Hooray! It looks as though I'm going to be getting my own little blog section on the official blog section on Chortle. Not yet, but soon...

So if this bit disappears, or stops - have a look on the bit marked 'blogs' and hopefully you'll find me there.

Hopefully you'll find me there
Hiding underneath the stair
Munching on an unripe pear
And having lots of fun.

Actually, I don't like pears. They are not my fruit of choice. In fact, they would probably be my last choice of all. Unless you count avocados and tomatos; which you clearly shouldn't.

Anyway, I need to pootle off quite soon and do a bit of writing.

See you soon Signior Figaro

RP

News from the Pickett camp.

Spent a week temping. Have now finished that and am back to being unemployed.
My last day of temping was on Monday. Very much excited by the idea of staying up late and not having to get up the next day, I got ready for a banging night in with the complete works of Coleridge and a DVD of 'Watership Down'.

My housemate's not entirely sober friend had come over, I think for a little sympathy, as it turned out his new girlfriend is a psycho and when he went to bed at the weekend, she woke him up with a knife, saying she was going to kill herself if he didn't wake up and talk to her (should I be writing this?...probably not...oh well)

Anyway, the poor boy was a little distressed and needed some comforting, so my housemate had agreed that he could come over - even though by this time it was already just before midnight. He was in the kitchen, filching some wine that was probably mine, when I heard a crash, a series of "fuck"s (the word, not the action) and then a rather feeble "um, could someone come down here". Went downstairs to discover blood all over the kitchen - on the floor, the cupboards, the walls, a broken glass on the worktop, and the poor boy clutching his hand. He had sliced a massive hole in the top of his hand and there was blood pouring everywhere (although I can't quite understand how he got it on the walls - I think he must have started doing a little dance when it happened). So, my fun night involved trying to keep him conscious whilst waiting for an ambulance - then the ambulance people rang back and said "actually, can you get him to hospital yourself, there aren't enough ambulances" and then spending about an hour scrubbing the entire kitchen with bleach.
Apparently he had to have internal stitching in his vein.

Over the weekend I went to a script writing workshop. It was really good, but was run by a guy from L.A. which didn't do anything to allay my suspicions that most Americans have an egos that are inversely proportional to the size of their president's brain. He kept banging on about how much money he made and how good he was at writing.

And speaking of people who've made lots of money writing - last week I met Ben Elton. It was in an audition for his new show - I wasn't really expecting him to be there, as it was only the first round of auditions, and I'd just been soaked and was looking rather like a cross between a dowdy schoolgirl and a drowned rat (I'd been temping, so was wearing a rather dull office outfit, but also had pigtails, which make me look about 12; and had been trapped in a massive rainstorm wearing flip-flops and no coat). I haven't seen him really on tv since the 80's - so had an image of this slightly weaselly, rather wizened looking man, with an estuary accent and maybe a shellsuit. In fact, he was actually rather suave - and better looking than he used to be. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying in any way that I find Ben Elton attractive - I'm just saying that I think he's got better with age. He's the George Clooney of eighties political satire.

What else has happened?
Don't know really.
I have a plan to write a film, and then try and use my new-found contacts (ie the other receptionist) at the Film Council (where I was temping) to get funding, somehow find lots of people who are prepared to work on it for almost nothing, and then by some freak chance have it be a huge worldwide success.

It's more likely that I'll just end up writing a poem and then watching Napoleon Dynamite.

Better go, it's midday and I'm still in my dressing gown. It's a good one though - from the 70's; looks quite the kind of smoking jacket extremely gay men wear at retro dance nights.

Love to one and all

RP x

Helloo its Bumblelion agayn! It's been long time no wryte for me - after havving a starrring roll in this blogg, Ive been in torks with a pruducshun cumpany about the possibilitee of mee starrring in my own seerees of tee-vee shows. It will bee corled 'Bumblelion and the funny Porn' and will feechure mee and a little porn corled Harry hoo is smorl and pink and yoozually livvs in the see. Hees trying to brake into show-bizniss azwell - so far his only acting roll has been on Reddy Steddy Cook, where he hadd to pretend to be a shrimp.

I think I mite feel a bit bad wen I meet him tho, becos I ayte sum porns wunce in a porn cocktale. It was tasty!

Ennyway, iff it orl goes ahedd, mee and Harry will be intervyooing celebrittees like Peeter Ondray and dangeruss criminuls lyke Harry Rednap and orlso getting up to orl sorts of hi-jinks lyke sayling and wite worter raffting. Orltho I'm a bitt wurried that if we go wite-worter raffting Harry mite forl out and then he'll dye becos hees a see-worter porn - if he sees worter, he dyes!! HAHA that's a funnee Bumblelion joke.

Speeking of jokes, funny Ruth iz off doing a verry boring job thiss week wear she has too answer fones and tranz-ferr them. It sounds borring - not like beeing a Bumblelion wich is orlways lots of funn! And Bumblelions don't haff to pay rent eethur so I don't haff to do a silly job lyke Ruth duzz - I can just stey at home eeting caykes and wotching telly. Its ace.

I'd beter go now. I want summ choclit.

Love Bumblelion xxx

Hello!

