PS

Am currently trying to contact the man from TNBJITW. He's not responding. There is also no deadline, no way of uploading videos and no criteria. Which sucks, because not only have I come up with a cracking idea, but I've also managed to secure sponsorship for it (almost).

Could it be that I am being naive again? Is it a real job, and a real campaign, or am I being suckered? Time will tell. But I'm not doing anything about a new video until I find out.

Large cats

Sometimes my absolute stupidity surprises even me, and I'm used to it.

My plans at the moment largely revolve around: finishing my book, quickly, and going travelling. This now encorporates a volunteer scheme of some kind, because I have selfishly decided that I need to balance out my karma after TBJITW me-me-me-ness by caring about other people for a change. At the moment this is probably one of the most me-orientated things I have ever done: it's primarily about making me feel like a good person, if I scratch the surface. However, I'm pretty sure that when I get out there and am actually confronted with people I have to care about, I will be able to see past myself for a little bit and actually throw myself into doing something for the genuine benefit of somebody else.

Where I go, however, is the problem. I know diddly squat about geography, and realised last night that the three places I have thus far pin-pointed (Peru, Nepal, Sri Lanka) have all been pin-pointed because I know somebody who has lived there. Sri Lanka is currently looking like the best bet, simply because it looks like it actually does help people (orphans from the tsunami), and because it's on a beach. I haven't lived on a beach before: I'm quite keen to try it.

Anyway, I decided to email IBB, who - by complete coincidence - has just finished a teaching post in Sri Lanka.

Is it good? I messaged him yesterday.
Amazing, he messaged back. Really amazing. So rewarding and beautiful.
Okay for a girl on her own? I asked.
Yeah, fine. You'll get stared at coz you're white and pretty but just ignore it. Oh, and watch out for the Tigers.
This, I thought, was the second time somebody had talked about tigers when I mentioned Sri Lanka. Dad had said something about tigers too.
Oh come on, I emailed (after writing the obligatory: 'I'm pretty? Aw shucks.'). How vicious can they be? I'll carry a ball of twine around with me, and just hope that I only get approached by the little fluffy ones.
There was a bit of a delay in between that email and the reply. I presume he lost his internet connection. Technology in Sydney is always a bit touch and go.
Hahaha, he emailed back eventually. You always make me laugh. There was a pause, while I worried about IBB's sense of humour, not for the first time. I think he mainly laughs because I'm posh and British, actually, and he thinks I'm like Gwynyth Paltrow in all the films where she's playing a posh British person. Then I get another one: You know that Tigers are the rebels who are fighting out there, right? Guns, murder, etc. Not ones with paws.
I stared hard at the screen. No, I thought. I did not know that. I thought I was being warned away from particularly large cats.
Ahaha! I sent back. Of course! What do you take me for?
And then I came off messenger and spent the rest of the morning on Wikipedia.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I still think I should go. IBB managed it, I can manage it too. They wouldn't let volunteers go out there if there was a genuine risk to their safety, would they? Anyway: frankly, the fact that I clearly know so little about the world just proves to me that I need to get out there, come what may. I need to experience, and stop asking restaurants to 'cook my fish all the way through. All the way through, please'. I need to open my mind.

After all, there are no tigers - or Tigers - out there that are as scary as utter ignorance.

Field of Dreams

Every mum has a saying or two that drives their kids up the wall. A saying that is so oft-repeated and said with such fervor, that you end up screaming "stop it! For the love of God stop saying it!" before you hit 15 years old.

One of my mum's favourites is: "If you build it, he will come." This, for those of you who avoid Kevin Costner the way that I avoid Kevin Costner, is from Field of Dreams. She's taking the quote out of context, obviously (she's an English teacher: that's what they do best). 

"What?" I'd shout at her, aged 18. "I'm not building a flaming baseball pitch for Ray Liotta, mum! I've told you a million times, it's not going to happen!"

Mum would stoically refuse to be drawn into any kind of literal discussion. Again, she's an English teacher.

"If you build your life," she'd say with a knowing smile that drove me nuts, "then the one you are waiting for will turn up."

