Gay Flu

Don't take offence, I just can't resist puns sometimes. The title is in reference to Flu Camp (get it?) which I heard about only today - not surprising since I've only been in London for a matter of months - but I heard about it from two completely unrelated people in two absolutely different environments.

So what is it? Well I'll stick a link here, but if you just want my take on it, then as follows:

Hey You!

Yes, YOU!

You look cash-strapped, young, and willing to do more or less anything for a quick buck? How about if we told you that you could PLAY VIDEO GAMES all day and still be earning money, and nobody would tell you not to! You wouldn't even HAVE to play the games, its OPTIONAL! All you have to do is get sick for a couple of weeks! Easy as that!

So that's my understanding of it. Sort of. Actually I know a lot more than that cause I read the entire website meticulously, so here's an honest understanding of what they're asking and offering.

Its medical research into respiratory viruses, such as cold and flu. If you pass their health screening, you're invited to partake in their studies. Because of the nature of the viruses, all participants are quarantined, but not in the classing 90's big tent and radiation suit kind of way (well, actually, from what I've heard everyone who comes in is dressed like an astronaut, but that's understandable), more in the here's a studio living space fully equipped with WiFi, flatscreen TV, choice of video games consoles (and games) and DVDs, you also get three square meals a day (more on that in a second) and all you have to do is allow us to give you the flu. Oh and you could be compensated with up to £3,750.

Hold on a second what was that last bit? £3,750? For 10 - 14 days in what is essentially a man-den? And all I have to do is get the snuffles? Where do I sign up?! (Funny you should ask, just click the aforementioned link!)

And I did say I would expand more on the food thing, amusingly in the testimonials section of the website, this is the second one down:

Plenty of food, variety and good choices.JOSHUA, AGED 21, LONDON

This is number 4:

The food had wide variety and good quality. Staff made time more relaxed and fun – very kind and caring.ALICE, AGED 22, BRIGHTON

And a few comments later:

Best food so far on any study. Thanks for a very enjoyable and comfortable time. Will recommend to all my friends

MICHAEL, AGED 28, LONDON 

Who do they have cooking for them? I must taste these delicate dishes which seem to have amassed their own fame, rivalling the medical staff!

On a serious note, I've had the flu once before. I think it was last year. Honestly I was so utterly delirious for about 3 days I can't even remember when they happened. So having experienced how my body handles it, and being offered almost £4000 to go through that again, I would be absolutely overjoyed to make a contribution to science. Lets put this in perspective. £3,750 could pay my rent for 9 months*. And still leave me with change. It could pay my average tube travel for the next 5 years**. Hell I could actually live comfortably on that kind of money for the next four and a half months, including all my expenses. It is almost enough to be life-changing for someone in my situation.

So there's only one question left, really. Who's going to camp this year?

*Based on my rent payments of £410pcm.
**Based on the daily Oyster PayG Zone 1-3 Off-peak travel cap of £5.10.

Plays, Pantos and Petticoats

Don't get your hopes up. There are no petticoats. I just needed an alliterate triplet.

What there are is lots of stuff going on. First, a short play by Elliot C. Mason. Elliot, a published author, traveller and hater of almost everything (my words, not his) decided to write a play about love. How very cliché, you say? That love, in all of its delightful and pessimistic lights, has already been bled dry of verse? That no original ideas could possibly be voiced on the subject?

Well you're probably right, but come back to me when you've read all of those ideas and cannot possibly contemplate any more, so I can hit you for ruining your own imagination.

For All That Matters (the title of said play) is a story of lust, desire, and social stereotypes. It combines wisdom and poetry subtly but makes it garishly obvious that you should be paying attention to what you're viewing. Would I recommend seeing it? Absolutely. Is that opinion biased? Who cares, it's only on for one night. Unless the response is good enough to have a continued run, in which case you may be able to see it another time, but for certain if you do not come and see it this time we will not be offered any more chances. So if you want to see it later on, come see it on Friday and give yourself the opportunity to see it again. Go on, be a little bit selfish, nobody will hold it against you.

