"You can drive in India without brakes, but never without a horn!" - Mukesh the cabbie

Time for another email from India, this one dated 5th March 2006.
Previous emails are here and here.

The pictures were taken but weren't actually sent at the time but I have culled them from my Facebook page.

"Hey everyone!
I'm gonna keep this one mercifully short! Not much time left and I just saw how long my last one was and it scared me! We are now in a place called Jaisalmer near to Pakistan. We met a dude called Stuart a coupla days ago and went camel trekking into the desert with him for a coupla days - camping out beneath the stars surrounded by the surprising amount of wildlife in the desert was great if a little uncomfortable! I like camels - they look like they're made of all the bits God had left over! Maybe from his Big Bucket O' Knees. Started reading Metamorphosis by Kafka whilst sat on a dune, and then all these black beetles appeared on the edges of my vision. Wasn't my mind playing tricks. As big as my thumb, they seem to dig in for the night and look very cute - kinda like a dog when it kicks dirt over where it's just pooed! Well I think that's kinda cute anyway. Then we had an 8hr bus ride to here, in a bunk that was a coupla inches too short, with a driver going hell for leather with no suspension! Fun! (where does the phrase "Hell for Leather" come from? If anyone knows, do tell) But out hotel here has an outdoor pool!

A beetle busily burrowing.

 Jaisalmer is great - there's a wonderful old fort at the top of the hill with great views of the town that is made entirely of sandstone (i think its sandstone!) and the fort has loads of winding little streets, hemmed in by ornately carved buildings, some are houses, some temples, and loads of colourful stalls selling textiles, paintings, books, food! Wonderful - so pretty!

Anyway - we need to pick up our pace a bit so we're hotfooting it to Jodhpur tomorro. Think I'm gonna watch a puppet show tonight, and maybe having an Ayurverdic massage tomorrow! Dunno what it is but I want one!

EEEKKKK!!! Literally, in the last 30 seconds, a group of 6 or so Indian transvestites, all be-togged in brightly coloured sarees piled into this tiny little internet cafe, and molested my head!!! They were all feeling my hair, pulling it (a little too hard!) to see if it was real, and as they all poured back outside, one of em kissed my hair! That has to be one of the more odd experiences I've had in India! Welcome to my Indian life!

My favourite road sign this week - A sign pointing the way to a school teaching: "PMT - AAAIIIEEE". I'd just LOVE to know...
Have fun all!

(This email has been short-ER)

Sandra: It's the same price for you to text me as normal. And you DO sound like a hippy!

Becky: You sound very busy! Hope you're enjoying yourself?

Jec: Don't say that! I'd kill for a vodka and coke right now!The food is great - the best food was the stuff the camel-men cooked for us while we were out in the desert!

Jen B: Thank you for your email - it made me laugh! Please send more - I loved it. The company was called Impact - is yours called Deep Impact? I'm sure you'll find something contemporary! Knock em dead! Oh - sounds like nothings changed for BSA!

Stephanie: Thankyou for a wonderful email! Truly a joy to read - send more! I just chatted to Wei - she sounds bubbly! I wanna chat to a psychopath! Chilling!

Matt: That IS an electric bill run up something really crazy! Made me laugh a little too much for a small internet cafe!

Ree: Didn't get the attached pic - what was it?

Jen R: I read the Time Travellers Wife - really liked it! Quite beautiful!

Claire: Will burn you KMFDM when I get back! Heard someone say Adios today and I remembered it!

Olly: Hello???"

 

I remember all of this surprisingly well!
Ah yes! Those transvestites! I remember being surprised that they were tolerated in India. Someone fairly soon afterward told me that that is their shtick, They travel around in groups making something of a public spectacle of themselves until someone pays them to leave. They are very much frowned upon and low down in social standing.
And I also seem to remember almost not making it to Jodhpur, but more of that next time.


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Barrett Plywood... Plywood that creates wonders!

Here's the next of my emails back home from my time in India:



"Hey again!


Subject line is presumably North India's premier plywood company. And

my favourite sign yet! It's to be found all over the countyside

alongside the road!