"Don't care," I'd shrug at her in a sulk. "Don't want him to turn up anyway."

The other phrase she loved (possibly because I spent my teenager years slamming them) is: "When one door shuts, another one opens." "Opportunities," she would continue, "come in all shapes and sizes."

"It doesn't make sense, though," I would point out. "Sometimes all the doors slam at once. Sometimes they're all open. And then what do you do? How do you know which one to go through?"

"You just know," she'd explain in her Guru Mother Voice. "You just know."

"It's like flamin' Alice in Wonderland," I'd mutter darkly, going into my bedroom to play Radiohead as loudly as my stereo would go. "And we all know what happened to her."

Strangely, though, both points are based on the same concept: taking any opportunity that life throws at you, and simply getting on with it. Building, even if you don't know where it will lead you. Having faith that you're going in the right direction, even if you can't see the path you're on. (And both sayings could be easily used in a furniture store advert.)

So: I was contacted today - along with the other 48 short-listed applicants for TBJITW - with another opportunity: The Next Best Job In The World. Along with a public wild card, the 48 of us have been asked to apply for a new position with Mason Horvath: a luxury travel company that specialise in Once-In-A-Lifetime experiences. The position is six months as an Elite Travel Correspondent: travelling the world, experiencing amazing adventures and writing/blogging about them. And being paid $50,000 dollars to do it. Another 60 second video is required, and yet again I'm in competition with the very same people. 

Ironically, this job is actually better than the Queensland one: for me, anyway. Where the Queensland job meant staying in one place for six months, this is travelling around the world; where the Queensland job had limited activities (snorkelling, scuba diving, reporting on fish), this has activities that range from dinner on The Great Wall of China to Ferrari racing in Italy to picnics in the Sahara. 

So, I'm taking my mum's advice. I am going to keep building, and I'm going to keep heading through open doors, and taking every opportunity that is open to me. As long as I have the imagination to keep dreaming, and the energy to keep going for them, I will pursue that field of Kevin Costners. And I am absolutely going to make a new video, because you turn your nose up at adventures at your peril.

Mum was very pleased when I told her about TNBJITW (an even clumsier acronym). "Now that sounds more like it, Holly. No climbing trees at all. This one could really, really be right for you. You'd love a picnic in the desert, wouldn't you?"

"Still risk of sand in your sandwiches," my dad said warningly. "But probably a risk worth taking," he admitted as soon as he heard the word 'Ferrari'.

"Stop talking about sandwiches," my mum snapped at him. "Holly doesn't like sandwiches much anyway."

And then she stopped and smiled at me.

"If you build it, he will come," she added, for no reason whatsoever, and I found myself leaving the room in a strop all over again.

So, it didn't take much thinking about. I'm going to keep building, and writing, and dreaming. Of course I am. And I can only hope that Ray Liotta doesn't turn up at some stage and start lobbing balls at me.

Dead frogs

At the weekend, I sat down with a good friend I hadn't seen for months and - after a few beers - decided to dissect the disastrous date I had a few weeks ago. Girls do this, you see. Not because we're obsessed with men (which is what men like to assume), but just because we like working things out and analysing. It's a game for us, you see, and it's a bit like discussing football: we ponder the decisions, the moves made, the dynamics of the entire evening, and work out why the winners won and the losers lost. We open the situation up like a dead frog, lay it on the table and have a good poke around, laughing as we do it.

"Come on then," Jess said, sipping her Sol and moaning about the smallness of the lime in the top: "spit it out: what did you do wrong this time?"

I rolled my eyes yet again, and got ready to defend myself. And then I stopped, pushed my lime into the beer (slightly smugly: it was much bigger than Jess's) and bent my head.

"Quite a few things," I admitted reluctantly. "I told him his band was crap for starters. And then when he told me he played the guitar, I told him I couldn't hear any guitar. And that the singer was kind of nasally."

I hadn't remembered this, actually. When I was busy blaming him for being a bastard, it didn't occur to me that I might have been nasty first.

Jess shook her head.

