Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 1

Following the previously recorded New To Q week, I embarked upon work experience at a newspaper that today reports about the atrocity of young people paying for internships. Considering I put myself up in Paddington for a week, funded five working days in London and wasn't reimbursed travel expenses, I think it's fair to suggest they look no further than their own HQ for that particular story's evidentiary support. Why "sign on" when you can pay to have a job? To The Times...

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My in-house days at Q Magazine are over (for now) and having had the briefest of respites following last week’s gigmania it’s back to the Secret Diary Of A Perma-intern (like Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, it’s a story about whoring just without the sex… or any form of remuneration). This week sees me offering my services to The Times. The need to locate a new internship is always the cause of some stress on the first morning. Therefore, I usually leave about two spare hours (really not an issue, fish are insomniacs). It’s the same for interviews. I figure if you can’t get airborne without setting aside a few extra hours to master the airport, you certainly can’t invade new potential employment territory. Despite my “residence” in a Paddington bedsit and my destination of Wapping, I require each second. The Hammersmith & Shitty line crawls around zone 1 taking 56 eternal minutes to travel 9 stops. In Japan, it probably takes less time to simulate flying around the world. I vouch never to live in an area of London only accessible by crap underground lines – Circle, District, Metropolitan included. It’s all about Northern and Jubilee (which just sounds so gleeful). Piccadilly is the unaffordable pipe dream. W1, sweetie darling.

It soon dawns on me why the Eastender is such a formidable character. If ever there is a time to unearth my inner Peggy Mitchell it is now, walking a mile away from Tower Hill through the depths of East Smithfield - Jack The Ripper territory: no cashpoints, fewer civilians, nothing except a petrol station for a pre-game caffeine fix, and, according to the reception area of News International, currently experiencing a UK Security Threat level of SEVERE. What happened to lunchtime in Topshop, espresso at Carluccios and luvvies galore? I’m a Westender, Get Me Out Of Here?!

Genuinely I feel quite honoured to be within this über journalist hothouse. It’s really the most “high brow” environment I’ve been exposed to yet (the newsroom at STV would argue otherwise).  So imagine the reaction to my opening task: researching anti-cellulite creams. It’s imperative and pressing that I uncover those that can be bought in the UK, phone their PRs and get as many copies of each biked over like yesterday for testing (thankfully, not on me… though I wouldn’t put it beyond my remit). It’s hardly new intelligence on an Al Qaeda cell in Rotherham. Nevertheless, beautiful lady readers of The Times (and Gok Wan) need to know the truth once and for all. Does Bliss’s Fat Girl Slim trump the triply expensive La Prairie? Is sacrificing the kids’ after-school tennis lessons to clear the Space NK account worth it? Should Harley Street’s finest be shaking in their scrubs? As I blag several copies of Rodial’s overall body cocoon (over £100 a pop) I wonder, what possesses these women? Is it fair to think that maybe the fat busting effects result from a shrunken expenditure in the M&S desserts aisle as a direct consequence of spending such ludicrous amounts on moisturiser? Just a thought.

Post-lunch the books team employ me to write several blurbs about current favourites for the Saturday Review section. It needn’t matter that I haven’t read any of these books. My only instruction is to steer clear from the cover’s synopsis. To Amazon! (The website, not unfortunately the South American rainforest). Why amazon.com customers purchase items only to return to contribute, in some cases, a 1000 word ‘review’ is beyond me. Particularly where that item is a household appliance: “the suction on Dyson’s latest hoover model was beyond my expectations”, etc. Mockery aside, I thank you. Even, to my shame, The Picture Of Dorian Gray must be researched in this fashion. If movies like Beowulf teach us anything it’s that you just can’t trust a Hollywood “Now A Major Feature Film” version. The 16 such blurbs written over the course of the week have all since been published. Having forgotten my words, the level of apparent familiarity when re-reading them greatly surprises me.

One hour of the first day remains and the dreaded call arrives. There comes a time in every intern’s life when shame is redefined and nevertheless cast aside to be replaced by false enthusiasm. It’s the “give it to the workie” job – tasks they invent to make sure they’re getting their travel expenses’ worth out of you (or in my case a week's rations of toilet roll and central heating). In some circles (mainly American reality TV shows and psychology) they call this “character building”. I call it workplace abuse (there’s no excuse). Running in heels to photocopying shops in unknown parts of Holborn, transcribing hours of interviews on sticking keyboards for unrealistic deadlines, parading a farmer’s market for 8 hours advertising magazine subscription offers… I’ve done it all.

Here and now I must go to Waitrose (15 minute’s walk) to source £40’s of canned foods… alone… with just the two arms… in 45 minutes. As I fluster about traversing the aisles for a shopping list which includes tinned smoked oysters and a can of Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie (now’s probably a bad time to tell them I’m Kosher), I put to bed my childhood fantasy of one day competing on Dale Winton’s Supermarket Sweep. In case you wondered, it’s for a photoshoot. Yes, we The Times are shooting inanimate foodstuffs in tins. It’s not art; it’s “high brow” journalism.

And just in case you don't believe me here is one smidgeon of the spread. Mmm pork sausages...

To be continued...

Jaz x