I’m sure I’ve probably blogged about this before. If I could be bothered, I’d scroll down and check. But I can’t. I feel listless. And a bit flat. This morning, at just after 10 am, I found this in my inbox…

Thank you for auditioning for Another Play That You Really Wanted to Do. We really appreciate you taking the time to apply and working so hard on your audition speech. However on this occasion we have decided to not ask you through to the next round of auditions.

We will of course keep your details on file and let you know about any other opportunities that arise.

Harrumph. Another suitcase, another hall, another rejection. But, what makes me feel listless and flat is not actually the fact that there’s yet another play that will go ahead without me – there’s yet another step that I failed to take on my own personal career ladder (although, if I keep on like this for long enough that may start to depress me too…)

No. What’s really getting to me today is that it isn’t really getting to me. Yes, I really wanted to do that job. Yes I’m gutted that I didn’t get it. But am I proper upset? No. Have I cried? No. Have I even choked or teared up a little bit? Nope. Did I just mark the email for archive in the right folder, sigh, put it down to experience and wonder what I could apply for next? Yup. Like water off a duck’s back.

Now, on the one hand I’m quite proud of this. I’m happy about the fact that I have developed a thick enough skin, a mature enough outlook, and enough confidence in who I am outside of my career to shrug, think well, hey ho, perhaps not this time, eh? What’s next?

On the other hand – it’s quite sad to think that I’m in an industry where rejection is like a rite of passage. You don’t get turned down for everything for at least 3 years, you haven’t earned your right to be on the way up, my dear.

But of course, with great power comes great responsibility, and with great boredom comes a great amount of time to ‘think’. Just what I need. So, naturally, I find my self on the horns of a dilemma. (Although, naturally, it’s more a dilemma of philosophy than one of action – I’m not actually going to DO anything about anything...)

Is it better to have shone and lost, than never to have shone at all?

That audition that I did last week, the one to which the snippet above was the response, was damn good. I thought it went really well. Seriously. I acquitted myself with grace, poise, and a generous smattering of theatrical prowess. I was re-directed, and I took the direction well, and was generally proud of what I’d done. I came out of there knowing that if I didn’t get the job, it’d be because I didn’t fit the part, not because I’d messed up. But is this better?

Is it better to know that you tried your best and just weren’t good enough (or just weren’t right), or to not get a job and then look back on the audition and say – well, yes. I was a little below par that day. That’d be why.

I’m going with the former. I’d say that for 8 professional actors in 10, if you don’t get the part, chances are that it’s much more likely to be because you didn’t fit the director’s idea of what s/he wanted as much as the next person. This possibly because most pro actors are around the same level of ability, but mainly because directors are increasingly placing MUCH more emphasis on looks than on talent or ability as the phenomenon of reality TV ploughs ever onwards.

If you find solace in the latter, then you’re making excuses for your craft. There’s always a reason that you’re rejected – more often than not, it’s something outside your control (I can’t be 5’ 6" or a size 10, if that’s what they’re determined they want) sometimes it highlights an area that you might need to work on (I could do with honing some of my impersonations – they’re a bit rough round the edges. And in the middle.). But surely better to know that you’ve done your best and just weren’t right, than to think that you didn’t do your best and if only you had your time over again, you’d be better at this and that and...

No regrets. Be the best of what you can be, and control as much as you can. The rest is out of your hands, and, if you’re wise, like water off a duck’s back.

Well well well. It would appear that there has been a turn up for the books! (And, no – it’s not the fact that I’m still alive. Although things had been so quiet I was beginning to wonder if I had in fact fallen off the edge of the planet...)

No, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have an agent. I am now represented. I can now honestly say "Have your people call my people", and have actual people in mind. I can genuinely get someone to ‘talk money’. I can now legitimately, in the heat of the moment and on a crap job, throw a Queenie Strop and whine "Well, just you wait until my agent hears about this".

My agent. MY AGENT. I like the sound of that.

I don’t know much about My Agent, it has to be said. They don’t (yet) have any outstandingly famous people on their books. Or moderately famous. Or anyone I recognise. At all. But that’s not necessarily a terrible thing. Not-too-famous clients generally means that no one client will be monopolising their time, so they’ll be able to get me work. Which is good.

They talk the talk. What remains to be seen is whether they walk the walk. As demonstrated below, this ain’t necessarily so. But we’re streets ahead – I’ve already called them twice, and they’ve answered the phone both times, as well as answering my questions and having a conversation with me, so we’re moving in the right direction. Crazy how someone answering their office phone and speaking to you I’ve come to see as a bonus.

In general, I am optimistic. (OK, so for me that’s more of a life statement than a reflection on this particular situation.) But here I am too. Chatting with a couple of people about it this weekend I expressed apprehension (not worry, mind, apprehension) that I knew little of them or their reputation, and that I was a little nervous of what lay ahead. The impeccably sage advice that came back was threefold:

Firstly: They’re not signing me up to be their friend, they’re signing me up as a business opportunity. They are, after all, a business. If they didn’t think they could make money on me, why would they bother, when they could represent someone else instead who would make them money? Good point.

Secondly: If they don’t work for me, I don’t work. Which makes me unhappy. Unhappy with my lot in life and in acting, and ultimately unhappy with my agent. And bored. And what do unhappy bored people do? They bitch. Or they blog. Or both...! If they weren’t working for me, it would do nothing for their reputation, and that matters in this business. Another good point.

Lastly (but not leastly): If our partnership doesn’t work out, then pick up and move on. It’s not like I’ve married them, or signed over my whole career to them. In fact, I haven’t signed anything – there’s no period of contract – there’s no contract – there’s just an agreement that you’ll give them 4 weeks notice if you decide to leave, and to a certain extent even that’s negotiable. It’s win-win. Plus, if you have an agent, you’re in a much better position to get another. You’ve lost the stigma of being un-represented. And what a stigma that it. But, work at the relationship, and if it doesn’t work, I shouldn’t flagellate myself over it (too much), but be mature and professional, and move on.

So, with that in mind, I’m as happy as a clam (not the pilates clam exercise, mind – that’s not happy, that’s hurty. As happy as a little clam in the sea that’s, well, happy. Who knows why...). I have an agent. At last. And it looks like things might be on the up.

So, if you want to get hold of me, you know, to book me for your show before I get too big, you know what to do.

Speak to my agent, darling.