Last email was a bit sporadic. Lack of sleep and too much excitement

do that to me. We've now been through Agra, and that was not quite as

busy as Delhi, but it was smellier and dirtier.

Journey to Agra was so interesting. We passed lots of little

countryside settlments that were full of bustle. Some were just a

group of straw huts. It was so frustrating getting these tantalising

glimpses into these lives and then journeying on. I woulda loved to

stop and talk to the people there. However, the coupla stops we did

make, the people locally didn't seem to speak any Eglish so

ultimately, it may have been even more frustrating! I saw many animals

on the rads too - monkeys, water buffalo, boar, camels, and once,

sadly, a bear being led away somewhere.

i think I forgot to mention the smells in Delhi - it was one of the

first things to hit me! The place was very smelly - but in a good way

- the smells were everywhere and everchanging - cooking, incense, hay,

different cooking - mostly really nice smells but constantly chaning,

never settling. Agra smelt more often than not of stagnant river,

urine, and dead things. IT was a filthy city though we had two lovely

tuk-tuk drivers, Nijam and Hotilal, who didn't rip us off, didn't keep

trying to take us places we didn't want to go, and were very talkative

and friendly. Basically they were our guides of the city for a coupla

days. We saw the Taj Mahal at sunset and sunrise, and various other

things. Got offered our first jewelry scam by our hotelier who also

runs his own jewelry export company. We has one here in jaipur too.

Both were exactly the same almost to the word. Goes like this: he asks

us in for coffee, chats to us about England, India, what we do etc. It

seems to be obligatory for the guy to talk about how many tourists he

has slept with. Then, when the coffee arrives, he asks if we have a

tourist visa. He then goes on to explain that the government sets a

limit on how much they can export at a decent amount of tax. Over that

limit, the tax is 250%. What he wants us to do is sign a piece of

paper saying we bought some goods off him so they are legally ours but

no money will actually change hands. We post the goods back to

England. When we get back to England, we hand them to his contact in

England and he's evaded the tax. He will pay us 10,000 pounds because

its a percentage of what he saves on tax All he wants from us is a

photocopy of our passport and visa, and whatever payment we used (visa

card, travellers cheques etc). Now we don't know exactly what the

sting is, but there is plenty of potential there, don't you agree?



In Jaipur, the city is smaller, more upmarket, cleaner, nicer. But

still, our rickshaw drivers (Evil Salim and Viki) took us to a guy who

tried this exact same scam on us. I kept the guy sweet by seeming

interested tho cuz I wanted to buy some clothes of him. Knocked him

down from 35quid to 5 and he threw in a sarong! Our current rickshaw

driver (Good Salim) seems scared of these guys. He knows them but he's

forever asking us not to mention stuff he's told us, or where he's

taking us, or any recommendations he's made. It's all very political.

Never more evident than when we went to a restaurant with him and Evil

Salim and Viki turned up. No love lost there. Viki's trying to get me

to ditch Si, have a good time with him ("drinks, hashish, girls"), go

to Shekhawati with him etc. Presumably, to butter me up for this jewel

scam.



Anyway - unbeknownst to them, we're going to Shekhawati this arvo with

Good Salim. It's his home. It's a desert area with lots of small

villages, away from all the tourism it seems. There camel safaris and

it's all very peaceful by the sounds of it. Can't wait! Just hope this

tummy bug's gone by then!



Olly: Come to Asia!



Sandra: Glad to hear about your exams but you sound like you're

turning into a hippy!



Lucy: Just for you, I'm looking out for ANYTHING here with arnie on it!



Mahony: 2 things -

1) cuz I saved everyone's email address at bsa to my home computer, I

ain't got most of em here. Can you send me some if you have em please?



2) I think I'm secretly in love with you - you popped up in my dream

again last night! Maybe it's India - Didn't you turn into a little old

Indian woman once?"




Again, I remember this rather vividly!
We nicknamed the taxi drivers Good Salim and Evil Salim. We did eventually end up falling out with good Salim though. I'm sure that gets mentioned in a future (past) missive.