"Never, ever, ever insult a man's musical abilities," she said sadly. "First rule in the book. So that was strike one." 

"And then he told me something very, very tragic about his past, and I laughed."

Jess laughed.

"Yeah, like that," I said miserably. "Not because it was funny, but because I was so embarrassed. He had hinted at something, and I assumed it was something really crappy - like a teenage breakup - so I teased him about it. And then he told me, and it was so bloody awful and horrific and I was so ashamed that I had teased him that I burst into shocked laughter."

"Jesus," Jess breathed at me. "Nice work, Smale. Laugh at a boy's painful past. Okay, so that's strike two, three, four and five."

"And, to make things a bit worse, I also wore my First Date Outfit."

"Which is?"

"A long, black, baggy, high necked dress. And flat shoes."

Jess stared at me for a few seconds.

"Why the hell would anyone wear that ever, even to a funeral, let alone on a first date?" 

"Because I guess I'm scared of being used for sex."

"Well," Jess said, getting up to order another beer (and complain about her lime). "That outfit will certainly do the trick. Men on a date are supposed to fancy you, you know that right?" 

I mumbled something, picked the label off my beer thoughtfully for a few seconds and then laughed again.

"It's me, isn't it Jess," I said, in sudden realisation. "It's not them at all: it's me that's the problem."

"Aw, Hols," she sighed, walking around the table to kiss the top of my head. "It's amazing how good you are at some things, and how phenomenally crap you are at others." 

And then she went into the pub to help get me drunk.

So, instead of blaming Lady Luck and the Bastardness Of Men, which is what I normally do, I've decided to look at myself. Some people are crap at running, some people can't spell, some people can't put colours that match together. Others are just very, very bad at dating, and I - it seems - am one of them. 

Which means I'm just going to have to practice. And the next time I cut open my dead frog of a date, I'm going to make sure it's them that killed it, not me.

Tree Climbing

"Are the voices back?" my mum asked in concern on the phone this afternoon. I had my eyes closed: it's extremely unhealthy to sunbathe with your eyes open. UV damage etc.

"What are you talking about?" I replied, scratching my nose (could feel freckles popping up). "They never went away."

"What are they like?"

"Perfectly friendly. Very interesting, actually. And they're not mad voices: just conversations. Totally normal. It's like being in the pub, except you're not actually in the pub."

"Oh. Can I say something?"

"I have no doubt that you will anyway," I sighed, "so yes."

"I'm glad you didn't get through to the final. Does that make me a bad mother?"

"Yes." I took a sip of full-fat Coke (am no longer going to be on telly in bikini, so will never again touch a diet drink. They taste of metal). "I'm glad too, actually, but I would also be a bad mother. Why are you glad?"

"It wasn't right for you. You were never a tree-climbing kind of girl."

"Hey!" I put my drink down crossly. Being told what kind of 'girl' you are or are not is one of my least favourite past-times. It's almost always an unpleasant revelation. "I've climbed plenty of trees, mother." 

"Name one."

There was a long pause while I tried to remember climbing a tree. I couldn't. I remembered leap-frogging a stump once, but that didn't really count: especially because I did it wrong and ended up with splinters up the insides of my legs.

"Climbing trees," I said with dignity, "is over-rated. You climb up, you get stuck, you cry with embarrassment and then somebody has to come and get you down again. I've watched the cat do it plenty of times."

"Point made. So what's the plans now?"

I closed my eyes and grew a couple more freckles for a few seconds.

"Am going travelling," I decided lazily. "Before summer. I'm set on that now."

"Think that's an excellent idea," mum said, "as long as you don't go anywhere dangerous where you're likely to get murdered. But, baby, I'm going to miss you," she added sadly.

"Of course you will," I replied chirpily, lighting up a cigarette. "What's the point in having a mum if they don't miss you when you go somewhere?"

Mum, as usual, was right. I was never a tree-climbing girl: when everybody else was clambering up the branches, I would throw myself against the trunk with my notepad and write a poem about it.