When I was at school I was really good at maths. I once even got a little smiley face stuck on my exercise book for doing a particularly hard sum. I always loved maths. I even toyed with the idea of becoming an accountant, but ended up doing something else. I sometimes think now, maybe I should try accountancy? I mean, all my family used to say I’d be a famous accountant one day. Whenever they had a dinner party they used to make me get up and do a long division for their guests. It was so embarrassing. I usually had to do one of the latest long divisions from a really high profile FT case. I mean, I was OK – well, I think I was quite good. I always got the long-division solos in the interschool maths competitions. Yeah, I could have gone into accounting. But I decided to be an actress instead.

You never hear people saying that, do you? Funny that. That’s probably because everyone knows that accountancy is a highly qualified career for which you spend many hours, days and years studying extremely hard. For which you have to read many books on technique and process. For which you have to have a highly developed specialised knowledge. For which you have to have nous, instinct and a natural talent. So, nothing like acting then.

So when people say Oh, yeah, I could have been an actor you know. I was always very good at acting when I was at school, that doesn’t make me angry at all. Because, after all, if you can wear a tea-towel around your head, point at the ceiling and say "look, a star in the East" and not fuck up your lines, then obviously you’ve got the talent to bring to the Lady Macbeth "all the perfumes of Arabia" scene a startlingly fresh perspective, to imbue Martha in Albee’s …Virginia Woolf with a hitherto unseen level of pathos, to move an audience to tears as Schiller’s Mary Stuart in the play of the same name. As we all know, acting has nothing to do with talent, gifts or genius. And it certainly has nothing to do with hard work, dedication and graft. Acting, is all about dossing. All about not wanting to get a ‘real’ job. People are only actors so that they don’t have to get up early in the morning to commute to work. And, more importantly, anyone can do it.

I think Shakespeare put it best when he said "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players". Although, if you ask me, I don’t think that was quite what he was getting at.

But then what do I know? I’m just an actor. Although, I could have been an accountant…

OK. So it's a Friday, you're a bit bored, you're gagging for the weekend... Here's a little game to get your outlook off your Outlook, if you see what I mean.

Today I came across an advertisement for a 'thing' at the Canal Cafe Theatre - an evening of writer/performer monologues. The idea is that you, the performer, go along and (a bit like an open mic, but better in that the AD of the theatre sees it before they give you the slot) audition with a piece that you've written. Then, if they like you, they give you a slot in the evening to come and do your monologue for (gasp, shock) the public (eek!) at the Canal Cafe Theatre. Needless to say, this idea appeals to me (any chance to show off) - problem being that I don't have a monologue. Haven't written anything since I was at drama school.

Now, I'm not scared of writing something, but I am running seriously dry on ideas. So, I thought I'd throw it open to the floor - ideas please - what can I write a monologue on?? If you wish to give character and theme, that's fine too (although remember that they should be similar in age to me - so 20s). Any ideas gratefully received...

£6.50 a week. That’s how much a certain casting service costs me (let’s call them castingX – oh, bugger it. Let’s just call them CastNet. It’s what they call themselves…). £6.50 a week. That’s £26 every four weeks. Based on a four week month, that’s £156 every six months and (you can tell I’m an actress not a mathematician – I have actually had to get my calculator out for this!) that’s £338 a year. That’s a ‘pretty penny’ as they say. Especially if you’re skinted.

For this princely sum, I get sporadic ‘casting information’ and offers to apply for bit parts in student films (woo hoo!) and other ridiculously unsuitable jobs ‘personally selected’ for me because the casting director hasn’t filled in the e-form properly. (I can be most things, darling, but I can be neither 17 nor black, more’s the pity, no matter how hard I try). I pay the £6.50 a week so that when I do apply for a ‘job’ the service funds my photos and CVs (plus p&p) and the like and sends them off (presumably in a fur-lined , solid gold casket?). And, if I get the job, they take no commission. Although nothing of nothing can hardly be said to be of much comfort!

CastNet promises a lot, or implies a lot, it has to be said. They sally forth with quotations from people who have succeeded so quickly with their help that they have earnt their subs back many times over in the first minute – or something like that. But they’ve been pulled up on it. Equity published, in their latest magazine, a decision by the Advertising Standards Association to uphold a complaint made by a Mr Clive Hurst, that CastNet made false claims about its service (as well as 6 other complaints that Mr Hurst levelled at them).*

But have they? Is the fact that so few people get any work at all, let alone any paid work, through this service an indictment of the company or of the industry as a whole? Any cross section of the industry will affirm that the latter is true – Equity themselves stated that their 75th Birthday ‘State of the Union’ Survey showed that 17% of respondents hadn’t worked professionally in the last year. Of those that have worked the average number of weeks worked is 14.** Out of 52. Wow.

This is an industry where, rightly or wrongly, work is hard to come by. Such, unfortunately, is the nature of the beast. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something (quote/unquote). Well, exactly, dear reader. They’re selling something. They want me (or you, or the next Sienna Miller) to choose their service over the next. They want my/your/Sienna2’s £6.50 a week to go to them, and why not? That’s business. When I go to an audition, I want them to give their Beatrice/Gertrude/Juliet (ha!) to me, not to the next actress. I want their £8/day expenses and a copy of the short film on DVD to come to me. I’m selling too. And I understand that when you want someone to buy something you play up the good bits and play down the not so good bits. That’s why I love mascara but don’t tend to wear lipstick (although now I’m married I don’t tend to bother with either any more… but that’s another story.) So, when I see the advert for CastNet, I’m not going to read it and say “well, by golly, that must be typical of every person who signs up to this, for they couldn’t possibly be in the business of choosing the best bits of their feedback to big up their profile, could they?”

I approach business, and especially this business, with a large dose of reality. I have to, or I’d go mad. It would seem to me that Mr Hurst’s view of reality, on the other hand, is somewhat skewed. Naïve even. If he expects every business to advertise themselves with a warts and all “actually, this industry is a bit shit, and we’re not a lot better” sort of attitude, then I would have to conclude that he was living in another world. A world where they know very little about business.

I have to think this is what motivates him, because the alternative is unbearable. To think that he might be acting in this case out of a misguided attempt to protect me, and others like me, is so close to an insult that I can almost taste the offence. I know that Mr Hurst most likely has our best interests at heart, but to coin a phrase Not In My Name, thank you very much. I am perfectly capable of discerning angels from cowboys all on my own, ta, and I would hope that an actor could credit another actor with adequate nous to figure it out.

