Princess Anne & The Falling Horse

Safe to say that things truly got ridiculous this week.  At 5pm to be precise. That was about the time JT handed out the day's last task ; to write a story about a fella, who used to be a woman, but always knew he wanted to be a man. A gay man. And now that he is a man he spends his time dressing up as a woman, as a drag queen, to earn money.

It's at moments like that you realise it's time to go home.

My major success of the week was nailing a 2 minute passage of shorthand at 90wpm - although Paul did read out that I'd passed at 80 - great when your own teacher doesn't even know what exam your taking!  But then he dropped the bombshell - November 11
for first attempt at NCTJ 100wpm Shorthand exam.  4 weeks to nail another 10wpm - sounds easy, surely? Not a chance it will be!

Wednesday afternoon's Yellow Pages task had almost finished our group off when at ten to five we didn't even have a story.
And no, we hadn't been lazy; we'd been working all afternoon on mortgages (can you link that to building societies?) but the story fell through when we couldn't get quotes.  With a little help, we managed to find a storage company that had won an environmental award - building relocations is the link.  Two interviews and a press release later and we were sorted.  Think
that's the first time that I've properly understood the pressures of a real time deadline.  And it has to be admitted, that we would have failed as it wasn't on the page till 6.  But it got done, which is the main thing. Massive thanks to Tom, Hannah and Jade on that one. Here is the fruits of our labours: http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/young-self-storage-company-scoop-enviromental-award

I think I had the class in stitches on Thursday morning when, during the PA lecture I called out, at a very opportune moment: "will you just shut up!" (apologies Paulyn) 
Well, Marcus was in stitches even if no one else was.  To be fair, he repaid the favour later in the afternoon when I read his intro about Princess Anne's horse dying when she fell on him. Add in Facebook again and it got completely out of hand..."Princess Anne’s horse has died after she fell on him. The Princess got scared by a fire engine and in her panic pushed chestnut thoroughbred Lancer over a fallen tree."

I'm beginning to realise that this blog is reading backwards as this is what I had published on Monday: http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/afflecks-get-%C2%A3750000-makeover-help-influential-mosaicist-mark-kennedy
Quite pleased with this one, portfolio coming on nicely.

6 weeks down and liking it more and more, would love to nail shorthand and news-writing early and then dedicate my time to Law & PA.

Until next time...

Shorthand, Socialising and Everything In Between!

And so it begins, was never going to take long before everyone in the class started “Facebooking” each other was it!  Remind me again, why this site was a good invention? Maybe I should go see the film.

Think Jack got it spot on this afternoon with his talk though...some people really are on it like 24/7 and it does get annoying.  Not as annoying as the constant tap tap of keyboards however! I know Toomer may not be the most thrilling of lecturers but seriously, do we need to email all the way through? Personally I like his lectures – seems to be only Will and Me that ever talk in them though so what does that tell you?

The ‘Newsies Manchester’ Facebook group has already proved itself a source of great amusement....topics of the week being Dave Toomer and David Brent, sorry, Chris Maguire. Gutted Rick lost his Hollywood script; keep at it lad there's definitely an alternative career being carved for you there.

As for this week's guest lecture - I agree with Mayor...how could he get offended by those comments about his front page splash? And seriously, who would ever put snow chaos above a murder in terms of news worthiness? And if he’s really only 38 hell do I not want to be an editor – clearly puts years on you!

Although I think Law and PA aren’t going-in quite the way they should I’m cracking on a pace with Shorthand, surprising even myself with my progress, nailed a 70wpm this week and very close to getting 80 which after only 5 weeks is progress indeed.

Should have seen the smoke coming off my pen tonight as I tried to conduct a phone interview and get it down in shorthand; never seen paper combust so quickly or so spectacularly! Might have been something to do with my very enthusiastic interviewee who was on a roll with the Didsbury Beer Festival.

And as for Didsbury, how did we end up with that area for patch project? I thought Ashton was bad last time and now when I thought we’d nailed a good area – the University – we lost the quiz and had it stolen to be replaced by the aforementioned village.  But then I found the Beer Festival was happening in next couple of weeks so that’s my story sorted wey hey!

Hang on, that paragraph back up there, oh dear, no, did I really just say 5 weeks have passed? That’s like 20% of the course gone! Already? Eek! Oh well, only 15 more weeks till I can go back to my well paid recruitment job then eh!

Gutted that I’ve still not ingratiated myself in the social side of News Associates yet, need to remedy that very soon before people start thinking I’m boring.  Then again someone in the class did say “You’ve surprised me twice today Paddy” – not that I’m going to reveal why they were surprised. Well ok, one of them was the ‘pacemaker’ story but the other one is a state secret!

On the social side I did turn out in goal for ‘The Parsons Project’ on Monday.  Didn’t think I put in that good a performance and we did get tonked but then James very kindly posted on Facebook that: “I dread to think how bad yesterday would have been without a good keeper!” So that pleased me, didn’t stop me feeling bloody sore though. Bring on Wednesday. Oh and that was a great goal Johnny!

