her. 'Fucking amateur' I bellowed during main course service. It's an outburst I came to regret almost instantly, as now every time she works, she makes a special effort not to piss me off. My mother once described me as 'emotionally unstable and prone to violence' which I feel is an unfair description, as I am not prone to violence particularly, I just feel that there is no need for gormlessness. My point is, that although it took me a while to warm to Rebecca, I warmed to Shelley instantly. Shelley is a Wonderful Woman. She also has the power to make or break my career, so to not like her would be churlish.

Shelley is one of the lecturers at Brushstrokes, and the reason we met with her was to have a little tour and a chat, and a sort of informal interview. I borrowed another dress from Megan for the occasion - blue, and so nice that I want to buy it. Maybe I will. Shelley, until recently, was the head wig mistress on Phantom of the Opera, making her a very good person to know. Those of you who have read my profile will have learned that I want to be a wig maker. She said that if she was going to employ a wig person, she would always be more likely to hire someone who could cut hair also. Babs doesnt agree, but Babs doesnt work on Phantom of the Opera. Shelley agreed with Gina in that Babs is an excellent wig maker and wig making teacher. I cant wait to meet Babs.

This is my plan. I will do two weeks of the intensive, hopefully staying in Shepperton with a nice family who want to lend me a bedroom. I shall then do two weeks of work experience, fingers crossed for Phantom because good God how cool would that be!? But if not, then something else. With a bit of luck I'll be able to stay with Bendy (my dad's mum) during work experience time, because she lives in Camden which is closer to the West End. The only fly in the ointment of living with Bendy, is that to live with Bendy I must also live with Bill (Bendy's husband). Words cannot describe Bill, and my amateur writer's brain could not begin to do justice to his madness . Bill is an exceptionally nice man, really exceptionally nice, but he is so impossibly intelligent that normal conversation sends him to sleep. After work experience time, hopefully my nice family will lend me their spare room again and I'll do the final week of the intensive.

Here is where the serious work experience comes in. Shelley is going to do her best to hook me up on various shows and films, and I shall experience work until Christmas, when I shall go away on a mad family trip. Megan and I shall sit in matching Stars Hollow jumpers, both with excellent hair (courtesy of my newly learned talent), drinking tea and watching films starring people from Gilmore Girls. Megan is the only person I know, except Ray, who shares my passion for Gilmore Girls. Sadly, however good I become in the world of wigs, I shall never be able to work on a Gilmore Girls movie, because Lauren Graham doesnt want to do it. Hellish Lauren Graham.

In February, I shall go to college with Babs in Eastbourne and learn how to make the wigs, and measure the heads, and all the technical specialist wig information. Shelley thinks I should swing in London at this point (not car keys in a bowl sort of swinging, luckily for us all, but the sort of swinging where you make yourself very available during the evenings, and maybe swing a couple of shows a week) and although I think this is an excellent idea, I feel it shall be very tiring. However, according to Shelley, who might as well be the Oracle I've quoted her so much, once you've been swinging for a year you are likely to get offered a full time position. Which would be excellent.

After our time with Shelley, which we both enjoyed very much, we went for a cup of tea in one of the cafes in the studio. This cafe was great for so many reasons. First of all it was absolutely beautiful, secondly, the biggest cup of tea I've ever been presented with only cost me £1, and to top it all off, the woman serving the tea was the most enthusiastic person I've ever experienced. I think I shall have tea there often.

In other news, at today's wedding the entire wedding party (bride, groom, bridesmaids, ushers) did a dance to Footloose. You can imagine how great that was.

Stars in Their Eyes

I didnt blog yesterday, which was remiss of me because yesterday was good. Yesterday was Very Interesting. We went to a lecture at Sussex Downs Planetarium in Chichester entitled

"Thomas Harriot - Elizabethan Genius Moon Observer."

We sat on the front row in the lecture and I, in the interest of blogging, made notes. This is definitely the geekiest thing I've ever done, but Ray can probably top it. I once got thrown out of a lecture for eating a lime. I am not good in such situations. Today when I signed in to write this blog, I was told that I have a follower. A follower, ladies and gentlemen. I think you can imagine that this is very exciting indeed. It is for the follower, and the readers, and the 5-times-that-I-know-of favouritees, that I made these notes.

Thomas Harriot was a hero.