And that’s why I can but take the side of CastNet on this one. As it happens, I am currently not subscribed to CastNet. I felt that the money I was laying out did not reflect in the quantity or quality of castings that I was getting back. But I do not in any way suppose this to be their fault. It’s mine, in the main, for being female and 25. Slightly overweight, not tall and blonde. There are hundreds like me out there, all vying for the same parts. The hit rate is dire whichever angle you take it from. I just have to stick it out. Perhaps it’s because I ought to lose some weight, perhaps it’s because I ought to grow my hair, perhaps it’s because I should be prettier, more exotic, taller, shorter, rounder, harder – who knows. One thing is for sure – it is not because CastNet provide a poor or inadequate service. Because they don’t.

I admire Mr Hurst’s long running campaign for the abolition of up-front fees – on the whole – but his blanket discrimination is taking things a little too far. Conversely, his proposal to the 2006 Equity council, that Equity outlaw all up-front fees, but ‘ringfence’ (ooh, management speak in the arts – there’s definitely not enough of that…!) publications like Spotlight is clearly discriminatory and unworkable, and takes us back toward the closed shop of yesteryear. I urge Mr Hurst to think before he lashes out, and to consider his campaign from the perspective of the ‘struggling’ actor – I, too, despise anyone who feels they can take advantage of an actor’s thirst for work, but I don’t think that everyone who charges for their services is necessarily the spawn of the devil. For someone just starting, these services, when genuine, can be an invaluable resource of experience and advice.

But moreover I urge Mr Hurst to take another look at the industry of which he is a part – there are plenty of cowboy ‘agencies’ and ‘services’ out there who prey on young and naïve actors. Mr Hurst has done some excellent work with bringing some of the worst offenders to our attention. Please don’t tar them all with the same greasepaint. The acting world is a lot more grey than that.


* p.10; Equity magazine – Spring 2006
** p.13; Equity magazine – Spring 2006

Friday 3 March 2006


Dear ********

Thank you for your email dated 21 February 2006.

Your email states that you saw in my letter a personal attack – I am sorry that this is the case, as I sincerely didn’t intend any level of personal attack at all. I really meant that I enjoyed meeting ********, and I honestly do admire your motivation for setting up an agency in the first place. I think it was a great idea, and as an agency you are obviously very passionate about what you do, which is to be commended. I have no wish to detract from what you have achieved thus far. In fact, it is almost because I had such a good feeling about what ******** was saying with regard to ‘working harder on the part of the actor’ and so on that I was disappointed.

I know that when I met ******** he said that a large part of the impetus behind setting up the agency was seeing how poorly actors were treated within the profession. As an actor, as you might imagine, this really resonated with me. Actors are expected to have absolutely no expectations in our professional lives – we are often called upon to drop everything to attend a casting or meeting, often paraded like cattle before rude casting directors or assistants, and then are rarely afforded the courtesy even of a letter of rejection. I’m sure you can understand, therefore, that to be told many things about how ******** work hard for the actor, which I found exciting and encouraging, and then to have them treat me (or, I should say, appear to treat me) in much the same way that many, less conscientious, organisations do was quite upsetting – especially following such a positive and enjoyable meeting. I had very little experience of ******** – either personally or professionally – and in an industry where actors have come to expect the worst it is perhaps not surprising that I didn’t automatically credit ******** with the benefit of the doubt.

This is not to say, however, that I renege on everything that I said – I stand by the fact that I should have been contacted or had a reply to my emails. There are a couple of points in your email which don’t hold water – my phone number, for example, is on my email signature, as well as on the forms that ******** filled in while I was at your offices, so not leaving it on my message shouldn’t have prevented a reply. Also, you state both that no-one had covered ********’s emails and that my messages had been replied to and gone astray – it can’t be both! But I also understand, as you say that sometimes you have bad times. Which, you are right, doesn’t make you a bad agency.

I think, however, it’s important that an actress, as any other person, can complain when she is not getting the service that has been promised to her. By denying an actress this right, or threatening her with libel when she exerts it, you are essentially opening her up to the treatment I mentioned earlier, and which ******** railed so strongly against previously, as she has no form of recourse or self defence. I believe I was simply trying to stand up for my right to receive a service that anyone in any other industry would expect.

I am truly very sorry to hear that ******** has been unwell. I wish him a full and speedy recovery. Again, I apologise if my letter came across as a personal attack. I am deeply sorry that things have turned out this way, and again, I wish you every success in the future.

Oh dear. I have just received this:

Dear Tegwen

Thank you for your letter which was received today.

Unfortunately a lot has seemed to have gone astray, although the main reason for ******** having not been in touch is that he was at the time of seeing you and before and since your meeting has been quite ill, and thus his computer has not been looked at or updated while he has been away. As for your phone message there was no number left and thus a return call was not able to have been made. Having said that I do see from his (********'s) out box, that he responded to both your emails so I can only take it that you are having problems, and that our mail is being read as spam and deleted or we are having a few problems, which it has been known this year.

As an agency we take all point's (good and bad) very seriously, Your comments about being un-professional are unfounded, but are just based on a series of unfortunate events which is at a time that ******** has been taken ill, but like any business it is not always possible to perform perfectly all of the time, I am sure there have been days you have under achieved, does this then make you a bad actresses, no of course it does not. Had you have contacted our main email address or have left a number then a response would have been swifter.

Reading your overall letter, there seems to be an underlying personal attack at what we have here, and what we have actually done well to achieve, and should we find that there is something more we will look very seriously at taking action at what could be classed as libel, when again I state this was isolated and a series of as stated before unfortunate events.

We do indeed having said all of this wish you the very very best, and look forward to seeing you at the top. I will mention this to ********, and in future ensure that if for any reason he is away that his computer does get monitored, which is a valid point and one I am glad has been brought to our attention.

Again we wish you well, and from our points of view we are sorry for what has happened, as ******** thought very highly of you, and wish you well in your future search.

Best wishes

Now, I have a few issues with this, which I will go into briefly here:

1) in my letter, I don’t believe I ever made a personal attack. In fact, I didn’t ever wish to make a personal attack. I honestly did enjoy meeting him.

2) No emails have ever reached me. And I check my spam inbox regularly. I have no filters on and gmail doesn’t delete things automatically, so either their email is playing up (perfectly possible) or they haven’t made any reply.

3) I can well believe that it was based on a series of unfortunate events, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that it either was, or it came across as, poor management.