Need to nail some articles this weekend. Got Didsbury story to write up, Afflecks piece to finish (Ta Tamsin!), and need to crack on with Russ’s profile piece.  Body bags, and breathing in plastic, I’m sure I can make an entertaining read out of that.

Knackered, Glad it’s Thursday, Wishing it was Friday, Scared how quick it’s going, Made loads of new friends, Long Days, Shit Commute, But....still LOVING IT! LARGE!

Danny Lockwood look out...someone’s coming for your crown! But on much less controversial lines.  Of course, once I’ve won the lottery I’ll be buying him out but that’s another story...formulated in dream land.

AND...Still no fans"  Definitely can't face a return trip to the Doctor, far too dangerous; roll on Winter!

TTFN Readers.

Being A Student : Parts 1-3

After a typical student weekend that included political meetings, football, beer, partying and lots of vodka I found myself trying to write shorthand at 4pm on Sunday.  Think maybe I need to get my head round this out-of-hours studying lark.  Never been much good at it previously.  Then again some would say that is why I am where I am, but I’ll leave it to my mother to lead the prosecution’s case on that one!

Two weeks gone (or 10% if you prefer) already and quite scarily the shorthand teacher announced today that “we’ve covered all the basic theory”. Finished the book in other words.  To be honest I’d almost lost the will to live at that point – studying anything in two and a half hour blocks is taxing at the best of times, never mind on a Monday morning.  Then again one half an hour break in an 8 hour day could surely give the EU Work Time Directive a run for its money.  No wonder one of the guys is on two cans of Relentless a day – I kid you not!

Prior to all this I had my first day on placement last Friday.  I took the initiation test which involves being told “there are no jobs. And don’t believe those people who say the job market is on the way back up. It isn’t.  For those jobs that are there, there are far too many qualified people. So don’t think you’re getting one.  And just in case you somehow pull it off, don’t forget, the money’s rubbish.  So don’t expect to live.  Well, you can live.  But you can’t visit Australia.”  I batted this off with my usual “Yes, I know.  And yes, it’s still what I want to do” He finished his cigarette went inside and ordered fish and chips.  I followed suit (minus the fag) and figured I’d passed.  Either that, or convinced him I was crazy enough to keep on until the end of January.  

It would be so ironic if I was to find a job wouldn’t it. Personally I thought that’s why I was doing this!

Need to crack on writing some articles for my portfolio this week.  Got one in the pipeline now regarding the selection of the candidate to fight the local elections for the Labour party in Dewsbury West.  Not that there’s any potential clash between my politics and my career.  Not even now I’ve been elected as Constituency Press Officer, although that happened on Friday before the weekend’s beer kicked in.

IN OTHER NEWS...

Not been selected to attend the Labour Party Conference, which is a bit gutting; thinking of going to some of the fringe meetings around the city to dig out a story or two though.

Talking of which, I’ve yet to root out a Tory in the class – sure there must be one somewhere. There’s a surprising number of ‘socialists’ actually.

Got a log-in for the NCTJ website last night, logged in and promptly logged back out again; it has my abysmal scores on there from when I took the exams at uni. Not something to dwell on. Although the one I passed, they’re still making me re-take, despite telling me in interview I wouldn’t have to.  But then again, that was the same interview where they said there’d be 20 people in the class. Maybe I was actually interviewed by a figment of someone else’s imagination and it didn’t really happen?

After lectures tomorrow we're having a quiz and drinks ‘in the building’ – hmm, watch out for drunken Facebook status updates somewhere around 8pm. And not just mine.

Oh, and I found the cool spot in the room.  Suprisingly, it’s near a window.  Only downside? The dreadlocked guy who decided to piss against the parked car at approximately 4pm.  Some of the girls were a bit shocked when he turned back round, I didn’t dare ask why!!

Contacts and my little black book

Pleasantly surprised to find an email in my inbox this morning from Mr W, one of my old editors. Found him through Linkedin, which was suggested to me by my cousin. If you’ve not used it then think of Facebook for professionals.

The aforementioned Mr W gave me my first ever front page story (and my second as well), plus gifted me my own column in the Dewsbury Reporter for a few years. All about whist drives, happiness clubs and bingo from what I recall. We lost touch for a while, think 3 years of university hedonism in a different part of the country may have had a part to play in that. Ironic that I’m enrolling on this NCTJ fast track course now as Mr W and I had many a discussion about me doing such a course instead of going to uni in the first place. But no regrets, like a cat that falls off a wall and lands on its paws, I get there eventually.

Mr W was actually the second editor that I submitted work for, but the first one has slipped somewhat into notoriety so doesn’t get mentioned much these days…well, in private he does, and only in certain circles!

Also been put in touch with the Deputy Editor of Sky Sports Radio – another one that needs following up, even if he did rip my CV to pieces. Ho Hum.

Now, where did I put that little black book – knowing my luck my computer will crash and I’ll lose these contacts that I’ve just reignited.