Here are our rickshaw drivers round Agra, Nijam and Hotilal: 

I feel bad. We were meant to send them a copy of this photograph. We promised we would but we never did :(

I remember they didn't charge us a fee at the end of providing their services. They asked us to pay them "as you will". If we thought the service was worth 1,000,000 rupees, then that was what we should pay them. If we thought the service worthless, we should pay them nothing. What a horrible thing to be asked! But smart. I'm guessing these guys knew we were fresh off the boat and fairly decent chaps to boot. They knew we wouldn't just stiff them and pay them nothing and also knew we had no idea what was even close to an appropriate amount. They probably knew we'd err on the side of caution and pay way too much than way too little and also knew that we hadn't gotten used to the fact that what was just a couple of quid and easily disposable to us would go a lot further in India.

We learnt a lot from them and they were very reliable and delivered on evrything they siad they would, even helping suggest meals from restaurant menus.
I can't remember what we did actually pay them. I know that we never did work out if it was appropriate or not. I know that Nijam and Hotilal didn't seem unhappy with it when we handed it over though.

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India!

After a few recent conversations, I have been thinking a lot about when Si and I went backpacking round India and East Asia.
I wanted to dig out the emails I sent back home from then to see what I thought of it all back then compared to my recollections of it now, 8 and a half years later. We set off from Birmingham on the afternoon of 15th February, 2006.
So here is the first from 19th February 2006 - copied and pasted verbatim, typos and all, and timestamped to the correct date. I was 22.



"Hello everyone!
Well, here's the first of my potentially boring emails. Read on or
just aknowledge I've sent it and know I'm back around 17th May. If you
don't read the email, fine. If you don't know I'm home, then I shall
hunt you down!

Anyway - Flights were pretty uneventful. Royal Jordaninan put us up in
a hotel overnight free of charge so all was nice and good. Reminded me
a little too much of a Travelodge and Heaven knows I've seen enough of
those for a while! Watched some damn awful US film called Playaz Court
about some badass B-Boys basketballers who are 'trying' some white guy
on the court for shooting one of their niggaz... see how the title
works? Anyway...

India blows me away! We left the airport to get a taxi, and the
operator banged a coupla parked taxis to see who woke up first and got
the privelege (spelt?) of driving us (it was the guy who belched
loudest). We got a ride with a couple who'd been round India before
(the 15km ride to our hotel cost 400 rupees, about 3.50 in pounds) and
recommended a few places to go to us, most of whcih we were hoping to
see anyway. Right - The roads are manic - everyone; bikes, cars,
motorbikes, rickshaws, buses, autorickshaws (cute little yellow and
green morris minor-style things), people all jostle frenetically for
space. Most motorbikes have a few riders. There are cows wandering
freely everywhere. A lot of Hindus around means they get treated well.
This was all only at 6 in the morning! It's a lot worse in the day! We
have a balcony on our floor overlooking Main Bazaar (A big backpacker
area - lots of cheap hotels and a street lined with shops, stalls and
running markets) and last night, with our body clocks still outta
whack, after giving up on sleep at 3am me and Si spend mosta the night
on it, playing card games and watching the cows sleeping outside our
hotel. The buildings are as I imagined but moreso. They look dropped
in place, some landing on top of others and knocking bits down or out
of the way as they land, others squishing in-between. And like this
has been going on for a coupla hundred years by looking at the styles
of them. It looks like a hen night of drunken spiders then decided to
go crazy and add a wiring system to the city! Every time I press a
light switch I tremble a little.

