Unbelievable. Sometimes life is so like being in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm it makes me doubt ever doubting that you should doubt that ‘Curb’s situations should be doubtable. Was it not bad enough that I was working on a Saturday? I’d crawled out of bed at 7 (seven) IN THE MORNING to do something I don’t care about (my job). Cold and foggy (weather), tired and slightly hungover head are also thrown into the mix….it reminded me of a letter I wrote when I was 7…
Dear Jim,
Please, please, please could you fix it for me to be sat in the foyer of a Central Manchester Hotel while a large group of annoying, loud, stupid wannabe singers and dancers very loudly talk about themselves and their pointless existences? I know this is maybe being greedy but it would really help if this came 9 years into a career in Educational Assessment that will (frankly) sap my will to get out of bed of a morning. Oh and it was on a cold day. And a weekend. And I was a bit hungover.
Thanks
Philip S Bridgehouse (7)
Despite the absence of a very old, odd man with a perpetual cigar I know that somehow, somewhere, some….I haven’t got another some- to go here, and the somewhere didn’t really make sense to start with. Anyway, just for the people I’ve lost: There was something called something like RG Productions auditioning people to sing and dance in some show. They were auditioning them at the same hotel where I was ‘running’ a meeting. They are doing something in ‘the arts’ so they didn’t care about proper organisation and stuff like that. The woman seemingly in charge told people for a good 45 minutes “they’re just parking downstairs now so it wont be long”. She told them this in front of the people she’d told the same thing to about 45 minutes ago. 45 minutes to park a car. Fuck: these directors of singing and dancing extravaganzas are talented chaps. Sorry that’s harsh: they had to park a car and climb to the SECOND floor of a hotel. [Its not the second floor though. It’s the mezzanine floor. Now that confused the shit out of the stars of tomorrow]. All I’m saying is, what a massive bunch of bastards they were. I’ve met people with passion: the only thing this lot were obsessed with were themselves and that one day they might be in Heat. Fortunately the way people deal with being self-obsessed is to talk about the various ways in which they are great in a loud voice. Unfortunately I was not deafened by loud gunfire in my youth and was, thus, privy to their ramblings. Fuckers.
Why is it that this kind of person tends to be chatty? I know people who do different things that are artistic and creative. I’ve met musicians, painters, writers and even a poet. They all wanted to be good at what they do. That’s not this kind of person. We know what I’m talking about here. People who want to go on the fucking X-Factor. They have a weird vanity. I am vain, in myself. But i don’t choose to share that with others. This kind of person has no qualms about self-glorification, they just get into it “Hi, I’m Saffi. I sing and I dance, I’ve just got outstanding reviews in ‘Flake – The Musical’ where I played a Spira”.
The ringleader of this bunch at the hotel was an annoying bundle of energy with blonde frizzy hair that I’m assuming she bought from Michelle Pfeiffer in the mid 80s. She was very shy and retiring and was trying to tell a lovely anecdote about her brother who designed moccasins..did she fuck. Without taking a breath between spews of vanity flavoured shit she shot down all the people who she presumably wanted to see the personality of in the auditions. Trust me that was no attention left unsought by the end of her onslaught, she had seeked the shit out of it. She can’t help having a good voice. She’s struggling to respond to all the invites to drinks while she’s in the UK. She cant help but text Radio 1 – EVEN THOUGH she knows whatever she sends in will always be so funny that a researcher will end up ringing her back and she will inevitably end up on the air. She was slowly sucking out my will to live. If she could have harnessed the energy she put into talking about herself I think we could stop worrying about the fossil fuels running out.
Her piece de resistance was an anecdote about Ant and Decs Saturday Night Takeaway. She introduced it by asking the gathering masses “Have you heard of Ant and Decs Saturday Night Takeaway?”. She said in the kind of way you might ask a group of 10 year olds if they new the atomic structure of a molecule of Carbon. They were all 18 to 22ish, they were brainless shitfucks who wanted to be famous. Of course they knew what fucking Ant and fucking Dec’s Saturday fucking Night Takea-fucking-way was you fucking blond bastard. Anyway her boyfriend (you immediately think that this must be a man for whom you should have pity, you’re wrong. He was there too. They deserved each other, and i mean that in the most spiteful, horrible way possible) rang A&D to do a prank on her. BUT…and I’m losing respect for myself just recounting this stuff…A&D’s people rang her (don’t ask me how they got her number. Maybe they asked their mates at Radio 1. And what the fuck is Lenny Henry all about? These Premier Inn adverts are shit. Guess what just came on the television as I write this. Interrupting my flow and shit.) so they rang her, right and they right – they said to her, right did she, right…..WANT TO PRANK HIM INSTEAD!!!?? No wonder those chirpy Geordie fucks are drowning in awards with a team like this behind them. But that was the anecdote anyway. Yeah it was not worth reading that paragraph was it?
But I never realised ‘wanting to be on Ant and Dec etc’ was a kind of person. It clearly is. Its not a group I am in. All the little bags of ego in there were. They were in awe of this woman for talking about being phoned by the production team. Jaws were hitting the ground. Imbeciles (in shiny pants). They are taking over though. Utter twatty people who think pranks are funny are taking over, but like nice pranks. Are they fuck. Pranks are shit. These people were shit. They still are now even though they’re not together. Just less annoying, they grow in self-belief that their world view is fine by corroborating each other’s misguided idiocy. Spanners.
Despite this beacon of bastardness clearly being the one organising this mess (and when i say organising I mean encouraging all the pricks there to just drag chairs from anywhere they decided to take them from “get yourself another chair and join us over here” because it was only a hotel with paying guests and other meetings) it didn’t stop people coming over to me. So there is like a big foyer. On one side there is a large group of people in a variety of leggings and ‘look at me’ tops and boys who all looked like they could be in X-Factor (not a compliment). On the other side is me. I am sat in a suit and tie at a single table. Admittedly I don’t have a sign on my table ‘I am not a massive bastard who thinks wanting to be famous means I deserve to be. Nor do I even want to employ people like that. In fact even if you were talented in any way there is nothing I can offer you. So don’t talk to me, fuck off’. I didn’t have that sign. It would have been an enormous sign, an impractical sign. Or a sign with very small writing on it, which would render it useless as people would have had to get so close that they would probably have asked me about the auditions anyway. Or started some small talk about the small font on my sign. However…..I am sat there in my suit trying not to make eye contact with whichever fame-hungry shit walked through the door. I am sat there at this table (no sign –in fairness, I do not have the sign). And on the other side is the blond shit shouting stuff about auditions and forms. And me sat there not looking like i am part of them. They are nearer the door. At least 2/3rds walked past the group they clearly needed to go to and came to ask if i was running the auditions. And i just wanted to laugh in their face and dismissively point them at the woman and say something cool (that would go over their heads no doubt).
I didn’t though, I just smile and pointed over to the wicked witch of the west blabbing about Scott Mills loves her…. because most of them were really quite fit young girls. And they have a few years to enjoy before life teaches them that they should have paid attention at school because they are about as talented as a polystyrene cup full of shit.