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stuff as many envelopes as required to leave the country for a good, healthy chunk of time, and see as many things as I possibly can. I'm going to pack my bags and go on my next adventure. For what is life if not a lurching from one kind of happiness to another? 

Anyway, I thought as I smiled in the sunshine (just before the sun went in and I had to put my jumper back on in a sulk), there are thousands of trees out there that I still need to sit under.

Top 15 Reasons to Be Glad I Didn't Make The Final For TBJITW

1. I can now attend my grandad's 80th birthday party, and can do so without my aunts and uncles asking if I'm "too famous to talk to them".

2. Heat magazine will no longer be interested in the state of my thighs, and ex-boyfriends will find it difficult to sell their stories (newspapers don't care that "she never, ever puts the lid back on the toothpaste"). 

3. I will still be able to moan about the weather, which will make conversations with strangers and the newsagent much, much easier to initiate.

4. I can talk and think about something other than TBJITW. Eventually. (Not right now, obviously.)

5. I can continue frequenting the local swimming pool, and therefore can continue getting in to scraps with the biddy in the fast lane who refuses to accept that she is a middle lane swimmer.

6. The BBC will have to cut me out of most of the documentary so that they can focus on the winning Brit, which means that it is unlikely that the pot-noodle session ("Why are you single, Holly?" "Dunno: because I'm kind of annoying?") will be aired on national television.

7. I won't get burnt, which means that my skin won't age too quickly, which means that I will continue being ID'd until I'm 87 and my face folds inwards on itself like a cat's cradle.

8. Men will not try and marry me for my island, or my £70,000, or my book deal, or my all round aura of success, because I now have none of the above.

9. I was genuinely happy for my competitors, and therefore revealed as a kind and generous person who appears to have no real ambition at all.

10. I can say the words fuck, bugger, bollocks and bullshit in my blog, without worrying that I'll be penalised by Queensland judges. Not that I want to, particularly, but it's always nice to have the option.

11. I can wear my pink penguin pyjamas without worrying that the BBC will try and film me in them.

12. I won't have a ridiculously good looking pool-boy, which means that I will be able to focus on more important things: like looking for another job that might also require a ridiculously good looking pool-boy.

13. My friends feel sorry for me, which means that they will forget the horrific voting process that little bit quicker.

14. I can finish writing my book, which will keep the voices in my head quiet for a bit longer.

15. I can finally admit to having voices in my head without simultaneously demonstrating that I lied on my psychometric test ("do you ever see things that aren't there?" D: All of the time). 

And the wildcard is:

16. I can now explore the world the way I want to - and write about it the way I want to - rather than the way that somebody else wants me to. Which is a pretty good feeling, because I'm not entirely convinced that I would have been able to toe the line properly anyway. I've never had much of a talent for obeying orders.

As my dad texted me at midnight last night: Who needs a bloody island anyway? Far too much sand. Gets in your sandwiches.

Exactly, dad. Exactly. And I do love my sandwiches.

The Final Countdown

DadaDADA, dadaDADADA, dadaDADA, dadaDADADADADA, my friend texted me this morning.

What's that? I texted back sleepily. I've never been very good at working out tunes from 'das'.

The Final Countdown, she messaged back. I sensed a little bit of crossness that I hadn't already worked that out.  

Europe? I asked. I'd say that's more derdleDERDER, derdleDERDERDER, derdleDERDER, derdleDERDERDERDER to be honest.

Disagree. Can't hear any Ls at all. 

Definitely Ls. Can hear Ls. 

Whatever. It's tonight, right?

Yes, it is tonight. I know this, because I couldn't sleep last night, I couldn't eat breakfast this morning, and my hands are actually shaking. It's like A levels all over again: if I knew that I couldn't retake them, that a camera crew would be filming the whole thing, and I didn't have a gap year to look forward to afterwards. I'm a nervous mess, to be honest. In fact, I'm deeply concerned that I'm about to get in a car and drive to Bristol, because - in between vomiting into the drink holder and gripping onto the steering wheel until my fingers are bruised - I might end up hurting somebody. 

