I've had a relatively easy news week - got my quotes on time, no struggles.
In fact, I almost feel strangely uncomfortable that news was a breeze this week. Still no pg one yet, damnit. I need to pick up more newspapers and be at the right place at the right time. Someone else is going to get the front pg story two weeks in a row simply because of right place, right time. It's frustrating if it's not you who gets the lucky break, but I guess a lot of it really just comes down to luck.
***
Yesterday was an interesting day largely due to the fact news just seemed to be happening all around me. I've got a story for a nominated Entrepreneur of the Future, the CEO of this e-retailer that has become hugely famous in the last few years. I won't do free advertising for them here but they started off with their first quirky product - the shot-glass chess set and the company is now churning millions. Not all dotcoms are a thing of the past...
I'm getting increasingly bored about reporting business news. I know it was my original beat but I am dying to hit some kind of breaking news stuff that isn't business. Besides, it's so hard for business stories to hit front page, unless you're at FT or something. It'd be best if you doing something like social services, or community relations, or crime. The murders and the sob stories and the abuse are most likely to make it front - will success ever get the same treatment?
Cynically, no.
So anyway, I began this story about the Somali community chewing khat leaves since a possible ban is being considered by the Home Secretary this week, not really thinking this story would go through because I would have to find Somalians (whom I have never previously encountered) to comment and it didn't seem like it'd happen in one day.
But it did - one phone call and I had great quotes. Later on last night, I had another call. Again, great quotes. And today, found another guy who is chairman of another Somali association and he gave me an alternative view and everything came together so nicely.
After feeling quite positive about my stories, I decided to attend this event that I previously decided against attending - because I didn't get confirmation for my invite. But I get a call later from the Director himself and he said come along so I went to the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry for an audience with Alastair Stewart - awarded Presenter of the Year this year and reads/presents the news for London Tonight. Unlike Sg, no one without any grey hair would hardly ever make it on telly in Britain - Trevor MacDonald, Jeremy Paxman, Alastair Stewart... you get the idea.
It was a great session - How To Get Your Company On Television - made amazing contacts and it was certainly informative in the event of when I decide to forsake journalism and go into PR. I stayed back and got a private interview with him to get some quotes for our paper and shortly after giving me the quote, he peered at my notes and asked why I wasn't writing in shorthand.
I was stumped for a second, then I hurriedly turned to my back pages and showed him my shorthand notes.
See? I am learning it. It's just really hard to make the transition! I said
Oh, don't worry. I don't know shorthand either! he said. But really, you should have a dicta-phone.
I cursed inwardly - been meaning to get one for fucking ages but I never get down to it - putting off money I should actually spend, instead of spending it on fattening food and booze.
But he was rather friendly and accommodating which was nice and he ended the session with somewhat of a joke.
He said, when the camera crew at the tv studios are in a good mood, they call the newsreaders/presenters, 'talent.'
When they're in a bad mood, they are the 'lips'.
I laughed to myself.
***
So before the whole business event started, I arrived rather early and was sitting at the back of the room quietly feeling rather out of place at the event that had directors, CEOs and managing directors of all sorts of important London cos networking in a lively buzz. Then I had a thought: it felt exactly like I could be in a business con back in Sg, except maybe slightly less intimidating. Everyone's wearing the same suits and ties and talking the same language and business jargon. Even the smell of the coffee, tea, and biscuits almagating with the starched crispiness of business suits was uncanny.
So I met someone who is Chinese, but doesn't know how to speak Mandarin, but speaks Japanese and works as a translator in a media company.
Then I met someone else who had a singapore passport but had to give it up to become a British citizen, which was really easy about 30 years ago - all you had to do was own 50p and prove you've lived in the country for the last five years.
His brother-in-law is CEO of a particular sg bank, but could not open a bank account in London.
Earlier I was told by a business friend that Green Peace had stormed into the CBI annual conference in the middle of Blair's speech about developing more nuclear-type businesses and there was a great commotion - a great story. Pity it didn't happen in South London. It came out on the Evening Standard that day.
***
I went home after a night of socialising and networking, feeling particularly drained but quite happy. I left London Bridge Tube station when suddenly there was an alarm and several police officers swooped in to say the station was closing. Another story! I thought.
But I rang TfL today and they said it was a fire alarm, not the bomb threat we were hoping for (sadist, us journalists) so it's not going in our paper after all.
***
I'm supposed to be finishing my last story tonight but I really cannot be arsed. It'll be a 9am to 8pm job tomorrow staring intently at computer screens and I'm not particularly thrilled at staring some more tonight. At least I'm designer - which is a great job I didn't think I'd like but I really love! Quark is my new best friend and I'll have to spend lots of time with it tomorrow.
***
I started this feeling really happy and optimistic about my news week but now my night has just ended in shits. I guess the typical thing to do is to plunge in a rant about what happened and all my doubts and feelings but again, I can't be arsed. I'll let the thoughts fester and hopefully by the time I get up tomorrow morning. Some things, however, are repeated so often to you that it starts to resound enormously in your head every time you hear it. And the more I hear it, the more it does my head in. It's always the same stuff, things never change and at the end of it all, are you really expecting something to happen? Who am I kidding? It's probably my own fault and my own choice. It's so hard to be honest, to others and especially to yourself.
***
Lastly, I actually watched an old episode of SATC tonight - it was about the hope of love, discerning between cynicism and optimism, and as much as I'm skeptic towards Charlotte, who's dubbed the 'eternal optimist who always believes in love', I came away actually touched by something as cheesy as that. (We all at some level, love all those escapist- tv series even though we proclaim to hate it) But it's weird how far the pendulum swings in extremes. I can't decide if I'm the eternal optimist, or if it's just a load of bollocks. I guess it's a matter of accepting that it's probably both, anyway. At the end of the day, you're always swinging from one extreme to another, and maybe until the end of your life, you'd never find out if you were right, either way. Unless you've stuck it through till the end.
My only hope, is that I've stuck it through at the right end.