1st day, we headed out towards Connaught Place just to get our
bearings. It's fairly central. Within minutes, what was to be the
running theme of this trip began. People cannot get enough of my hair!
Seriously! I thought it was bad in England?! I kid you not when I say
people literally FOLLOW me around in groups like I'm some kind of
Messianic figure. And when I turn around, they're just stood grinning
or squinting at me. Everytime I walk down the street, people ar
constantly stopping me saying "is this your original hair?".
Apparently I look like some kinda prophet or something to called Sai
Baba. People are dropping outta normal society to look at me. I may
cut my hair so that we can go out without spending every half hour in
the hour telling people it's my hair.
Anyway - these guys were on some kinda tour hustle. Then a kid came up
"I just want to practise my English. I don't want money". Showed us
the way to Connaught, and some of the sights. Gave us some advice on
avoiding hustles and scams, usually involving a trip to a shop he
handily knew. "Buy Indian clothes so you don't look like tourist. Buy
ones from this shop I am showing you." Kid's on commission from these
places. Liked him though. More chirpy than most of the others since.

Spent a lot of last night drinking Chai tea with this cockney guy
called Mick. He's spent the last 2 and a half years outta the Uk round
Sri Lanka, Oz, India, and now he's off home. He's doing a photographic
book on low-class working life in India. He's been travelling on and
off for the last 10 years or so. Been doing lots of different jobs and
picking up skills, volunteering etc, now putting them all to use in
his book. Very envious of him.

Couldn't sleep last night for more than an hour so we ended up on our
balcony all night chatting, playing cards etc.

Went on a tour of Delhi today. Very nice man called Mukesh driving.
Most helpful - A brilliant man to have show us around. VEry open to
all sortsa questions about his marriage, sex, British occupation, his
hand in his kids lives, etc. Very interesting. Have avoided the
rip-off his company were trying to set us on - an overpriced tour of
Rajastan in 2 weeks. Instead he's gonna pick us up tomoro and take us
to Agra or Jaipur and leave us there. Delhi started well but once
you've seen one fort, one mosque, and one tomb, and you've started
with some of the biggest in the world, you've seen, well some of the
biggest. The others are smaller and as far as touristy things go, I
think we've seen enough. If we stay in Delhi much longer we should
probably get jobs.

Oh - interestingly, i noticed soon after we got here, bloke are much
more tactile here. They of\ten walk down the road laying their arms
across each others shoulders. I think its nice that they can do that.
And today we saw loadsa guys holding hands. Mukesh tells us we right
in guessing they're not gay - it's just a done thing here.

Anyway - times nearly up so I'm gonna love y'all and leave ya, and git t'going!
If I've missed anyone, sorry. Not much time and a big lista people.
I'll try to getcha next time!
Miss you all and big love!


PS...Sandra:How did your exam go? Hope you were sober when you took it?


Liz: Have a great time in Canada! I'm glad we got to catch up. This
place is amazing - you'd love it!"



It's weird re-reading this. Until now, this whole experience had felt fairly distant. Reading it now, this could be last month! I remember bits of it so vividly. I remember the face of the boy and of the guy doing his photography. I had completely forgotten the taxi-driver and his frankness but as soon as I read that, I remembered Si and I being surprised at just how frank he had been about things like sex. I'd forgotten how we couldn't sleep but now I remember just how awful our first hotel room had been and how we were worried they would all be like this. I remember watching the cows bedding down for the night in the half-ruined building across the street from out balcony.

My opinions of Delhi haven't changed. It's a riotous delightful mess of a place and could so easily be overwhelming, but it is so vivid it's sights and sounds are etched up here [taps his temple sagely] forever. (Degenerative neural conditions notwithstanding)

Older!

For older entries, it's back to my old LiveJournal...

http://capndred.livejournal.com/

What a Week?!

I had a smashing week!
Oh, by the way - it's quite long.

PRIOR TO THE SMASHING WEEK:
My showcase pieces from Thursday had been very well received within our school. LOADs of people have come up to me and said how much they liked it and how surprised they were. And one of the tutors has said that based on my showcase, he thinks I have been miscast and underestimated by the school repeatedly in all the other productions. Which I already knew. Bah! A bit bloody late now! Oh well. Anyway, now I have just one more week of uni left! Then I'm finished forever! Hurrah! Dilemma: We have been told by the school again not to waste the first year out of uni. Principal Stephen said for that year, we are the shiny new graduates and people will be prepared to go out of their way to see what new talent is on offer. In a year, we're just part of the mass of actors and there is a whole new class of graduates that everyone's fawning over. BUT I WANT TO GO TO ASIA WITH SIMON SOON!!!!! GAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Don't know what to do. I chatted to Simon briefly on MSN t'other day - he is enjoying South America. What other news?
Oh - Jess has asked me if I want to move in with her and her mate in Bearwood next year for some time. Tempting. I need to mull this over.