And after that, please dim the lights,

Strike up the drumroll,

File into your seats,

Hold tight.

The Muswell Hill Pantomime is here! coming soon! in January!

What do you mean you're not excited? I can see the child inside you screaming with delight! Come witness the tale of fair Dick Whit, and his trusted cat.. Dave? Michelle? No idea.. Let's just call it Cat. Gasp as Dick and Cat engage in perilous sword fights! Swoon as true love makes Dick all soft! Boo as the villain hatches evil plans! And sigh with relief when it's all over.

Rehearsals are going well, and by Jove I've actually managed to get there on time recently! There is hope after all! So if you're around the north London area (more north than that. A little further. Left a bit. Yep, that's the spot.) come the end of January, then be sure to drop in, give us a wave, and you may even get a laugh or two out of it. Tally, bally ho!

Star Wars VII: The Boredom Of The Damned

I promised you a blog about the Manchester Star Wars auditions, I present you with my experience at the Manchester Star Wars auditions:

Sam and I arrived in Manchester around 9 o'clock in the morning (I had not slept, aside from a brief nap on the train) and began our 10-minute walk to where we thought the auditions were being held. Unfortunately neither of us had thought to check for updates, and so when we reached the small church hall we'd been looking for, the only sign of auditions were papers plastered all over it pointing us to the Old Trafford cricket ground, an hour's walk away. We were about to call a taxi when a fellow auditionee spotted us and offered us a lift, saving us what would surely have been a small fortune in taxi fares.

As I gave directions we discussed what we thought the scene might be like. Sam pointed out that we would probably see the people before we saw the actual destination, and how right he was. As we pulled up to the ground a crowd emerged. We grew ever nearer, and the crowd morphed into a line, a sprawling python wrapping its way along the pavement and walls surrounding the sports ground. We swore. The line had to be half a mile long, and we were heading straight for the back of it. Our chauffeur decided that it wasn't worth his time, and dropped us off wishing us the best of luck.

Sam and I joined the queue, which had grown even in the time it had taken to traverse the length of it, and began our wait. Jovial and merry as we are known to be, we talked loudly and smiled broadly, until a thought struck me. I hadn't brought a headshot. The one thing the vague casting call had requested was missing from my person. Well fuck, this was all for nothing then. Sam suggested I could always try without one but I knew this would never work. Still, we were here for the experience, not to actually get a part, right? Why not, and with this in mind we began calling people we thought might also be in the city for the same reason as us. We quickly found that a group of friends were not only also in the same line as us, but very close to the front. We made the decision to join them, as controversial as that is. We split from the great mess that was the rear of the line, and jogged our way forwards. Soon enough we could see our fellow compadrés and rushed too them, panting and thanking them profusely for holding our place in the line, explaining that traffic had been terrible and hoping the people around them wouldn't notice or care. I still didn't have a headshot, but being with friends was worth the train journeys and the weather.

As they filed through the gate I waited outside, and went wondering round Trafford. There isn't much in Trafford. Scratch that, there's nothing in Trafford save for the sports stadiums and a shopping park. The park, however, had a KFC, so I was briefly content to sit in there and eat chicken. Boredom quickly set in again though, so I set off back to the site where I had left my comrades to wait it out in the cold. By the time I got back the once mighty python of a line was now barely a worm crawling its way towards the gate, and it wasn't long before any trace of a queue vanished all together.

I ate a couple of oranges. Eventually, and slowly, people I knew began to emerge. They hadn't been selected for an interview but the process had still taken hours, and it ended up being hours more before the few who had been interviewed were released. Altogether a nice, if uneventful day. Sam and I discussed business plans over yet more KFC before parting ways to get our respective trains home again.

And so that is the story of how I did not audition for Star Wars. Tune in next week when I fail to even apply for Guardians of the Galaxy!

Faster Than A Speeding Tube

Things have picked up a notch since last week. Impressed? I certainly am. Oh wait, I haven't told you anything yet. Ha! If you're already impressed then this is going to BLOW YOUR MIND. So here goes.

