Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 3

Wednesday: my favourite day of the week. It’s that perfect point of no return and when it’s over you know you’re on your way to weekend whimsy. My buckling body, however, is screaming for a chiropractor due to belatedly feeling the effect of Monday’s Waitrose Workout.

Three days have passed and still I can’t find a clean cup, nor detergent to sanitise a dirty cup, anywhere in the vicinity. So I take drastic action charmingly requesting the use of a paper one from the canteen. Either due to my sub-par flirting or some sort of eco-friendly policy (I’m sort of hoping the former), I incur a fee of 8 pence. Who owns this place? Ryanair?

In my ongoing task to enquire about the whereabouts of myriad celebs for upcoming interview requests I realise I have access to a database of contact numbers for people’s “people”. What happens at The Times stays at The Times. Except I could have a photographic memory and I can haphazardly e-mail myself some vital digits… Caleb Followill’s agent’s mobile number and the like. Strictly for emergencies only, of course.

My filming efforts yesterday have become the talk of the Times. Everywhere I go are whispers of “Who Dat?” and how it’s “gone global”. I’ve never been very sure about what that means. After some research I learn that a “global” is just an internal e-mail that is sent to an entire company. So I won’t be “going to Hollywood” anytime soon then? But wait. The editor-in-chief likes it and is “making it HUGE” according to one queuing Costa patron. How “HUGE” can it get, I wonder. Will I be joining the Oscars race for Best Director at the last minute? Get on your bike James Cameron, what’s 3D when you’ve got men in Jaeger speaking hip hop lingo?

Several “informed” book blurbs later and I overhear the planned Beauty special coming to fruition. The problem? A lack of interviewees. Eureka! My entrapment in unpaid internshipdom has an escape hatch. Pixie Lott. She croons, she twinkles, she performs for Q tonight. The Times want an interview because I convince them they want an interview. One minor detail: I don’t have an interview. How hard can it be? Granted she’s banned all press, but I’ve got my “won’t take no for an answer” face on. The same face, I may add, that Adrian Chiles contended with at Q’s David Gray gig as I slipped him a copy of my CV. Suffice to say, I still don’t work for the BBC. Unpromising precedents aside, if I don’t get an interview it’s pretty obvious what Pixie Lott’s beauty secret is: she’s practically prepubescent.

Finishing her set I spot my moment and secure victory. It’s hardly Watergate but it’s a start. What’s more I get two interviews for the price of one by bombarding the support act, Tiffany Page, as well. I am nothing if not persistent.

To be continued...

Incidentally, Tiffany Page with her kohl eyeliner, just-rolled-out-of-bed-looking-hot attitude and Fender in hand has been pipped as the UK's (much younger) answer to Chrissie Hynde. Here she is covering Muse's Supermassive Black Hole. She is currently supporting the Noisettes on tour strutting about stages all over Britain.



Jaz x

Secret Diary Of A Newspaper Intern: Part 2

Austere is the East End. As I make my way to Wapping for a second day of voluntary slave driving I imagine the hoi polloi of Dickensian London and wonder why people actually want to live round here. Notting Hill shabby chic is one thing. This is just plain shabby bleak.

On entry, I experience the “revolving door” which greets the workie who hasn’t pre-emptively arrived bearing caffeinated gifts. Before my derriere grazes the chair that I’ve had to claim from an absent designer in a different department, I return to the elevator to embark on a Costa run. I’ve yet to mention that the order comes from the editorial assistant. And not just any editorial assistant… this week’s temporary editorial assistant. Is this a new low?

Just as my jaw descends upon my very own cup of tea I am summoned by a multimedia journalist from the main paper. Not one sip! She proceeds to inform me about a burning topical issue for which we must campaign. It has something to do with the Superbowl. The brain, already affected by lack of liquid stimulant, wanders. I’ve never been one for campaigning. Moreover, I have never been one for the NFL. Having spent a semester of university abroad at UNC in North Carolina I will never get back those four hours I suffered in utter confusion amidst the ‘bleachers’ watching the university’s football team (the Tar Heels) lose a game – a result I could only confirm via crowd reaction.

Lo and behold, I now know that the New Orleans Saints (a team who subsequently win the Superbowl) are banned from using their catchphrase in the finals due to some pedantic copyright issue. The phrase “Who dat?” is literal gangsta for “Who’s that?” as in “Look at us, you pleb, we’ve arrived”.

I’m told it would be of great amusement if we compiled a video of ordinary stuck-up British folk repeating this slogan in a spirited manner. Cue standing outside Waitrose (a place soon to feature heavily in the story of my life) for the next two hours while I jostle with a video camera and mic in the constant drizzle and accost members of the public, who are too busy either disciplining unruly umbrellas, or (shock, horror) heading to Waitrose. Oh the glamour! Young, old, foreign, couples, joggers, janitors: all fall victim to my newfound directing skills. The morning’s one saving grace comes behalf of an old dumbfounded gentleman, whose doddery inquiry “Who dat… is that with a ‘d’ or a ‘t’?” is a personal highlight. Once satisfied that a suitable number had been hounded my partner and I return to the fort.

Now, when I came to The Times I imagined glimpsing (from afar) bursts of brilliance from famed political commentators such as David Aaronovitch, Hugo Rifkind, Daniel Finklestein, legendary cartoonist Peter Brookes, etc. I didn’t, however, foresee approaching them with sodden attire and frazzled bouffant to request that they unveil their inner Snoop Dogg direct to camera. Alas, it is felt that this will really give the ‘campaign’ video the edge. Once more it’s a task befitting a workie impervious to humiliation. The recording (edited after a late canteen lunch and viewable below), however, is quite hilarious but I fear the joke is on me, Ms Drowned Rat.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/us_sport/article7012708.ece

To be continued...

Jaz x

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...

********************

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

Good Times Bad Times

Unbeknown to anybody (because I haven't been given a byline) Jasper Fields has raised an eyebrow or two over toast and tea this morning among a quota of the Times reading nation  - the quota that seek to be ahead of the game, not as far as Gordon Brown, Warren Buffett, Freddie Flintoff, or Sir Alan Bennett are concerned, but as regards the hottest new music infecting the nation. And to that I raise a somewhat bemused eyebrow.

There on page 15 of the supplementary Playlist magazine lies a column of suggested tunes and albums 'of the moment' to blow those Austin Reed socks off, if possible. The fruits of my free-of-charge labour during a week's work experience (soon to be reported) are here scanned (click for maximised readable view and Spotify away).

If I may add, my albums list has been intercepted in an act of some irony. Recommending Spoon's 7th LP Transference due to the fact that their wider recognition here in the UK remains baffling (it contains the type of sophisticated rock melodies that Eels' Mark "E" Everett should aim to still be producing), I have been trounced by an Erland And The Carnival fan. And for that reason I leave you with Got Nuffin' (buzzsaw guitar highlight with a hint of the Sonic Youth about it) to whet your appetite for my incoming Spoon interview. TEAM SPOON!



Happy Saturday, Jaz x

Lotts of Pixie

With the charm of a heyday-era Britney and the shimmying backing dancers of Winehouse (granted that’s probably the worst pedigree), she can carry a little forgetful tune but allegedly rates her legs as her best asset. Such honesty Britney could have used once...

And Pixie Lott told me honestly that she loves my spectacles last Wednesday. What a sweetheart. The interview will feature in The Times' Weekend beauty special in late February (links will  be provided). In the meantime hop over to Who's Jack? to read the full Q The Music Club Live At Hard Rock Cafe London review:
 
http://www.whosjack.org/?p=4013

Jaz x