Thomas Harriot was hot, for one thing. He had a sexy pointy beard and looked a bit like an Elizabethan Bruce Willis. He wasnt as hot as Walter Raleigh, but he didnt get executed either so that evens it out. In 1580, Thomas Harriot graduated Oxford with a first class degree in Mathmatics. This is incredibly impressive, especially to those of us who scraped a C at GCSE. Even more impressive, check this out, he was regarded as the best mathematician in Europe. He became great pals with Walter Raleigh. I imagine that they called each other Tom and Walt, and they lived together at Durham House, on the Strand. Walt, as we know, was an explorer. He was mates with the Queen, and she liked to send him on little missions to the New World to look about. An excellent job, explorer. It is a shame that there arent any left, I would be a good explorer, except that I have really bad hay fever and also I am allergic to peaches.

Anyway, Walt noticed that sadly the British were not very good navigators, so on one of his trips he took his good friend Tom along to help out. By this time, Tom had basically figured out atomic stacking, so he was clearly a force to be reckoned with when it came to science. This trip was a Journey Of Discovery. They left Plymouth on April 9th 1585 in a convoy of ships lead by the HMS Tiger, with Tom at the helm. The Atlantic Ocean proved no problem at all for Tom, and soon enough the whole team arrived in the New World.

They landed on Roanoke Island, in Virginia. While he was there, Tom learned the language of the local Algonquian Tribe, and taught them English. He became great friends with the chief of the tribe, and would often hang around smoking with him. Tom made many notes about Virginia, and drew a very detailed map of the area (the original of which the Americans have just purchased for something like $3,000,000) and when he returned home he wrote the book 'A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia'. Many of his notes were thrown overboard on the voyage home, so he wrote the entire thing from memory. Impressive.

Sadly for Tom, Walt got put in the Tower of London soon after that, so he had to leave Durham House and move into Syon House with the 9th Earl of Northumberland. The 9th Earl of Northumberland was known as the Wizard Earl, which I rather enjoy. Tom started to look at the moon, and the sun, and to record the things he saw. A man called Chris Tooke also helped with this, which must have been nice. At this point in my notes, I have written 'scientific orgies'. Heaven help us.

It was a shame for the 9th Earl of Northumberland that his cousin was a man called Tom Percy. Tom Percy was very involved in the Gunpowder Plot, and as a result of the investigation following the Plot, our friend the Wizard got taken to the Tower of London. He left Thomas Harriot in charge of his estate, and continued to fund his research into the moon and things. Tom visited both Walt and the Wizard while they were imprisoned. Incidentally, I think Walt and the Wizard could certainly have a hit single, so if anyone is looking for a band name...

In 1607, Tom saw a comet. This was definitely exciting for him. Two years later, on June 26th 1609, at 21:00 GMT, Tom drew the first ever drawing of the moon through a telescope. This was 4 months earlier than Galileo drew his moon, so in your face Italy.

Although Tom was asked many times to publish his findings, he never did. And so in 1621, when Thomas Harriot died of cancer of the nose, he left all his papers to the Wizard, who was released from the Tower two weeks later and moved to Petworth House, West Sussex.

Mega.

If Troy can tell his secret then I can tell mine.

Yesterday was the first day it's been properly sunny in ages. The Met Office said it'd be beach barbeques all summer, but it turns out the Met Office lied. Hellish Met Office. So yesterday when Ray came round, looking for an Interesting Thing to do, we decided to bake fairy cakes.

Slez is a caterer so we popped to her office kitchen affair and collected the ingredients we needed in little bags, it was like doing FT at school. I was great at FT, but I very much hated it. Once we had to make Cauliflower Cheese and I did what Slez said and left my cauliflower whole, but everybody else cut their's up and Jody Nicholson was really horrible to me about it, she was like 'who's is THAT?' and I was like 'mine' - trying to be defiant, bless. It totally didnt come off - and she was like 'why havent you cut it up like everybody else?' and I didnt really have an answer, because you cant tell Jody Nicholson that you're just doing what your mummy told you. So I didnt say anything. It was just awful. Tasted good though.

Anyway, back to fairy cakes. We went to Tessy also, to buy decorative things such as those orange and lemon slices that I love so much, and Ray bought some plums for Pookie.

As I preheated the oven (to 190°C) and Ray started whipping the butter and sugar together until they formed a smooth paste, I realised that we hadnt bought any cake cases. A rummage through the kitchen draws came up with 9 cake cases, all completely flat and covered in cobwebs. Still, needs must. Tom Carrott arrived soon after that, which was a bit embarrassing for all concerned because he didnt realise we were there when he started barking at the dogs, and we didnt realise he was there as we sang Total Eclipse of the Heart. Tom Carrott suggested chocolate chips in the cake mix - an excellent suggestion.