As you're aware by now, new job (passed my initial probation "with flying colours") flexible hours, actual drive to get up in the morning (since I don't have to work until 5 these days) means I've been going to auditions. And relatively speaking I've been to quite a few. Two over the weekend, one today (which I couldn't actually find, so discount that one), another tomorrow morning, one hopefully later in the week, on top of filming for Rock Band VS Vampires (which is still going wonderfully) and panto rehearsals (equally delightful). Haven't been cast in anything yet, but did get a lovely response from PixieMoo Productions saying that they liked me enough to keep me updated and work with me on future projects.

So, I've been in London for almost three months and so far proving that its possible to survive as an actor. Who's going to join me? ;)

Seriously though, the more people I can drag down here, the bigger house we can all get together and the cheaper it will be.

See you all soon!

PS. Next blog post topic: Star Wars auditions. A vlog with special guest appearance from Sam 'Glovebox Cuddlebum' Glover.

The New Job, Thor of Warcraft, and Stanley

In order of the title, I shall elaborate on the topics presented. Firstly, new job!

Yes, I have thrown off the shackles and cast my door-knocking days to the wind (who's increasing severity, combined with the rain and the cold, is one of the main reasons I left..) and started a job in a call centre. Sorry, not very dramatic, but it is indoors and I'm no longer asking for account details from anyone, just doing surveys. So if you've ever given your number out to anyone, or you've been to the bank recently, you may well be getting a call from me soon enough. So that's that news over with.

Now, the film event of the week, Thor: The Dark World. In this epic Asgard/Azeroth crossover Thor begins an internship at Blizzard, and is quickly assigned to a project to quell the surge in new Dark Elf users.. or something.. The reality is I won't say anything about Thor 2: Mists of Pandaria, because for me to give anything away would spoil your experience entirely. So I'm going to give you all the little taglines I came up with to entice instead:

Alan Taylor (Heard of him? No? But he's directed 6 episodes of Game of Thrones!) proves his feature directing worth. The film is in equal parts edge-of-seat tense and raucously funny. And when I say equal parts, I mean you could almost cut the film in half and split it into those two categories.

Everything you wanted to see more of in Thor is delivered in the new film, from Asgard to character development, it's all there.

3D is worth it. As are the Vue VIP seats.

Yes, that is Zachery Levi. No, he wasn't playing that character in the first film, but I think he takes over the role pretty well. And the Chuck-esque combat skills are evident.

And finally, Stanley. If you clicked that link without reading on, how very bold of you. If you haven't yet clicked it, then now is the time to do so! But only after you finish the blog, otherwise you'll be too distracted to finish. Follow my instructions carefully: Open the link; watch the three introductory videos (in order, they will auto-play so just unmute them); assuming you are intrigued (or even if you're not) click 'download demo'. The demo is free and gives you a brief insight into the game's subject matter and style. If, like me, you completed those instructions and can't wait to demand everyone gives you £1 for Christmas so you can afford it, then good. Add it to your Steam wishlist. And if you don't have Steam then please come out of that cave and into the real world. Enjoy!

What Would You Do If You Won The Lottery?

I heard a man ask his girlfriend this on a tube escalator the other day, and I think its one of those conversation topics which bind us as humans. It combines the thrill of gambling with the joy of winning and then plays on an inherent fear of the future. I've had the conversation many a time, and the answer is always changing. Some topics will never be ignored - the house in one place, the flat in another, the charitable donation, the paying back the parents for all of their time which eventually got you to this miraculous windfall, but its once you get past the cliches that you really learn about a person.

For me, at this stage in my life, I would have a house in York; a flat in London; a donation to charities including (bit not limited to) the WWF, the RSPB, the Samaritans, and Cancer Research; buy my parents a house in Germany (or somewhere else if they preferred); and then I would put myself through a year of drama study, offer some money to my brother to help him (and my parents) pay for his university degree, put some into businesses friends of mine are starting up (provided I get a share of the business in return) and then go on holiday with whatever I have left. Hopefully the drama education would allow me to earn a living doing what I love, the house in York could be rented out to students or friends, and the business returns would mean I had more to play with on the investment market. Overall I don't put a lot of thought into these things, but I always have the dream at the back of my mind.