THIS WEEK:
I went to London on Monday - we got the coach down from the Link building in town. I say coach - It was the tiniest coach I've ever seen! But we all fit on it (snugly!). There was the usual hour or so hiatus where songs are sung, and all those things that must just make bus drivers cringe occurred - A rousing chorus of Hail to the Bus-Driver Man included.
Well, when we arrived at the theatre, we unloaded, and then those of us staying in the hostel went off to find it. After some confusion about whether we were actually booked or not, we found our rooms (6 floors up - the view down the stairwell was dizzying!). Unfortunately, the one I was sharing with Polly, Naz, and Cath smelled of damp water because the nearby womens shower was playing up. That was sorted and so we went to the pub. In the end, Rod, Martin, Johan and I ended up traipsing round Soho before Martin went to meet a mate and we three remaining kings found a lovely (read: lovely & cheap) little Thai restaurant. We then spent the rest of the night in a really cute (read: cute & cheap) pub. Martin rejoined us, and the night before showcase we were all a tad merry.
I woke up feeling fine, Johan felt rough as a dog. Showcase went very well, and then came the horrible bit afterwards, where wine and snacks were served and we had to mingle with agent-types.
I spoke to Nicole Ribet, our old battleaxe movement teacher. She is really a lovely person outside of a teaching environment. She was glad I'd cut my hair at last - she was the biggest force pushing for me to do that. I was glad she'd commented and she rightly said I'd be disappointed if she hadn't. About travelling, she said "Follow your heart - not that I need to tell you, you always have anyway" and basically said, Acting will always be around but I wouldn't always have the chance to travel. She also said she travelled and it didn't do her any harm. Hmmmm - more to mull!

Since then - I've had Shane Collins - a very good agency be intouch. They're a partnership and one of them, Polly saw me. When I rung the office back, I spoke to a bloke who told me Polly had been "raving" about me all day! So that's nice! I've gotta call them back on Monday when Shane himself is back off holiday! I also had a Birmingham agency call school about me - I've gotta ring them back too. And also a London based Co-Opperative agency. They basically said ring back when I'm living in London, but it's nice to know there is some interest.

I went to the pub with everyone that night, bumped into some old 3rd years and dips, had a great night (No - I didn't get drunk!), went back to the lovely and cute Thai restaurant and pub with Johan (he and I have been getting on very well recently) and then went to bed. Was awakened by Naz coming into the room at 3:30am asking if James could stay there despite him not having paid to. Since Polly was in Tom's room I said yes cuz he was saying he'd have to sleep on the floor otherwise, but regretted it when he turned lights on, talked, then buggered off to get food, and returned just as I was nodding back off, turned the lights on and ate, then fell asleep before me and started snoring. I coulda throttled him!