4) No one covered ********’s emails while he was off sick. That in and of itself is unprofessional and poor management. Although in the same letter they say that my emails have been responded to. Which is it? Is he off sick, or have the emails gone astray?

5) I always leave my phone number on messages. I make a point of it. Although, I’m willing to believe that I may have forgotten on this occasion. That’s why my phone number is in my email signature, and goes out at the foot of every message. Belt and braces. So, in replying to my letter by email, they must have had my phone number. I know this, because I didn’t put my email address on my letter, therefore it can have come only from my email. Which has my phone number on it. Follow?

6) I didn’t send my email to ********. I sent it to the generic account. In case he was off sick. But mainly because he never gave me his email address. Or his last name, for that matter.

7) I don’t really think I can be accused of libel. I haven’t published the letter, (except here, and this is without names) and I haven’t really said anything that I can’t back up. That seems a little extreme.

I’m quite upset about this. What makes it worse is that had he just written to me and said ‘We’re really sorry you’ve been overlooked, we’ve had a bit of a nightmare with our email, and ******** has been off sick’ I would probably have said ‘Oh, that’s OK. I hope he’s feeling better’. But instead I get a load of half-truths, threats and excuses. I honestly do think it’s such a shame. Especially as, immediately after meeting them, I was so excited about the prospect of working with them, which was compounded by their enthusiasm for what they do.

But I have to admit, too, to being a little bit worried. Have I shot myself in the foot? Have I acquitted myself badly? Is this going to damage my career (which, let’s face it, can’t really take many more blows!) Hmm. I had intended to write a professional, straight-down-the-line letter of complaint. To (for once in my measly line of work) take control of a situation and try not to get walked all over. But instead I end up feeling as though I’ve made a huge mistake – what do you think?

Monday 20 January 2006


Dear ********

Thank you for meeting with me on Tuesday January 31, it was good to meet you. Unfortunately I have decided that I don’t wish to pursue a professional relationship with your agency at this time.

I have taken this decision for a number of reasons, most of which are based around the fact that prior even to signing ******** have severely under-performed in terms of both their promises to me as a potential client and their general performance as an agency.

Firstly, I was not asked to bring anything with me, but when I turned up was asked for the hard copy of my CV and headshot. I was, however, asked, by email, to prepare two pieces, but was asked upon arrival what I’d been asked to prepare. I was promised that I would be contacted within 2 or 3 days of the meeting. I was not contacted. Furthermore, I was asked to send in hard copies of my CV and headshot and to rejoin Spotlight as soon as possible, which I did, but when I requested confirmation or tried to contact ******** I had no response.

When I met with ******** I was told a lot about how they planned to be the best agency in the business within five years. While I admire this ambition, I cannot help but think that this is an unrealistic one for an agency that appears to be so shoddily administered. Three weeks on from our meeting, I have heard nothing from ********, despite having sent 2 emails and having left a telephone message. If ******** have decided that they don’t wish to represent me, I can take the rejection. I’m an actress, it’s what I spend most of my time doing. But to be completely ignored, despite having had a face to face meeting (for which I took time off work and travelled to the ******** offices) I find rude and unprofessional. Regardless of how it affects me, my major concern is that ******** may well treat all their contacts in this way, and therefore for my part I would rather not be associated with an agency which takes such a lax attitude to their organisation.

I wish ******** every success in the future – indeed, a lot of what was said about the motivation for starting an agency I find admirable, however I would urge you to think more carefully about how you treat people within the industry, and how it reflects on both your reputation as an agency, and the actors that you represent.

In a bid to find out when my show is due to air (presumably this is the nerves and enthusiasm of a 'first time on telly' actress) I have recently been entering various search terms into Google to see if I get any TV listings hits - bbc, ward four, allitt, brooks, beverly, psychopath etc. Invariably I get snippets from interviews with Charlie Brooks (who plays the lead) saying how difficult it was as a mother of a one year old to 'get inside the head' of a serial killer who preyed on babies, the most recurrent one being a piece from the Sun entitled 'I'm a yummy mummy'. Genius.

But, on the whole, nothing's coming up at all. So, imagine my surprise when today I unearth not one, but two new articles on the subject.

The first is from the inimitably entitled Dolgellau Today (pronounced 'Doll-geth-ly' for the Celtically impaired among you), which contains such gems of stories as SPEEDING at 93 mph along the Cross Foxes stretch near Dolgellau almost cost a Machynlleth plasterer his job (imagine the spin the newsroom would have been sent into had he actually lost his licence!) and Retired dentist gets his teeth stuck into golf (surely not! Surely no one who's retired plays - shock horror - golf!! Nice pun though...) But the story I was after is another in the long line of human interest stories, detailing Charlie's role and her connection with Dolgellau (she was brought up in nearby Barmouth) and ending in a lovely upbeat note about her new 'Before and After Workout' DVD. All very lovely.

The second, however, plays a different tune. The equally comically named Grantham Today (Grantham being the location of the hospital where Allitt murdered her victims) runs with the slightly more emotive ALLITT FILM 'DISTRESSING' SAY VICTIMS' PARENTS. Yikes.

I have to confess I hadn't really thought about it before today. I mean, yes, I'd had conversations with people (well, one person) about the relative merits of 'drama documentaries' - or lack thereof, as she would have it - but I hadn't had a proper think about it, from an ethical point of view. And reading through this story, it suddenly occured to me how awful it must have been for that couple - to have their baby murdered and then the whole thing splashed across the news - across the world - for weeks and months afterwards. And now to have to relive it over again.

I had a few scenes with the actors playing Chris and Jo Taylor. They were both very talented, and I have no doubt that they'll come across as portraying their characters in an extremely sensitive manner, but I have no idea whether it will be a faithful portrayal. Or, how on earth we as actors can presume to know what someone else will feel in any given situation.

Arguably, you could say that about any role that an actor takes on - how do we know how someone feels in a situation that we haven't ever been through? Enter 'Method', stage left. But in this case, it's slightly different - these people are alive and very real, and are still dealing with this tragedy and how it affects their lives EVERY DAY.

I'm now not sure how I feel about this. Whereas before I thought that it was all very worthy - holding a mirror up to society and exploring how these things go unnoticed; maybe even preventing it all happening again. Oh yes, right on sister. Now all I can think of is how those poor people must feel, to have their tragedy paraded before the world, AGAIN. Only, I can't imagine how they must feel, and that's the point.

