Work Envy...

Generally I am quite content working as a word hack in a London-based magazine factory. The pay is OK, the job not very demanding and some of the people pleasant to work with. But sometimes I get grief and have sudden urges to borrow the nearest Uzi and liberally spray several people with hot lead love.

A friend of mine, however, does have the best job in the world working as an advisor at a theatre company and, masochist that I am, I’ll sometimes ask her what she’s doing. I bumped into her this morning and made this mistake and she told me wondrous tales of travelling to far-away circus festivals to check out stiltwalkers. Previous queries have also resulted in stories about firing guns at work, messing around with swords and ensuring thespian dogs are kept in the lap of luxury.

I put apostrophes the right place and ensure Ross Kemp is spelt correctly (‘talentless personality-vacuum apple-up-his-arse twat’ for those who interested in matters of spelling).

Today I did chance on a job that sounds even better than my friend’s job, though, and that is Garment Tester. Or more specifically Knitwear Garment Technologist. This carries a salary of £38K and as a far as I could tell it involves trying on knitwear and assessing whether it looks OK and how long it will last before wearing out. There was also some total bunkum about analysing market trends but I ignored this as anything that vaguely sounds like market or marketing should always be translated as ‘Can talk utter shite until the recipient of said diatribe seeps blood from his ears and stabs himself in the eyes with the nearest pieces of cutlery in a sad ATTEMPT TO MAKE IT ALL STOP!’

And that’s also the way I feel about Big Brother which begins tonight.

I despise Big Brother because (a) it’s spawned a spate of reality TV shows even more appalling than it is, (b) it’s spawned a generation of Z list celebrities who seem to think that showing their arse, tits or pecs on TV is reason enough for a life of pampered celebrity, and (c) it always draws me in to watch it when I’ve tried to avoid it like the plague.

But, in my defence, there’s no wonder really. C4 gives the bloody thing wall-to-wall coverage, the tabloids give it more page space than the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath, and people who you once thought sane suddenly become babbling idiots who care about someone who previously they’d have spat on then shat on if they saw in the street – and that’s before they had a reason to hate them!

Anyway, my money is on the Tory-voting Irish bisexual woman named Geraldine with the shaved head, facial piercings, tattoos and penchant for auto-asphyxiation. Go Ger!