The next morning, Polly, Rod, Naz and I went to get a full English, then sat in a garden chatting, then I went to Picadilly Circus to get a tube to Chiswick to meet Matt. He was at uni til 9 but had an hour off for lunch. I like getting around London. In the handful of times I've been there, I'm picking up the lay of it pretty well. I'm quite good at finding my way around places. My plan was to meet Matt at his for lunch, then go to the Tate Modern for the rest of the evening and figure out a plan for late evening later. WELL - what should I see on the tube station wall, but a poster for BEIJING OPERA in Sadler's Wells in Islington. And it was running for another 3 days! Islington is MILES from Chiswick but I HAD to go and see it! I've wanted to see Chinese Opera for YEARS!!!! Blame Jackie Chan - It's what he trained in as a child. But I read up on it and found it really interesting. Matt was at uni til 9 so on my own, I trecked clean across London to the Tate Modern. I spent two hours there, and only managed to see the Still Life wing. It's immense! The more I go to art galleries (or the older I get) the more I appreciate them. I really enjoyed the cubist art for the first time in my life. I'd never been keen on it before as I never saw the point but this time I saw a point to it. I will definitely be checking out more. I walked across the Millenium Bridge to leave, and then trekked across London again and walked for ages from the tube station in Islington to get to the theatre. As I said, I enjoy travelling round London. No doubt it's novelty has a shelf life. The opera I saw was about a woman who had been a benevolent snake spirit, who married a man. But a jealous monk told the man she was an evil spirit and convinced him to get her drunk so she revealed her true form. He was so shocked he died, and she had to go to the Magic Mountain to steal a herb to bring him back to life. It was amazing - so unlike anything I have ever seen - really stylised. The fighting was amazing - pleanty of acrobatics, and interestingly, I can see why the old kung fu films looked so obviously clunkily choreographed - they still hadn't broken away fro this ultra-stylised stuff. Highlight: when the Snake Spirit was fighting an army, she was surrounded by about 10 men, all armed with sticks, and for ages they threw sticks at her, and with deft flicks of her feet and hands, she flicked the sticks straight back at them, over long distances with amazing accuracy. And when they ALL threw their sticks at her, she jumped in the air, and with what seemed one movement, sent all the sticks flying out again in different directions all at once, straight back at each guy! Amazing! And I had the best seat in the house! I bought a standby ticket, available to concessions only and hour before the show. I got it for £15. It was in the centre of the very first row of the first circle. The guy next to me paid the full £50 for his!!! I was smug! Then I headed back to Matt's. We played Guilty Gear X 2 for a bit, then went to bed. He had to be up in the morning.

I woke up later than I wanted to, played the PS2 for a bit, then went to an internet cafe to check my emails (maybe another agent had been in touch!!! They hadn't though I did get the message about the co-op agency and rung them back while I was there) and to book the Megabus home. Then I ambled round Chiswick for a bit in the pissing rain. Then went to Matt's when I got too wet and learnt some lines for the all but neglected Portfolio assessment on Monday. Matt rung me at 6 to say he had finished, and met ex-Stage 2-er Bethan who was auditioning for ArtsEd, so for the rest of the evening til about 9, we went to the pub and caught up which was very nice. Then we went back to Matt's and watched Kill Bill which he has never seen!!!

This morning, I awoke to find him sticking pens in my hair, got up, remembered that I'd had about 4 different dreams (or at least one dream with about 4 very different happenings!) throughout the night, found my way to the Megabus, nodded off mosta the way home and here you find me - I've learnt some more lines this evening, also discovered I'm flat broke and spent my last £2 on cheap-ass food from Kwik Save. Jenny went out with her mates tonight and got back in about 12. She was very sleepy so much as I wanted to, I haven't trecked over to hers as I would be trecking to go to sleep. She's got work tomorrow too so I wouldn't see her in the morning either really. So I'm gonna stay in tonight, and finish off learning lines. How sensible, no? I'm gonna work tomorrow afternoon til 9, Jen's working in the hotel from 12pm til 3pm and Eddies from 10pm til 4am so I shan't see her til Sunday but if I learn all I need to now, we can spend all Sunday together so that'll be nice. Dad texted me not long ago too. He wants to go for a pub lunch with me and Jen on Sunday so that will certainly be welcome!

NEAR FUTURE:
Monday - I have to ring Shane Collins to arrange an interview, ring a Birmingham agency that wants to speak to me, go to uni and do this assessment.
Friday - there is a cheese and wine thingy at uni for us, given that it is OUR LAST DAY!!!! And I have to hand in our Business Plans - basically telling school how we intend to further our careers once we leave. It is assessed. Then the ball at the Botanical Gardens in the evening.