In all, we made 9 regular sized fairy cakes, and 10 tiny tiny little ones. They were excellent. Just the right colour, and bouncy like sponge is supposed to be, and they came out of the tin thing with such ease. The only fly in the ointment actually, was that I fucked up the icing and it was far too runny, and Ray poured icing sugar all over the floor and her feet and the cat. I love icing sugar, because it makes the air taste nice.

We put the cakes in the fridge for the icing to set, balancing precariously on top of the beer and

crossed our fingers that a) they didnt get eaten before we got back from walking the chines, and b)

nothing fell on them and squashed them to oblivion. Luckily neither of these things occurred and

when we got back from our little walk, we had a cup of tea and a cake. It was very civilized.

Ray won the Interesting Things That You See On A Walk game, with the superb spot of a little wigwam made out of branches. We went in it and sat down, and then Douglas came in and we feared that his tail would knock it down so we went out again. I was annoyed with myself really, because how thick do you have to be not to spot a wigwam!? Especially as it actually turned out to be three wigwams, all in a line, making the answer 'very thick indeed'.

Later I went to the cinema with Mel. We watched the Taking of Pelham 123, which I think is an annoying name for a film, but we very much enjoyed it. Not as many people died as I thought were going to, which was nice because I hate it when people die for no reason.

Later today, we are going to a lecture on Elizabethan Astrology. But first I have to get up.

Oh I believe, in yesterday...

To the bees!

Ray's mum is called Pookie. Pookie is a very talented botanical artist, and do you know what very talented botanical artists have? Year passes to Wakehurst Place, that's what. Wakehurst Place (http://www.kew.org/visitor/visitwp.html) is very pretty. It's part of Kew Gardens, but instead of being in Hellish London (where the vermin of the world live) it is near Haywards Heath (the heart of mid-Sussex). Great news!

It wasnt the nicest of days to walk around a garden, however beautiful and interesting the garden is. Still, we took a brisk walk around, looking for a particular flower that Pookie wanted us to photograph, so that she could paint it. We didnt find the flower, because we forgot what it was and the one we found that could have been it didnt have a handy information sign anywhere near it. Annoying, but fine. We really did look though, poking around under unidentifiable bushes in the pouring drizzle, but we could not see.

Soon after this, I fucked up. There was a big sign when we arrived, informing us that there was a bee keeping show and tell thing going on at 2:30, which is obviously a very interesting and good thing to see, so we decided to. Sadly, I was convinced that the very interesting bee keeping show and tell thing was at 1:30, and we arrived an hour early.

We had a cup of tea. Ray had some cake and I enjoyed a scone. All excellent things, and then we looked around the Millennium Seed Bank for far longer than I think you really need to, and then we sat, and got chased around by an enormous spider. We suspect the spider was brought in with some seeds and is technically an illegal immigrant, but so long as it doesnt bite and kill anyone, all is well.

Eventually the very interesting bee keeping show and tell thing began, and somehow we managed to be late. We were outside, it was inside, there were people milling everywhere, we ended up at the back. Same old story! The long and the short of it is that the very interesting bee keeping show and tell thing turned out to be very uninteresting, and completely devoid of bees. There was an exceptionally dull man who scraped honey off boards (quite interesting for 14 seconds) in complete silence, for 40 minutes. We left.

To the bar!

Our friend Gina used to go out with a boy called Jake, who is now doing very well as an artist. Sadly, Gina broke up with Jake to go out with Colby. Gina and Colby went out for a little while, and then broke up. Last night was Colby's birthday celebrations, and a group of us - not including Gina because she lives in Wales now, but including Ray, myself and our friend Cara (who is mad) - went to Brighton.

Last night was Pride night.

Brighton was packed. We started in Spoons - classic, and moved on to a club called Digital. I'm not actually allowed in Spoons because I once threw up in a pitcher after downing a dirty pint in a toast to Graham Turner, and got barred. Graham Turner has an excellent bottom. I wore a dress that I borrowed from my cousin Megan, and some very silly, yet very beautiful shoes. I also has a bit of an incident with the glitter and ended up looking like a disco ball. It's ok though, because someone told me I was beautiful, so that was nice. Cara and I encountered a mad girl in the toilet. She was dancing up against the sink and as I came out of the cubicle she hugged me. I was surprised, but not displeased I suppose. She told us that her ex boyfriend used to beat her up, and that she used to be a stripper. Cara repeatedly told her to love herself (Cara is a repeater). I interjected with comments like 'yeah girl' and 'shake it sister', I dont know why. Annie went in the toilet 15 minutes later and met the same girl, and had the same conversation. She was certainly mad.