There's another, even darker part of me, though, that almost rejoices at the publicity that this is going to get. The more of a storm it cooks up in the media, the more people are going to watch it and, selfishly, all the better for my career. Does this make me a bad person, or doesn't it? I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just doing my job. Although, I'm not sure if that's ever a good enough excuse.

Oh well, with the flippancy that distance provides, I suppose there's not much I can do about it now. I've put in my work, and I've been paid for it - whether or not it goes to air now is completely out of my hands. And, as Jo Taylor says, I don't really know if I want to watch it. I probably won't be able to stop myself. And that's why these things get made...

My father-in-law only ever reads copies of Reader’s Digest, because, ostensibly, were he ever to pick up a ‘real’ book, he would get so absorbed in it that he wouldn’t be able to put it down until he has finished it, leaving a whole host of incomplete daily tasks in his wake. So, although he loves them, he'll only indulge in a novel if he has the time to get lost in it. Reader’s Digest, on the other hand, does exactly what it says on the tin - it breaks down recent discoveries and happenings into smaller, more manageable (and finishable) stories, which allow you a bit of escapism without causing you to lose your entire day (or week, if you’re a fan of Vikram Seth).

I haven’t blogged since March of this year. That’s 11 months ago. A lot has happened in the last 11 months, so I thought, in order to bring you up to speed, that I’d prepare a little Blogger’s Digest ™ for you to zip through…

Last March some of you may remember that I was facing a dilemma about whether to continue with the acting, or whether to get a real job. On 14 March 2005 I decided the latter. I started working, PERMANENTLY, for one of the 5 London Strategic Health Authorities, as a PA. (That’s a Paper Arranger, for those who aren’t familiar with the intricacies of a public sector Executive PA role. We do a lot of pushing.)

In April very little happened. I pushed lots of paper though. Ditto May, June and July. At the very end of July, my wicked sister and bridesmaid Totty arranged my hen weekend, and the girls and I had a wicked (and relatively growed up!) couple of days of waterskiing, punting, murdering, drinking and dancing.

Very little happened in August, in September I hit 25 (which I celebrated with a curry in Brick Lane) and Pete had his stag night, in which his Best Man threw himself headlong into a tree, got concussed, forgot he had a wife and three week old baby, and was promptly rushed to hospital. He made a full recovery, I’m very pleased to say, but it wasn’t pretty. Helmet saved his life (another blog to come, I’m sure!)

In November, very little happened. And I suddenly realised that I wasn’t happy. Don’t get me wrong, I have a wonderful relationship with a wonderful man (wouldn’t change that for the world) and I have fantastic friends and a great family. But, despite my very grown up, very stable, very responsible regular paycheque that was duly deposited into my account on the last Wednesday of every month, I wasn’t happy. I realised that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life pushing paper. Yes acting is fickle, yes it really can get you down and yes, most of it is the luck of the draw. But it’s a rush, a passion, and a necessity if that’s who you are deep down.

In December, I resigned from my job. My employers very wonderfully allowed me to go back to a 0 hours contract with no loss of pay, with incredible flexibility, so I get to stay working with the very lovely people I work with, in a job that I know and am reasonable at, with all the flexibility to leave with a day’s notice to go and act. I’m back in Spotlight, and I’m having meetings with agents. Oh, and I filmed a docudrama for the BBC to be shown early this year, called Ward Four, which was an utterly amazing experience.

It seems such a shame that to so many people, as to my father-in-law 'getting lost' in something is a pastime that should be confined to holidays - not something to be indulged in in everyday life. This year I found out that I couldn’t have a career which, while worthy and interesting and friendly and all good things, I didn’t love. Something inside me means that I have to be acting. I have to be doing something creative, something I can get passionate about, something I can get lost in. Can something really be that engaging, that wonderful, if it doesn’t inspire you to verbose wafflings; if all you feel you need, or even want, to know is the bare facts?

The more astute among you may have noticed that I missed out October. Very little happened in October. And I’ve never been happier.

I’ve been thinking (and before you ask, no, it didn’t hurt, and yes, it was wise). Just scrolling though my recent journal entries – their words, not mine; I’d hardly call some of this stuff ‘recent’ – it has come to my notice that I haven’t had a good ole rant for a while… Well, my friends, the time has come…

Last night, after I’d come back from my run at the gym (not as self indulgent a statement as that sounds – it’ll become important later…), I sat down with my bowl of homemade chicken, vegetable and coriander soup, 2 slices of wholemeal country loaf and a glass of red wine, and I put the telly on. A programme that I’d wanted to see came on at nine, and I settled in for an hour of Jamie Oliver as he tried to contrive to make the companies that provide school dinners do better by the health of the nation’s children. I expected to feel shocked and surprised, and maybe even a little bit sickened, by what was going on in schools and homes up and down the country, but I didn’t expect to feel sad. I didn’t expect it to have reached such a stage that I actually felt upset by the way these kids were being fed, and the way they were being brought up.

Take the boy who wouldn’t try anything, literally nothing. He lived off sweets and processed foods, and proclaimed ‘I won’t eat any vegetables’. Then put him next to the girl whose first favourite food was chocolate, second favourite food was chocolate, third, fourth, fifth, chocolate chocolate chocolate. You get the picture. Now consider – these are the parents of the future. Now, I know that they are just kids, and I know that there would have been a certain degree of playing up for the cameras, but when only two children in 15 can name a leek, one in 15 rhubarb, and none in 15 asparagus, yet all of them know exactly what the golden arches or the red and blue domino mean, you could be forgiven for thinking that we lived in a barren society incapable of harvesting, or growing, any sort of natural food…

look out, here comes the nostalgia bit – but honestly, I think it was better in my day…

Now, I was brought up to be healthy. We never (or rarely, it seemed like never!) had crisps and sweets and fizzy drinks and ready meals in the house. My mother always cooked, as much as she could depending upon which country we happened to be living in, from fresh ingredients, and pudding was not a matter of course – if we had any, it was probably fruit, or a low fat yoghurt or something. Also, I was brought up running round gardens and swimming and playing tennis and generally playing outside. As an adult, I enjoy food and cooking, and eat fairly healthily, relatively speaking. But don’t get me wrong, as I munch my way through a bar of Dairy Milk Whole Nut, I will be the first to admit that, when it comes to health and fitness, I am still no shining role model. In fact, you might go so far as to say that until recently I have been a bit of a slug. I would not be offended. And, as a result, I have ended up about three stone overweight, and having to watch my diet and up my exercise levels to try and shed it. But consider that, given the style of my upbringing and the nature of my childhood, if I turned out this way, how will the children of today turn out? What will happen to all these kids who are currently living their lives off Turkey Twisters, Dairy-lea Dunkers, and other alliterative foodstuffs?