The idea is that between 11 and 12 tonight, the winning finalists will be called from Australia. Between 12 and 1, the losers will be rung (presumably with the message: "Hi, loser. You're a loser. Bad luck, loser"). Which means that for an hour I get to sit and stare at my phone, getting increasingly depressed, and then I get to spend another hour not staring at it and drinking a row of shots that I will have lined up especially. All with a camera pointed at me, and "are you going to be sick?" asked every few minutes. It is my idea of hell. (Well, it would be my idea of hell if I was also forced to eat egg and speak in French at the same time.)

Anyway, at least this hell is limited (unlike the real hell, which - if reports are accurate - lasts for quite a long time). So I've got it all planned out. Drinks, no dinner (too nervous), more drinks. Phone call. Cry. More drinks. It's a complicated plan, but I think it's the one that's going to work for me. 

It's been a blast. This blog will remain the same, except that I might take the 'top 50' bit off the top (the bit which, if you remember rightly, I accused a hacker of putting there to start with). And I won't talk about TBJITW. At all. There are some things you just have to let go of, and if the adventure ends here, then the adventure ends here. No point crying over spilt milk. And if it continues? Expect fewer posts about builders, and a lot more posts about colourful fish and the state of my thighs in a bikini.

So, for now, I leave you with goodbye. Whatever the outcome of tonight, and however many times I vomit, I will always be the Write Girl.

Thankyou

On the final night before I find out the results for TBJITW, there are a lot of people I should thank for getting as far as I have done. It's only polite, really: without them, I would not have been able to experience the last few weeks at all. (And, when people started moaning about the voting process, these were the people I gently aimed them towards. "Their fault," I said, shaking my head sadly. "Blame them.") 

So, thanks to: my friend Claire, who put up with me shouting "No! I have to be in the bottom left corner. Bottom left" every couple of minutes; my grandma, for shooting the pool scene (it wasn't, as Hertbeat FM suggested, "clearly a hot man"); my dad, for getting his jeans dirty because I demanded that he knelt in a puddle for the sake of art; Tom, who filmed the beer scene, ad-hoc, even though he had only  just met me and wasn't quite sure what I was aiming at ("is this supposed to rhyme or something?"). 

All of these people grinned, put up with my bossiness and - amazingly - at no stage in the last four weeks said: "I'm going to get money out of this, right?" So, thankyou, all four.

Having watched the film again (it plays in my head, sometimes), I have also realised - however -that I have been missing a massive thankyou. A note of gratitude that should have gone out long before now. 

New Order: without you, I would not be in the top 50 at all. It is impossible to listen to Ceremony without feeling lighter and better; using it as my backing track - and therefore imbibing my video with one of the coolest, happiest, most enigmatic songs that has ever been written - meant that, I think, a little bit of it rubbed off on me. I am in no doubt at all that my video stood out from 36,000 because of it: you can't hear the track and not smile or want to dance. Even better, at no stage in the last four weeks have you tried to sue me or get the music removed, and for that I will be forever grateful. 

So, to the friends and family who helped me: thankyou for your time, your vision and your never-ending patience with me. And to New Order: thankyou for the music.

Fool's Gold

This morning, I'm off to buy every single newspaper I can get my hands on. I'm convinced that the world would be a much happier place if news was intermingled with pranks and make-believe every single day: partly because it makes it feel like the whole country is laughing together, partly because it makes the rest of the news seem a little more balanced, and partly because it makes everybody actually read the news with their brains switched on, just in case they're being tricked. Which is the way news should be read, at all times. Because - having worked in PR for two years - I can say with some certainty that we often are anyway, whether or not it's April the First.

Last year, there was a photo of penguins, migrating. The year before that, it was a giant mushroom. This year, Goodness only knows what they'll come up with. April the 1st is like being involved in a Roald Dahl story, and I can't think of a world I'd rather be in. It's almost as good as Christmas. 

