smokingboot: (mandragora)
[personal profile] smokingboot
Work just phoned me to offer me today's day show, cos someone has had to pull out. I would need to be there in half an hour, unfortunately as it's in London and I am in Manchester I'm not going to make it.

I have lost an awful lot of money over the past couple of months by not being there when they offer me these extra shifts. Guess it's a good sign that they do, but I'm afraid they'll stop offering if I'm never around. Fneh. I suppose the way to look at it is that the extra money I would get if I lived in London would swiftly be eaten by my living expenses.



It's been good. I still forget when I'm attached to the mike and drop it everywhere but problems with earpieces have faded since I bought my own. Work colleagues are very pleasant, some too charming for anyone's good and some gifted in that kind of way that makes one feel awed and shy. One of our producers acts like a puppy, jovial and somewhat hapless, and we all joke and we all get used to being jokes in each other's eyes. Then he lets me see one of his films, shortlisted for some prize or other, and I am astonished by the sudden revelation of the guy's intensity of vision, his craft and his talent.



The presenters are golden skinny girls with bright light eyes and blonde hair and white teeth. Here I am, a brown girl with freckles (nobody, but nobody has freckles like mine) and white skin and not so white teeth. I have lost weight, due to exhaustion and much running around but whenever I see my profile, my chunky wee neck and ghastly overbite, I wince and wish I was more conventionally pretty. One of the producers laughed when I said that. "You don't do anything else conventionally' he said 'Why start now? You do all right, mate.'

In Manchester, male friends call you Babe, female friends call you Babe or Hun. London, the producer boys rather bashfully call you Mate. The presenter girls are much more forward. I have mentioned shiny new friend before, he of the dark blue eyes and slightly nervous twitch that happens when you walk in, after which he controls his fears, to an unending background chorus of 'Hi Handsome!' and 'Hey Gorgeous!' and 'You look like an angel today, doesn't he girls?' Don't know why it is OK for XXs to do that, while the XYs are stuck being understated and telling you that you are, er, looking really pretty today, or that, in the words of one, 'Your eyes are green aren't they? Hazel green. These idiots don't know how to light you.' I was half waiting for him to say, 'Stick with me baby and your eyes will shine like radioactive limes...'

There's a lot of sex at work. No, not real sex; people trying hard not to think about sex; people trying to think about cameras and lights but that means eventually looking at someone and the more you look the more you think...and of course, some techbod is always fiddling with your neckline cos that's where your mike should be parked if you are doing it right. I am always doing it wrong. Not on purpose you understand.

Date: 2006-10-10 04:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] smokingboot.livejournal.com
I thought it might be something like that. The girls are so ready to compliment and flirt, the boys are much more diffident and careful not to be misunderstood. That equation seems thankfully unnecessary. The boys never think, 'Hey, she wants to get into my Versace boxers,' or even 'I'm the producer, she' so hot for me!' They do this kind of Gawsh-are-you-looking-at-me-big-eyed stuff, and they flutter their eyelashes at you. The sexual politics round here is just too weird...

Date: 2006-10-11 09:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bytepilot.livejournal.com
Versace Boxers ?
Eyelash fluttering ?

Gah, where are the heavily bearded beetle browed scotsmen, striding forward with muscular legs showing under flowing kilts...

I think I'll go and have a bit of a lie down.

Date: 2006-10-11 10:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] smokingboot.livejournal.com
*LOL* Beetle brows? Such things would not be allowed in the building.

Whereas muscular men in skirts could become very popular very quickly:-)

Date: 2006-10-11 04:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bytepilot.livejournal.com
(sigh) is suspect they would be beating off the entire production crew with sticks.

Or not, as the case may be.

In other news.
Missing you M'dear.
(hugs)

Sounds adorable!

Date: 2006-10-11 10:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ravenrigan.livejournal.com
Can I come and play with them? I promise not to break anyone, LOL.

*Puts head in hands*

Date: 2006-10-11 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] smokingboot.livejournal.com
They are adorable, you would eat them right up! I am rescued only by thoughts of my own tres raunchy lover, and a sense of their terrifyingly early-twenty-chirpy-yoof. Can you imagine? Nights of passion followed by days of telling them to pick up their laundry and sort out their bedrooms *shudder* as opposed to telling my darling [profile] larians to pick up his laundry and sort out the bedroom *rocks on heels with laughter!*

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