So - apologies about the massive angry rant that was my previous post. I have cheered up immensely now, particularly following some very kind messages from a couple of people, including Mr Ray Peacock / Ian Boldsworth (I never know which one to call him on this...because his name is Ian but his blog name is Ray) a man called Paul, and my lovely friend Lizzy who used the delightful phrase "munted middle-aged heifers" to describe the jealous nasty-message-leaving losers.

So - I have put that little episode to one side and can continue with my plan for world domination and contentment. The plan so far is:
1) Earn money doing something or other
2) Buy more Manolos
3) Realise that buying more Manolos means you can't pay your rent
4) Earn more money, vowing to spend it on rent this time
5) Spend money on books, cds and dvds instead
6) Write screenplay for film
7) Realise I have no experience writing screenplays, panic and think it's shit, then get on with it again
Cool Write songs
Why has that come up as a funny little man instead of an 8?
9) Record songs properly and put on Myspace
10) Get offered lots of money for songs and screenplay, win award, try to do something about global warming and recycling and the unnecessary amount of plastic bags and bottles people use
11) Get a cat.

This morning I went up to the bathroom and discovered a little frog lurking on the stairs. I tried to capture it to take it outside, but it kept leaping everywhere. It was so leapy! It frightened me and I got a bit hysterical. After a while I managed to get it into a box, but I had stupidly used a box with a small hole in it, and the frog leaped out of the hole (even though the hole was about half the size of the frog - how do they do that?). So I got another box, managed to get it into that, and took it outside.
Silly frog. How did it get in? It must have come in through the catflap.
And we don't have a cat, in case you're thinking "Well the cat probably brought it in".

I am massively excited to have booked a(nother) trip to New York...I'm going on my birthday (25th November). I love New York. I've been twice so far - both times last year and both times on my own - this is the first time I will be going with someone else (my boyfriend) which will be rather exciting because it means I can go out dancing without the fear of being attacked by a giant man in a baseball shirt who doesn't find it funny that I accidentally trod on his foot and then told him merrily that 'he would get over it' and who then follows me to the toilet.
This happened last time I went - it's not a general fear of mine.

Catch you later kids

Ruth x

Aha. It seems Ian Boldsworth (aka Ray Peacock) is keeping his blog going. I too got the email from Steve Bennett, and figured I might keep going with this for a while too. At least until I get a job and stop spending so much time on my own.

So. Post-festival news includes the fact that I went to Cyprus for a week and sat by the sea, and now I'm home and panicking about how I'm going to pay my rent.

I also made the mistake of looking at the punter reviews of my show on Chortle (why, why do I keep subjecting myself to this?) to discover that some delightful people (if in fact they are people - they are probably evil mutated pieces of shit that have been cross-bred with those irritating little pug-dogs to form a mutant shitdog that is so ugly and pointless that it spends its life trying to make everyone else in the world unhappy) have left some comments which are - well, they're not very nice.

Normally this is the sort of thing that I wouldn't dignify with a response, and frankly I think the people writing them come across far worse than they could ever make me sound...but the thing that upsets me is this:
I don't really care that someone doesn't like my writing or my jokes - I've said this before - you can't please everyone. But I just find it staggeringly hard to believe that someone could have so much hatred inside them that they see fit to attack someone they barely know, in such a cowardly anonymous way.

I don't believe that these people / person even saw my show - nothing about the show is even mentioned.

I'm sure I'll learn to ignore these people eventually. Certainly it's not any kind of deterrent. In fact, morons like that make me even more determined to succeed. So, if you read this, whoever you are - you may be interested to know that I don't give a toss what you think.
I pity you.

Well, it looks as though these blogs are still in action...and mine is slowly creeping to the bottom of the list, which won't do at all.

The OCD part of me is compulsively not replying (if you can be compulsively passive) because I want to keep my number of posts at 55; which is a nice number.
The slightly more normal part of me says that's just silly.

Bumblelion and I made it safely back to London on Monday evening; to be greeted by a very excited Pinkleberry, who had been waiting patiently inside his box for the entire month.

My body clock hasn't returned to normal yet (not that it ever was normal) so I'm now spending my time staying up stupidly late, sleeping in stupidly late, and then spending the day in an anxious frenzy, worrying about how I'm going to pay my rent this month.

Unfortunately my first impulse on returning to London was to head straight to Manolo Blahnik and buy myself a tasty new pair of shoes as a 'reward' (aka a feeble excuse to do something I shouldn't) for getting through Edinburgh. This is all very well, but I had cleverly budgeted that money as rent money - and I don't think my landlord accepts Manolos as payment (although he should - they're fucking amazing). My good friend Andrew O'Neill - the only person I know with even more of a shoe fetish than me - would definitely approve. They are possibly the best pair of shoes ever. And I have some fucking good shoes.

Eugh, there is a big pile of coffee sludge at the bottom of my cup. I just drank an entire cafetiere (from a cup though, not from the cafetiere - that would be weird). Blogs are strange. Why am I sitting at my computer writing an online diary about the sludge in the bottom of my cup of coffee?
I need to get a job.

Anyone got any jobs going? My skills include accurate spelling, an overactive imagination, and the ability to jabber on about nothing on a comedy website.

The time is 4.45pm
The day is Friday.
The month is September.
The year is 2006.
I am alive.

All of these things will change. But some sooner than others.