My life from here on in has no rigid structure to it bar these few things. After Friday - I have no known compulsory events in my life. For the first time in 18 years. Very cool. Very scary.
I know 6th form and uni weren't compulsory, but they are the sort of things that, once embarked on, feel very much compulsory.
How weird. On leaving uni, I am at once relieved and sad. Relieved because, if you know me well, or have been following my LJ, you will know I have struggled with the course and have not liked what it has done to me. It has made me more insecure and noticably less happy and buoyant. At times it has felt like it is sucking the very life outta me. But yet, I am enjoying it now, and have been for some months. I have appreciated the people more (perversely, and probably not coincidentally just as I was thinking about the end being nigh) and will miss seeing them routinely. I have gotten used to BSA. I wonder who I will stay in touch with as now I know there are people I will make an effort stay in touch with and would be upset to lose touch with, and people I would quite like to but am not sure whether I actually will. This is as opposed to before, when I really couldn't have cared less. I'm gonna go away now and read some old LJ entries. The mood indicator says I am jubilant. I was when I started this. I think melancholic would be more appropriate now.
Don't worry about me. I'm perfectly happy!
Just thoughtful.
Night -xXx-      

Fiming and Things

So yeah.

Lots to report so if you're interested, click
We filmed yesterday which was more fun than I thought it would be. I didn't really like the script - It's wacky and off the wall and a bit annoying I thought. The main charcter's a giant talking CONDOM for crying out loud! But I think it's going to work better as a film than as a piece of reading. It was really fun to shoot and left me wishing we were filming over more than one day. But we can't have everything, eh? Pre-production was a bit of a hassle - we had to find locations and get all the appropriate paperwork signed and so on and we were let down by our main locationscout but we got there in the end!

Also, I know this is really geeky of me, but I am a big geek - I think I manage to hide it pretty well most of the time though. The other day, I watched a new animated Spider-Man cartoon and just out of interest searched for it on www.imdb.com. I found it and there was a huge argument going on about it in one of the forums! It caught my eye though and got me quite interested. You see, anyone who has seen the Daredevil film will know that Kingpin was black in it. What maybe not so many people know is that the Kingpin is actually one of Spidey's villains and has been since the 60s. However, in Spidey, he has always been white. But for some reason, he was made black in the film. Well, the upshot is, since this Spidey cartoon was trying to follow on from the film continuity of the Spidey films, it seems to have tried to stay true to the Daredevil movie too and Kingpin is again black. This has caused an uproar on imdb. Check out http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290983/board/nest/7829532 to follow the thread. I posted a coupla times near the end. Anyone who reads this, have a look at the thread and lemme know what you think. I know it's only a cartoon, but at the heart, I think to change a character's colour is to say it's an insignificant detail. Being mixed-race myself, I really think it is important. Although I don't think people should be treated unfairly because of their colour, I think it DOES have a very real effect in your social interactions - your friendship groups can be altered by it because on a basicand simplified level, people tend to like to hang round those similar to themselves. Tend to. Not always do. Also, people WILL react to you differently based on what you look like. Not necessarily worse or better, but they will react differently. Anyway lemme know what you think.

This year, I have spent too much money on gigs - Machine Head, REM, Slipknot & Slayer, Green Day, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails.

I finish uni at the end of May! Scary thought! We have to sort out all our Showcase pieces VERY soon! I need to knuckle down! After uni, my plan is to move back home, or with Jess and Olly, work, at the hospital but also audition for acting jobs I may get, and then, when we both have money, go travelling with Si round Asia. I've wanted to travel for so long - Emma and Wei are ALWAYS travelling and I'm so envious! I wanna! They're in South America now. Si's been round Europe last summer, and is going to meet Em and Wei in a month or so cuz he's finished uni already! I can't wait til I finish so I can save the money and have the time to travel too!
I have an audition on Wednesday. I got a call from Spotlight - THE actors directory - saying I should get in touch with Impact on Learning. They seem to be a Theatre in education company that take comissions from schools or business to do devise drama pieces and or workshops. http://www.impactonlearning.com/. When I said I was still at uni they gave me the choice to audition now or when I finish. I chose now. Only bad thing is I gotta get the train at 6:20am!!! Shock tarts! It's in Honley. Near Sheffield I think. Should be fun - it's a workshop audition so I don't have to prepare anything. I'm looking forward to it!