Ray and I debuted the Hoedown Throwdown, which impressed everyone far more than I expected it to. We also did a dance that a wrestler does, but that's fine, wrestlers are dancers too. Cara told me that she fancies Joanna Lumley, which was a surprise to me and will probably come as a surprise to her boyfriend. Apparently Joanna says 'hello' and Cara comes over all tingly. Colby's friend Simon turned out to be quite a good dancer, and quite a lot of people got their faces painted. As far as hook-ups go, I dont think there were any, which isnt very interesting, gossip wise. Fun night though.

The taxi back to Ray's house cost us £22, which was truly excellent as we'd expected to have to pay at least £40. Cara did not stop talking the entire journey home, which was exhausting for me and Ray, but the taxi driver loved it. He used to work in Chichester, but now he doesnt.

In other news, I have been favourited 5 times that I know of, which is incredibly exciting. Also I finished reading After the Break, by GMTV's Penny Smith - it was good but the ending didnt seem complete enough. I have also decided on the names of my future children after reading Everything Beautiful, by Simmone Howell, which I thought was very good indeed.

Today, in true exhausted/hungover style, Ray and I watched:

Chasing Liberty

The Little Mermaid

High School Musical

Groundhog Day

Hairspray.

The Devil wears a Golden Hairband.

It's friday morning. I went to work yesterday and in a little while I have to go to work again. Last night a man danced a bit extravagantly and smashed his face up, and there was blood everywhere. All over the floor, all over the poor lady he danced into, all over the sink. Then a man with the whitest teeth I've ever experienced came in, and cleaned him up. I'm fully expecting to see white-teeth-man at Pride tomorrow night, if you know what I mean. We're going to Pride tomorrow night. It's our friend's birthday, so we have to. It will be mad. Anyway, Pride is another thing. Today I want to tell you about the zoo.

On Wednesday, Ray, Cheesy and I went to Marwell Zoo. Cheesy is my smallest brother, he is great and I love him. Ray stayed over on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday morning at 8am (!) I woke her up with a cup of tea and we sat and watched the final episode of Gilmore Girls together. It was the definition of emotional. I cried like a baby, and I'm still not over it. Then we had breakfast with my Vati, who makes the best eggs ever, and then, eventually, after dropping Seth off at work, we were on our way to Marwell. Straight down the M27, in case you're interested. We had to stop on the way to pump my tires up and buy 'caffeine in many forms'. Then we had to stop again because the car had developed a worrying slant.

It turns out that after the exit off the M27 (is 'exit off' a tautology? Ray will know) there is a much longer drive than you're expecting. It says it's only 8 miles, but it's really far longer than that. You could literally Lose Yourself (that's a joke specifically for Eminem fans) on the way. But we found it, and we parked in a mad car park without an entrance, and we went to the zoo.

The thing about Marwell is, it doesnt have lions or elephants. Thus making it a slightly disappointing zoo. It does however have a fine collection of penguins with a nice underwater viewing bit, and a nice lot of monkeys. Specifically Golden Lion Tamarin Monkeys, which are my absolute fave. When I was little I had a book about a dog who saved some Golden Lion Tamarin Monkeys, and I loved it. We saw some playing with each other in a cute way. Marwell's crowning feature is the fact that it has a Snow Leopard. Snow leopards are incredibly rare, there are only 5,000 left in the world or something ridiculous like that. It makes me sad, because they are very pretty. It was raining, so not unlike their domestic cousins, all the cats were sleeping. As well as the snow leopard, we saw regular leopards, and tigers. Fuck me tigers are huge. One paw is about the size of my face. It'd kill ya without even trying. Amazing. I enjoy cats, they're just so chilled out. Chillaxin' and maxin' and shootin' some B-ball, if anything.

The bat enclosure was terrifying, because it was very dark and very full of bats. All flapping around a bit too close to comfort. There was a bat in my living room once, when Mel and I were watching Britain's Got Talent. We screamed and ran away, and I threw some cats at it. Not very friendly, but they chased it outside. Also Ray and I encountered a maybug in my room on Tuesday and nearly had simultaneous heart attacks.

Cheesy's favourite bit about the zoo was the rhinos. The horn of a rhino is made entirely out of hair, did you know that? The rhinos were very big, which is an understatement of the highest order. Ray enjoyed the giraffes most, although they smelled a bit funky. There was a baby one which was exciting. I think being a giraffe might be rather fun. You could look down on things and say 'ahhaha, in your face small thing, I beat you all in the tallness game' and that would be good because as we all know, the tallness game is a very important one. Ray is the average height of a British man (5"9) and I am the average height of a small bear (5"4). Cheesy is not the average height of anything. He is practically giant man, although he isnt as tall as Seth (my other brother) and Seth isnt as tall as Mattmatt (my tallest cousin) who is 6"7 or something mad. He plays basketball.