The picture of the future is not a pretty one – it has already been mooted, for example, that the generation just below mine may well be the first generation not to have a greater life expectancy that that which their parents had. This is scary stuff. The way things are going, we will be a nation of waddling, smoking, obese, heart disease- and cancer-ridden binge-drinking square-eyed slobs. How can it be that parents don’t want better than this for their children – lights of their lives, fruits of their loins…? Have we really got to the point where convenience (ie, two minutes in a microwave rather than twenty minutes in front of a stove) is actually more important than the health and wellbeing of the ones we love?

All this ‘it’s all they’ll eat’ is, frankly, codswallop. If you give your kids veg and fruit and salad, and nothing else, they will eat it. Otherwise they’ll go hungry. I’m not suggesting you starve your children, but maybe a little tough love is the direction that parenting should take – a rebellion against this trend for over-lenience, weakness and indulgence. A child should not be in control of certain aspects of its life. That’s just a fact. It may not be very progressive, or new age, but children are children, and adults are adults. And sometimes, parents really do know best.

I had a conversation about this with my mother on Saturday, and we agreed that, if we’re perfectly honest, you cannot be your children’s friend. You are their parent. They have friends. You may not be popular all the time, and it may be the harder of the two roads to travel, but you are there to guide them and to teach them. And, when all that’s said and done, maybe you can be their friend a little bit as well. Hopefully, they’ll thank you for it in the end…! I know I do.

What shall I do? I seem to have reached an intriguing crossroads in my life. I'm working as a PA because I can't make enough money to live off my acting career, which is non-existent, and I'm marrying someone who has more debts than I can even begin to imagine paying off (which, I hasten to point out, I don't resent him for, and I certainly don't love him any less for, but it does put a bit of a downer on our financial situation) and I'm considering giving up my dreams because I don't know if I can ever be successful enough at it to make me happy or give my family the kind of life I'd want to give them.

On the other hand I've spent all of my adult life and most of my childhood wanting to do this. It got me through University and I even put myself (with help) through drama school. I'm not someone who gives up easily, and I don't want to give up now, but at the same time I want to be adult enough to know when I have to let something go...

My major issue is thus: in 30 years' time, I want to turn around and be proud of what I've done. I don't want to turn around and look back on 30 years spent doing little bit parts in shit telly because my big break was 'just around the corner', and temping because otherwise I won't be able to pay the bills. In 30 years time I don't want to be a 54 year old nobody who never quite made it. And while I don't think that poor = unhappy, far from it, I don't want kids who look back on their childhoods and say that they didn't do this or that because we could never afford it. And, as un-'socialist ideal' as it might seem, I want to be able to afford to give my kids a good education, and the way that's going at the moment I'm going to need all the cash I can get. And I don't want to leave it later and later until we can afford children, and then end up never having any because we simply can't stretch to them. And I don't want to turn around in 30 years' time, and still be renting a flat because no one will give us a mortgage because I haven't got a steady job, and I'll have added it up and realised that in 30 years he and I will have chucked the best part of £400,000 down landlords' throats because we couldn't get a bank to back us.

But by the same token, I don't want to look back in 30 years' time and think 'what if...?' How will I know that I can't reach the top of the pile if I never try? You only get one shot at life - do I grab the acting thing with both hands, and know that at least I tried, or do I do something else that I'll hopefully love almost as much, and be much more certain of providing for my family?

Answers on a postcard please...

I will (for my sins) be running - hobbling - the BUPA Great North Run for Cancer Research UK this year. This involves running a half marathon (!), which is 20km, or 13.1 miles for those of you who, like me, haven't switched yet, and it takes places on the 18th September.

I did a 10km race in 2002, in appalling time (walk running, mainly) but haven't run since. I can't even run for the bus without looking a little bit like a pomegranate... I've got to be honest, this scares the life out of me. But it doesn't scare me even half as much as cancer does. I don't know a single person among my closest friends whose life hasn't been touched by cancer... three of my best friends' fathers have fought cancer, only one is still with us. Four of my closest friends' mothers; countless parents, aunts, uncles and family friends of friends etc; and, closer to home, my uncle Jim, Pete's grandfather, my maternal grandparents (Joan and Robin) have all suffered, some have died... and recently both my parents have had scares. I'm lucky: I haven't (as yet) come into direct contact with it, and I hope to God that things remain this way. But at present the statistics show that more than 1 in 3 of us will suffer from cancer at some point in our lives - hopefully, as medicine advances, we can either reduce this figure, or we can at least give the people who do suffer with it a greater chance of a full recovery. That's why I am doing this.

I would be really grateful if you could pledge whatever you can to this worthy charity in return for the amount of pain and humiliation I'm likely to suffer in the coming six and a half months... To those of you in my area, your donation is probably to be more than rewarded simply by the sight of me limping around East Dulwich for the foreseeable future. To those further afield - I'll keep an online training diary here to keep you up to date with how I'm doing. It may well be mildly amusing - although I can't imagine that I shall be laughing all that much (I think I'll be too sore!).

Thank you in advance... Teg.xx

by the way, you can donate lots of money to Cancer Research UK here...

It’s hit me. I have joined the rat race, and all of a sudden it’s hit me. I have commuter rage.

I have been inexplicably taken beyond my normal plane of ranting (believe it possible or not…) to another dimension – rarely before have I been as incensed as the supposedly simple journey from home to work left me this morning. Since when did the daily commute become an all-nails, all-elbows, all-out free for all? When was all that is admirable and respectable about being middle class and British eschewed in favour of our self-centred individual rights to be on that train in front of that person?

I arrived at work this morning harassed, hassled, and most probably bruised. From the minute I woke up this morning, to the minute I hung up my coat by my desk, I was in a foul mood. Why? Well, for the first time this year, I noticed that when I woke up this morning at half six it was still dark. Not dawn, not ‘not-quite-light’ – dark dark. Then, upon leaving the house it became abundantly clear that the day was minging. Grey and rainy. Which generally I love, but not today. Then, my train was cancelled. My train which is usually packed anyway. So the next train was rammed. And, needless to say, late.