My latest obsession is Neon Genesis Evangelion - look it up in Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion is a pretty good overview. It's an anime about kids called on to fight weird creatures called Angels attacking earth after a catastrophic experiment was carried out on an Angel discovered at the North Pole and caused an apocalyptic event. It's starts quite simply and I was starting to get bored with the "Angel attacks-Kids fight Angel-Angel kicks crap outta kids-Kids destroy Angel-Kids dwell on the fight" sort of routine, but it then goes into depression, mental illness, the meaning of life, death, the existence of God, the existence of souls, morality, violence, revenge, ego, corruption, bent corporations, and other cheery subjects and gets very dark. The last two episodes are weird and have been redone a lot of times. The last time they were done as movies and they're amazing but such a head-fuck! I love it though.

What else - Oh yeah - going to Oxford to see Stephanie and go to Baraka again tomorrow. Baraka is a really spaced-out Neo-Hippie kinda club. the music is PsyTrance which I thought I'd hate but when you get into it and just let it take over you, it's amazing! Really appeals to something primal. It's a lovely atmosphere - everyone is really chilled out!

I went to see Jenny's play on Wednesday - The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui by Brecht. It's a metaphor for Hitler, with Ui rising to the head of the crooked 1940s gangster underbelly of America's cauliflower trade. It was really good and Jenny was amazing. She's so talented. I love her. And loads of my friends who'd not seen her act before told me she was amazing too! She really is. I didn't like seeing her get gunned down on stage though. It was horrible. The guy playing Ui, Richard Bridge, was also amazing - no-one ever see's him round school when there isn't a lesson. He's a complete lone-horse apparently. But had a really amazing physicality that he maintained and developed really well.

Finally - As suggested by the_claw_kitten...


Step 1: Put your media player on random.
Step 2: Pick your favorite lines from the first 30 songs that play.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from.
Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly

Not that anyone will read this...

1.) You're here with me, it's like a dream, let the choir sing (trick one this - the one I listened to was an obscure cover but guess the original) The one I listened to was KMFDM but Ajay guessed the original Madonna
2.) Well, we made a stop in albequerque, She musta thought, I was a real cool jerk
3.) And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night Tis Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
4.) Hear me now. Words I vow. No fucking regrets!
5.) We got a thousand points of light For the homeless man (Another cover - not so obscure - guess either)
6.) Theyre gonna bleep it anyway. S'il vous plait. Fuckin' A (Just Push Play - Aerosmith)
7.) You're gonna wake up one day dead inside Cause you're alone, not in my life
8.) A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys.(This one's a doozy - guess WHO I listened to for the cookie!)
9.) My god sits in the back of the limousine. My god comes in a wrapper of cellophane. My god pouts on the cover of the magazine. My god's a shallow little bitch trying to make the scene Starfuckers - Nine Inch Nails
10.) Teachers Keep on teachin'
11.) One tooth goes under her skin, another comes out again
12.) You do it to me sweetly, to me yeah yeah !!
13.) What exists around us? The right to choose free spirit
14.) I want to find ya from the pleasures that I get from you
15.) When you peel back my eyes, I see the pain and feel alive
16.) On the growing list of the mindless, by your name a check
17.) Stars with evil eyes stare from the sky
18.) I didn't have much money, so I stole you a rose
19.) A lie from your lips will make me cry out in pain
20.) And the postcards you send would never (never) mend The pain in my heart when we're apart.
21.) My world goes black before I feel an angel steal me from the Greedy jaws of death and chance, and pull me in with steady hands
22.) When I was just a boy The devil took my hand
23.) And I'm almost sure that I've been here before, this is not the first time I've stood in front of this door
24.) I give my heart, cause nothing can compare in this world to you
25.) Silk or leather or a feather, respect yourself and all of those around you Prince Charming - Adam and the Ants
26.) Theres four-hundred more of us then them
27.) Spawned wanton like blight on an auspicious night
28.) Lay down with beasts, and welter in my gore
29.) From all your spoken lies Your speech means nothing to me
30.) Someone sold all the truth you yearned

Well... That's your lot!