The zoo website (http://www.marwell.org.uk/) recommends 4-5 hours for your visit. We did it in 3. It was raining, Ray's ankle was giving her gip and I was wearing flipflops. We bought a present for Mel (I cant tell you what it is, because I havent given it to her yet) and also a post card for Kay. And some truly disgusting tea which isnt even worth mentioning, and then we went home.

I say 'went home', what we actually did is become totally aspated by attempting to cut off the extraordinary amount of driving necessary to get back to the M27, and somehow ended up on the M3. Charging towards the M25, which we arrived on in rush hour. It took us just over an hour to get to the zoo, and it took us nearly 3 hours to get home. The moral of this story, kids, is never try to cheat the system.

Pop it Lock it Polka Dot it

Exercise! A great thing! But, hellish and boring and totally, totally exhausting. The gym poses a problem for the everyday singleton - it's a place to meet attractive men, but also a place to be seen by attractive men looking bright purple and sweating like a pig on heat. This is why I do not attend the gym.

What I do enjoy however, is dancing. I dont mean club-type dancing which I really really hate, but dance routines. And a place I am unlikely to bump into attractive men, is my living room. Actually my brothers do have some quite attractive friends, but my brothers are never in. This is why today, Ray and I did some dancing.

Predictably, it began with a film. Footloose. Kevin Bacon liberates small town America with his big city attitude and funny little car. All pretty basic - town council has banned music and dancing, Kevin rebels against the system and takes the youth of the town with him. Eventually the town council relents and the youth celebrate with a Senior Prom, at which they have a bit of a dance-off and you suspect they've all been secretly practicing for this moment their entire lives. Kevin gets the girl and they boogie the night away. Sarah Jessica Parker is in it also and (one for the game) the man who plays the baddie in Beethoven 2nd.

Anywho, the point is that this film got us dancing. Everyone knows the classics, you know, the Macarena and Saturday Night and 5,6,7,8, and that's fine. But better, is the Hoedown Throwdown from the Hannah Montana Movie. Excellent.

Pop it lock it polka dot it

Countrify and hip hop it

Put your hawk in the sky, move side to side

Jump to the left, stick it, glide.

Zig zag across the floor, shuffle in diagonal

When the drum hits, hands on your hips, one footed 180 twist.

Zig zag, step slide, lean it left, clap (three times)

Shake it out head to toe, throw it all together that's how we roll.

After a lot of practice, using a YouTube video specially designed for the learning of this dance (which was already on my Favourites, I'm sorry to say) we threw it all together. That's how we roll. It's not quite right yet, but we have 3 weeks to perfect it before we plan to reveal it at Ray's 21st birthday party. We also plan to learn the dance from the end of High School Musical, Soulja Boy and maybe a bit of improvised Audrey Hepburn style movement as well. Think Funny Face, but probably much less elegant.

Ray has the dentist tomorrow. As does my dad, because today one of his teeth broke in half while he was eating pate.

My Poor Rusalka...

Ladies and gentlemen, I love the Opera. There, I said it. It's heaven. It's not broadway musical all singing all dancing heaven, but it's a kind of heaven and I love it. And now, having been to the Opera yesterday courtesy of my friend Mel (Mel knows everyone - seriously, test her) I am sure that wig making is the way forward. The wig department at the Glyndebourne is amazing, it's all shiny and bright and full of nice ladies measuring people's heads and suchlike things. It's a funny sort of thing to want to do, but I want to do it and if anything I have to do something so this will do. I'm going to ring Babs after Gilmore Girls. Babs, Barbara, is the woman who runs the wig making school that I want to attend. I only call her Babs in my head.

I went to the Opera with my mother, Slez, so it technically doesnt count as a Jess and Ray's, but it's changed my life so I'm talking about it. And it was free, but it wouldnt have been if Mel didnt have connections. She used to work in a bike shop so she knows everyone who has ever ridden a motorbike, and Clive, the props man, rides a motorbike. We had to go in Slez's car, because mine isnt posh enough and they wouldnt let us in in it.

After I've rang (is it rang or rung? The classic Pocket Craig debate) Babs, I'm going to ring Ray and see if we can organise an Interesting Thing. It's sunny today, but also it's freezing so that's a shame. This weekend, while I was working working working, serving mean people food and drinks and generally wishing I had a grown up's job instead of the job of a 15 year old girl, Ray was graduating. Ray is a graduate now, for the rest of her life and I am very proud of her.