Futhermore, I was standing on the station, waiting patiently for the next service, minding my own business, when a woman wanders down the platform towards me. I should explain at this point that I have an irrational fear of falling in front of a train, and as a result am (perhaps somewhat melodramatically…) compelled to remain behind the yellow line while waiting. So a woman today walks purposefully towards me and positions herself directly between me and the platform edge. I mean, what did she think I was doing? Decorating the space? I had placed myself there, purposefully, with the same intent as everyone else on that platform – to get a space on that bloody train. But she was obviously more important than me, and therefore had the right to go in front of me. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t had such a vile handbag – horrible black and white pleather thing with bad buckles and ‘detail’ stitching. God help us all.

But this excellent start to the day was only exacerbated by the bloke who proceeded to stand a little more close to me that I believed necessary all the way to London Bridge. Not to mention the fact that in order to get on to the train in the first place I practically had to bite and kick just to stop myself being squeezed back out onto the platform. All so undignified.

The last straw, however, after the bus I really wanted sat in repose, driver with his nose in today’s ‘Daily Mirror’, while I froze in the cold and wet and got later and later for work, was the Latin teacher on the bus with the beige corduroy blazer and the over-stuffed backpack, who, in order to get out of the way of other people getting on and off the bus repeatedly whacked me in the face, or squished me up against the window, with his karrimor accessory.

GRRRRR

And all this before I even start my temping day. And we all know how I feel about that…

I can hardly stand. My eyes no longer stay open of their own accord, and I am on the precipice of having to resort to toothpicks. On the upside, my arse is about 3 inches higher than it was a month ago, I have a waist, and I have eaten croissants every morning this month.

This isn't even an approximation of an actual journal entry, I just wanted to let you all know that I am still alive, and having a great if gruelling time in Edinburgh. Having managed not to slip into an exhaustion induced coma, thus far, and all else being well, I shall be returning to real life on Wednesday 1st September.

And then... let the blogging begin...

It just goes to show you what a fucked up world we live in when the itv news opens with a story about the availability of abortion pills to some random and careless fourteen-year-old, follows that with the world's greatest humanitarian crisis in the sudan - for a good 30 secs, mind - and then follows THAT with a story about our multi-millionaire soccer team manager and his bed-hopping habits.

To be perfectly honest, I believe the following:

1) the issue should not be the availability of emergency contraception, but the the control and education of British teenagers

2) I don't care, in the slightest, who the England coach shags. But if we could get somewhere in any major tournament, I might allocate him a little respect...

but above and beyond that:

3) when the worst humanitarian crisis in the world is going on beneath our own noses, why does any of this actually matter?

we really need to sort out our fucking priorities...

So this job finishes on Friday. It wasn't meant to - it was meant to finish on Friday week, but the fates have conspired against me. Unsurprisingly.

My new job requires me to be at the first week of rehearsals next week - starting Monday. It's daytime, which means that it doesn't really gel well with the temping, and one had to give. Again, unsurprisingly, the temping gave. (It's always the money that yields to the art, isn't it?) But I hasten to point out that all this was not for want of trying. Having received my rehearsal schedule, my immediate reaction was to phone the temp agency and ascertain the intended length of my contract (with a practically unpaid month in Edinburgh coming up, I need to law my clammy paws on as much moulah as possible). My second was to phone the theatre company and ascertain the relative importance of the first week of rehearsals. I already knew what was likely to happen, but I thought I'd just double check.

So, I get a call on Sunday from the theatre, explaining that the first week is going to be really important, and that I do really need to be there. Which is fine - hard on the wallet, but fine. So I explained to my temp company, and my present employer, and everything is hunky-dory.

But what really got me is the conversation I had with the Company Manager on Sunday. Apparently, I am needed for the first week of the rehearsals particularly, as this is when the bulk of our character work is going to take place. Now, don't get me wrong, I went to a method method drama school, I know the importance of character work. I find it an integral part of the process, and I actually really enjoy it. Playing a 17 year old punk lesbian, and a 52 year old French Canadian housewife, it has been really important to me, and helped me to understand life from such an alien point of view. For gritty characters, or those with emotional traumas and crises, it is indispensible as a creative tool. There's only one problem, therefore, in this situation...

I'm playing the Easter Bunny.

I could feasibly be expected to spend next week pretending to be buck-toothed and eating a lot of chocolate. I can't wait! And it struck me how ridiculous my career is/can be. I am going to do some in depth character research on being a fictional rabbit. In what other job could this ever happen? Except perhaps writing children's books, but I think you get a raw deal there, cos you do all the research and don't even get to dress up.

I do often marvel at just how ridiculous my chosen career is. If you are an accountant, God help you. No, I’m sorry, I mean, if you are an accountant, you are an accountant. If a salesman, a salesman. If a banker, a shop owner, a cleaner, a banker a shop owner a cleaner. But if you are an actress…

In my time, I have been – a witch from 1600s Essex (not far out bar the date), a Hungarian second to a world chess champion, a Muscovite spinster, a writer from New York, a pastiche of Celia Johnson, and ageing socialite, a wall (an animate one, i hasten to add), a fairy, a teacher, a cleaner, a decorator, a walrus, a sparrow, a snail, a penguin, a stick insect, a gorilla, a sloth (more than once actually, and I’m not just talking about the mornings) and a number of other animals, as well as a river, a gunshot victim (I died), … and the list goes on (This is not to mention the personas of temp, bar maid, waitress and delivery person that get assumed between jobs...) And this is all in the space of my severely fledgling career. And, from Monday, I get to be a disgruntled performer (ooh, that one’s gonna need a LOT of research!), an elf, and the Easter Bunny. I do this for a living. I get paid for this stuff - after a fashion.

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

If you read this blog and didn’t know me, you would think I went to the theatre all the time. I don’t. I can’t afford it. Which makes it a screwed industry really – when the people who are truly passionate about theatre (ie, other actors) can’t afford to go – where’s your target audience?

But I digress.

Anyway, last Friday evening, my better half and I did indeed make a trip to the theatre. We went to see The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre. The second longest running play in London’s West End (after The Mousetrap), this play is now in its 15th year, and is an absolute must-see. I’ve seen it twice, and loved it both times.