Not that I play lotto since they doubled the ticket price.

Mind The Gap - Things About The Tube Which Make Me Smile

Aside from the fact that it connects every part of London with every other part of London, and ignoring the maintenance (I think people should just pay attention to the updates) the Tube can be pretty cool at times. Here are three little things which have happened to me since I moved here which made me smile while using the Underground.

Boombox 

Just after I'd moved here, during the time I was struggling with the new job and settling in, I was having a really bad evening. I was on the tube on the way home and there was music playing. Not background-y shopping centre lift music either, but 80s power ballads. At first I thought I was on some sort of awesome new train, improved for the modern, night-life loving age. Then I began to wonder if anyone else could hear the music, or if insanity was finally finding its way into my brain. Eventually, after staring long and hard at the ventilation to make sure the sound wasn't coming from there, I looked down to see a rather untidy man with missing teeth and a rucksack on his lap, out of which was poking the corner of a silver Bose speaker, which I deduced must have been battery-powered (which accounted partially for the size. Most of it will have been filled up with C batteries with the odd 9V grafted in for good measure..) Either way, after a day which couldn't have been much worse, the upbeat, not-too-loud-but-definitely-noticeable tube music made me smile.

Charades

Yep. This happened today. After a good day at work I was heading home on the Piccadilly line and a group of work colleagues in the other half of the carriage were playing charades. I tuned in part way through to the phrase "The _____ Story", staring in wonder as the actor was gesturing wildly into the distance and a girl was guessing, 'The Long Story.. The Really Long Story.. The Tube Story?' While another man (presumably the one who had set this challenge) was laughing hysterically to himself. He looked at me as I started laughing. 'Do you know it?' He called down the carriage. 'Of course, I've hardly been listening and I recognise it.' I replied. 'If you guess it, you can have a go!' I couldn't resist that one. 'The NeverEnding Story?' Rapturous applause and an invitation to join them followed. I said I didn't have long, so they started me off on Top Gun; an easy mime, though the girl guessed 'Top Shoot?' before anyone else could get a word in, which made everyone laugh. Then after I ousted the next guy with the clues of 'three words' and 'third word: jacket' (Full Metal Jacket) he handed me Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. And insisted I use the full title. It was a challenge, and I enjoy challenges. I won't reveal how I managed it, but they got the full thing before I got to my stop. I left the guy after me with Cabin In The Woods and would have loved to have heard the guesses, but alas I had to switch trains.

Moron

A wonderful word, 'moron'. It aptly describes so many types of people and yet is completely child-friendly. It was especially amusing when used on my second tube journey of the day. The scene is as follows: a young man hops onto the train as the doors are closing and stands next to me, flicking through his Evening Standard - I noted a story about a film showcasing a daredevil sky-jumper's fatal fall which I reminded myself to look up when possible - and when finished with flicking, he moved to dispose of the paper on the back of a seat, as one is inclined to do on the tube. The gentleman on the seat, a man past his prime but as confrontational as ever, seemed to take some sort of offence to this - possibly the intrusion of personal space, or maybe something about his back, I couldn't hear properly - and started giving the young man a heated lecture on somethingorother. At which point a middle-aged man, who had been standing between the youth and the older man, told said older man to do something akin to 'put a sock in it' and reached over to retrieve the paper the young man had just put down. This further infuriated the older man, who then had two targets to aim his aggression towards. Amusingly the younger gentleman immediately - if sarcastically - apologized and ignored the rest of the bickering, which involved the use of the word 'moron' from the eldest gentleman, and a classic retort from the middle-aged man. It may have gotten more heated were it not for the 4-year-old sitting across from them both, or the passengers around them (myself included) starting to giggle.

So the tube isn't that bad. It brings rare moments of unrivalled joy, mainly because said joy is in such an odd and generally dreary atmosphere. Next time you're on a not-too-busy tube, why not start your own game of impromptu charades?