The Joys of Jeremy

I sat down five times today to continue writing my book, and five times I stood back up again after three minutes and told nobody in particular that I couldn't really concentrate. "I'm not in the right space," I explained to the builder passing through the living room, who looked immediately concerned.
"I'm working on it," he replied tersely. "Installing a new shower doesn't take five minutes you know."
"Head space," I clarified. "I'm in limbo, you know. Imagine the day before Christmas when you were a kid. Could you ever focus on anything?"
The builder shrugged.
"Not much to focus on, when you're a kid," he pointed out reasonably. Which was fair enough: as was his pithy "nice work if you can get it" comment when he woke me up by banging on the door for fifteen minutes at 9.30am this morning.

The right space for my head this afternoon, apparently, was in the corner of the sofa with a bowl of pasta and The Jeremy Kyle Show. Despite having been out of proper work for six months, you'd be surprised how rarely I watch television. Very, very rarely. It was a bit of a treat, actually: like gorging on six Easter Eggs all at once and not being shouted at for it because it's Easter and you're allowed. And, frankly, the show was incredible. So simple, and yet so brilliant. Members of the public came on, exposed their darkest secrets, screamed at each other, cried a lot, allowed Jeremy (oh, Jeremy, how I love you) to patronise them for a full twenty minute slot, and then thanked him for it.

Tara, I texted my sister after ten minutes. I couldn't eat my pasta, I was too excited. Why have we not been on The Jeremy Kyle Show? I asked her.
Because we have self-respect, she texted back immediately.
Do we? I replied. DO WE?

Admittedly, my husband has not left me for my mum recently. And no, I'm not having a problem with pathological lying, drugs, or fidelity. I haven't beaten my boyfriend in the last few weeks, and I don't fancy the next-door neighbour's dog. At all. But does this mean I can't go on Jeremy Kyle? Does it? I can't see how it can't be slotted in to my every day life. There must be some stage at which - mid argument - one of these people turn to their beloved and say: "You know, darling: I think that we should take your pornography problem on national telly and tell everyone about it. If you're lucky, I'll cry. And if you're really, really lucky, I'll make you do a lie-detector test that you will fail, and then I'll cry again. And possibly hit you, and cause the sofa to fall over. All while Jeremy gets right up close to both of us and tells us how disgusting we are as human beings." And, in response, the beloved must stop spitting at them long enough to say: "You know what, my sweet? That sounds like a lovely way of spending a Tuesday afternoon. Perhaps we could go for an icecream in the park afterwards."

So I've decided that there's no way I should be discriminated against, just because my life is actually kind of alright in comparison. I want to be shouted at by Jeremy too.

"Dad," I shall say when he has a go at me for leaving the pasta spoon on the surface and not wiping up the tomato sauce. "I understand your pain: do you think we should take it on Jeremy Kyle?"

"Tara," I shall say when my sister wears a skirt and it looks significantly better than it does on me. "I feel that you are undermining my sense of self. Would you like to go on Jeremy Kyle and discuss it?"

"Date," I shall say to the next unfortunate mug who asks me out. "I can see that you are embarrassed by the fact that I just inadvertently smacked my head on the bar while I was putting my bag down. Do you think that this is something Jeremy would be able to help us with?"

And they will all, obviously, jump at the chance. "Golly," my dad will say. "What a cracking idea. Perhaps we could discuss your refusal to shut kitchen cupboard doors properly as well."
"Excellent," my sister will say. "And while we are there, we can discuss the time you told me Santa wasn't coming, and then jingled bells outside my room and shouted No, not stopping here."
"Awesome," my date will say. "Perhaps we could get married on set too? Get it all out on telly."

So that's what my plan is for tomorrow afternoon. I'm so used to ringing the media - what with two years in PR and three weeks of shameless self-promotion - that it will be easy.

"Jeremy," I shall say (they will obviously put me straight through to the man himself): "I've got quite a few stories. Which one do you want?"
"Any old thing is fine," he shall reply, throatily, "as long as you promise to cry on national telly."
"Oh Jeremy," I shall laugh. "I've already done that for the BBC. I'm a natural."

I cannot wait. Just two more days to kill, and if I can just get mum to tell me she doesn't like the way I make coffee, that's Thursday's show sorted out as well.