It is, to all intents and purposes, a ghost story. And it’s fabulous. But, more importantly, terrifying. Despite having seen it before (about 4 years ago) I left marks on his shoulder where I buried my face in despair, and nearly sparked a domestic when he told me to take my fingers out of my ears, to which I took particular umbrage. Just because he’s fearless…

Dominic Rickhards and Hugo Ross put in sterling, absorbing performaces – both independently and as a duo. Ross’s Arthur Kips starts out as a fantastically jittery, and somewhat wooden, distinguished solicitor, but slips gradually and flawlessly into a host of roles – from a provincial property magnate to an uncommunicative trap driver – all of which are meticulously effected and perfectly honed. Rickhards, as The Actor, plays a self-assured performer just the right side of caricature, who then transforms easily into a younger version of Kips. His younger solicitor (Kips) is well observed and wholly captivating, and gels impeccably with Ross’s older version of the character. Both actors must be praised for their abilities to switch from character to character – playing someone playing someone else (the play within the play) is harder to achieve than its frequency may suggest.

The acting was faultless and the realisation superb, but (without intending to detract from their accomplishments in the slightest) the unquestionable star of the show was the myriad technical effects. I have rarely seen a show as perfectly executed as this one, and if I have I can’t remember it off the top of my head. There are no flashing theatricals, no sliding sets, no helicopters descending from the flys. What there is, however, is impeccably timed sound and light cues – sparked off perfectly on cue and without warning, sending interval gin and tonics (yeah, alright, mine included) flying, and building the suspense to a heart racing, fiance grabbing, nail biting crescendo; coupled with the simple, but disarmingly powerful, use of (minimal-ish) stage and set.

[A little aside here – I’m not really to be trusted on the subject of set. I have been doing nothing but drama school and fringe productions for YEARS, and as such I have been spoilt. To me, a set of moveable blocks of differing heights and a length of fabric is heaven. I recently went to see the ROH production of Faust with Bryn Terfel and Roberto Alagna - which was beautiful and a feast in itself - and I was practically tripping over my own jaw at the vision that lay before me, masquerading as 'the set'. I am not difficult to please, a set at all is luxury – but in this particular case I do not think I am too wide of the mark – back to the black…]

As I say the stage and set were minimal. The actors presented most of the play, and the play within a play, using a large, old fashioned, rattan-style laundry basket, a stool, a chair, and a clothes rail, all set in front of a grey, torn and shabby looking scrim, or gauze. Front lit, the characters were on the downstage portion of a standard pros. arch stage, the action taking place in ‘this theatre’. The gauze also forms a clever back drop for a number of highly effective gobos and projections. But when back lit, the gauze lets us in to the world of Eelmarsh House – a creepy, supernatural kind of place (who am I kidding, it’s down right terrifying!) and provides a misty haze over that world, bringing to mind both the eerie nature of the house and its grounds, and the sea mists that creep in without warning ‘from a clear sky’. The room set up behind the gauze and the automated rocking chair (I am never buying a rocking chair) evoke another world, and at times, after startling changes, the work of silent stage hands must be praised.

But no article about The Woman In Black would be complete without at least a mention of the lady herself. She is not the scariest thing about the production, but she’s no cup of tea either. Her timing is impeccable, and for the most part, she glided on and off stage truly like a vision from a nightmare. On a couple of occasions, however, there was an element of stomping, and from time to time her haunting blank gaze became a bit of a bored mask, but the effect both of her appearances and of the fleeting glimpses with which the audience is rewarded, is one of unnerving discomfort. We all know she’s an actress in a hat and some face paint, but she is suitably directed, and the role adequately executed, to have the desired effect on the us. She is most effective when she is least expected – without giving anything away… However, conversely, the memory of the part is almost more effective when she is most expected – the actress does not join the men in a curtain call, and she is not obviously credited in the programme. At the close of the piece, after the curtain call and just before the houselights go up, a gasp rises from the audience at the sight of her spectral face glowing through the gauze, seemingly suspended half way above the stage.

The faults in the lady herself don’t pull down the show – it’s tight enough and well done enough to stride purposefully through an ‘off’ night (we all have them) and come out unscathed on the other side – and this in itself is where the main beauty of the piece lies. It is, above anything, an homage to the power of the theatre; it is a playground for a director, and it reminds actors and audience alike exactly what this art form is capable of. For me, it is a celebration of my choice of career – it’s why actors do this, and the ultimate goal of any piece – to hang together flawlessly, and seamlessly blend all elements of the theatrical craft.

It is a wonderful piece of theatre, and as a whole I cannot praise it highly enough. Go and see it. And may it run for another 15 years.

In the space of the last couple of weeks, my sister has become:

Rhiannon Tucker, B.A.(Hons)

HUZZAH!

A good friend has become:

Katherine Mallett, B.Mus.(Hons)

WHOOT!

And my gorgeous fiance has become:

Peter Owen, B.Sc.(Hons)

WOO HOO!


Congratulations guys, we're all extremely proud of you.

Bost peebul get hordy in duh subber, I ged sdotty. I ged sdotty, by eyes itch, by ears itch, by throat itches, by face id gederal itches, by dose ruds and i sdeeze like a bidtch, Id's sebeerely udattractib,

I cad ibagine dat, cumb duh longuh layzee days ob subber, by udder half wishes dat he was like udder med - lookig fawud to lade evenigs id beer gardeds, hot, sdeaby sex. udfortudatly, I cad awso ibagine dat dere is littuw dat is less sexy dan a gerwfredd who geds through half a row ob toiled baber a dight. Espeshally whed she has do resord do sdickig sub ub her dose do stob id runnig.

Id's dachuh's littuw joke, indit? We sday inside aw winder comblainig aboud duh wevver, ad whed id geds dice eduff do go oud, we are sdricked by dis rubbish. so we sday inside aw subber comblainig aboud duh wevver. ad den duh resd ob duh wurwd comblains dat we comblain do buch, ad suddedly id is quindessenchially bridish do comblain aboud duh wevver aw duh tibe.

Dow, awdinarily, I hade peebul who comblain aboud duh wevver aw duh tibe. I lub wevver. Espeshially whed id's in duh extreeb. I lub id whed id's really hod, ad I lub id whed id's really cowd. I just lub id. I don'd thingk dat id's doo buch do ask do be allowd do enjoy id - is id? Subwud recobended hobeopafy, bud for 3 seshons ad aboud £75 a bob, id was a littuw oud of by league.

So, for dow, I'll just slink off idto duh garded wid my tishoos ad by tableds, by dasal sbray ad by eyedrobs. I'll be awrighd, id'll be over sood (I hobe), ad as for duh udder half? Wew, he'w just hab do bray for ad Idiad Subber - ad we cad hab sub fud den.