Overheated brain

I think it must be the weather that's putting me into this wierd mood. It's been too hot for too long, and even when there's impressive thunder and huge amounts of rain, the storm is over far too fast and all that's happened is that the humidity's gone up. So, I'm blaming the heat rather than the obvious alternative, which is the rapidly looming descent into frustration and despair.

I had a job interview yesterday (the only agency that would have me finally found me something). I didn't get the job. My office/admin skills were not as up to date as they might be. So, on the one hand I'm too smart for most jobs, but on the other I'm not smart enough to learn how to manage a diary and fill in logs and design a filing system these days? Right. On the other hand, the bloke was very nice and said I had good research skills. Too bloody right, and they cost me thousands of pounds and many years of intellectual agony to acquire. But at least now when I get asked "Is that Miss or Mrs?" I can go "No, it's doctor, actually," and then whoever I'm dealing with suddenly starts being much nicer. Yeah, it's bad and wrong, they should be nice to everyone, but I don't care, that niceness cost me dearly and I'm going to enjoy it.

I got the play finished (wehey!!) and sent off to someone who emailed me after Cannes, looking for suitable productions for fringe venues, and said she loved my titles and plots. It's amazing how a bit of good feedback like that can make me work. I also sent a short and a feature off to take their chances across the water in the Expo competition. Now I have to try to forget them, and decide what to work on next - I have three ideas in my head and partly on paper, all of which I love, but can't settle on one.

Edinburgh is shaping up to be fantastic - I have tickets for lots of films (including Clerks II - the first two showings sold out in a couple of hours, so they put on a third, and I got tickets - hoorah), we've got tickets for some stuff at the Book Festival including A's favourite poet (Simon Armitage), and we've got our Fringe programmes to work through. Apparently Michael Billington wrote something saying that people shouldn't bother with the Fringe; they should just "cut out the middleman and put it on in London straight away". Yeah, that's right, Michael, because as all you London-based journalists know, there is no intelligent life outside the M25, no-one cares about culture or films or theatre "out here", nothing interesting ever happens outside London, and there couldn't possibly be an audience for whom Edinburgh is more accessible than London, could there? After all, up here in the north we only care about chips and whippets. Damn, but these people annoy me. That smug attitude that nothing counts unless it happens in London. Sure, lots happens there - but it doesn't mean that good stuff isn't going on elsewhere. That attitude is why I gave up reading The Observer and am about to give up The Sunday Times. I could go on a proper rant about food critics and fashion pages, but perhaps I'll save that for another day.

A's out - her band is gigging tonight, and she spent the day on a school trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park (what, they have ART in YORKSHIRE? Hear the sound of southerners fainting in shock), so she will be totally flaked out later and no doubt will sleep til mid-morning tomorrow. Ah, the joy of being 17.

See, I told you I was in a mood.