Tuesday, November 9, 2010

“What Should I Call This? The Wind In The Willows?” – Ben Wicks aka Wicksey

Ah November, when did you get here? And why does time seem to speed up once you finally are here? Ah time, never there when you need it, and when you don’t, it’s always hanging around, taunting you. For those of you curious as to if London goes through daylight savings time, the answer is yes, we do. Ours happened Halloween day at 2am to be precise. So I didn’t really feel the effects of the ‘extra hour’ since I was asleep, but I never really thought about what that did to the time difference between London and Texas. I guess that meant that for a week, we were 7 hours ahead of central time rather than 6? Is that right? I’m not sure and I don’t want to think about it too long. More pressing matters!

Nothing too interesting happened at work that Monday, the first of November, and film class was as boring as ever, so I’m going to fast forward to Tuesday where all the action happened. It was perhaps the best day at work I’ve had in a long time. When I walked in that morning to start making my tea, Ben yelled at me from his chair, “Martinez, (accept the way that he pronounces it, it sounds like Martin. S.) isn’t your course lady coming in this morning?” Ohh crap. I had forgotten. Andrea Lynch, the wonderful lady who got me this internship was coming in today for my ‘mid-semester performance review’. Sounds fancy and professional, no? I immediately got a panicked look on my face. I hate meetings talking about me, they’re basically glorified interviews. And she wasn’t just going to talk to me. Oh no, she had to talk to my boss, which meant Ben, and what if Ben said he wasn’t too impressed? I mean grant it, Sarah is the Super Star Intern for a reason. The wonderful and annoying thing about the Brits, or at least all the ones I work with, is that they care about my disposition. I must have looked nervous because Elena had to ask:

ELENA: Babes, what’s wrong?

ME: Uhhh, I hate meetings. And interviews. And *exasperated noise*

ELENA: What, are you nervous?

ME: yessssss.

BEN: You’re scared, Martinez? What, am I’m going to tell her that you’re horrible and your work is shit and you’ll get sacked?

ME: uhhhmphhh

Yes thanks Ben, that’s EXACTLY what I’m nervous about. Except not that I’ll get fired, because I don’t think it works like that. But what if he’d say something along the lines of ‘I really wish she did X better’ or ‘She should be more enthusiastic about Y’ or ‘Her skills are lacking in Z and it’s annoying and tiresome’. But next thing I know it’s 10:30, and Elena is telling me they’re here.

BEN: They? Who is they?

ME: I don’t know! I just thought it was Andrea!

But in I went to meet them. Turns out ‘they’ is Andrea’s shadow or something. I don’t really know why she was there, but she practically stared at me the whole time all the while taking notes on her little pad. Andrea’s still as cheery as ever, but says that she wants to do separate one on ones with me and Ben, so we can be free to say whatever we like. Greaaatt. Ben had a meeting at 11, so he went first. So while I’m sitting at my desk the Internship Parade marches through the office with the charismatic Mr. Crompton and Elena the wonderful receptionist in the lead heading to Paul’s office for a ‘chat’ about me with Andrea and the shadow lady pulling up the rear. Did I mention the office has glass walls? This is not comforting. I see smiles. Smiles are good, right? And then the door opens and Ben is rushing off for his meeting and Elena is calling me in.

It wasn’t as terrible or dramatic as I make it out to be, but at the time, I was highly anxious for what they were saying and what questions she was going to ask me. What was she going to ask me? But I walked in and sat down and first thing out of Andrea’s mouth is, “you look nervous.” Awesome. Thank you for pointing that out Andrea. But it didn’t go so bad. It was basically a second interview. Do you like it here? What do they have you do? How do you see this adding to your skill set? What do you hope to take away from this experience? Blah blah blah. When she asked ‘Is there something you want to do but haven’t gotten the chance?’ it was a good feeling to say ‘no, they’ve let me do a little bit of everything’ which is true! I haven’t been to a shoot yet, but Josh’s BBC shoots were right around the corner, and I would be getting to help out on those, so my work life is complete. The only thing I regret is that I mentioned my dislike of research to her at all, because she wouldn’t get off of it. I said something along the lines of, “it’s a lot more research work than I was anticipating, but it’s part of the development process, so I’m learning how it all works and it’s good for me” or something lame like that, and she took it as I hate my life because I’m doing research and I spent the rest of the interview trying to fix that. But she did tell me that Ben had only good things to say! Which is nice, even if it was all that fakey fake fluff bosses say to be nice. He said my work was ‘top notch’ and that he enjoys getting my perspective on things. Cheers Ben!

Next thing I knew it was lunch and we were talking to Josh about his Barcelona trip. Apparently, Wicksey was the only other one who had been there.

BEN: Did you get off with any Spanish women?

JOSH: Umm-

WICKSEY: You know I once had a very nice affair with a Spanish woman in Barcelona. This was years ago of course, but she looked a bit like Noel Fielding.

ME: Oh my gosh, really? I love Noel Fielding!

WICKSEY: Apparently I do too. Or did, I should say.

Oh Wicksey, truly a funny man. (And yes mom, you DO know who Noel Fielding is, he's Richmond in The IT Crowd and for those of you who watch the Mighty Boosh, Vince Noir.) I told him he should just write these Pannel shows that he’s always producing. He agreed, ‘more money in it, eh?’ but I think he enjoys what he does. For now… Anyways, this lead to a conversation about Spanish food, Mexican food, Tex-Mex, guacamole, salsa, mmmm. And then Ben said we just have to go for Mexican food before I leave, and really, who am I to stop him? Yes please and thank you!

As I was leaving work that day feeling better after the whole Andrea meeting, and finishing my task for the day with my ‘top notch’ skills, I kept bumping into people as I was trying to get of my desk, but when I hit Georgie, it was the highlight of my day. Now usually when I walk in the office in the morning, I’m greeted by various hellos and such, that I always respond back to, but Georgie is the only one I always greet by name first. And it’s simply because her name is so fun to say with an English accent! Go ahead and try it see how right I am. It just rolls off the tongue Georg-ie! Anywho, a while back about two days into this Georgie noticed and said, “You’re quite good at that. I think you just like to say my name with an accent.” Damn, caught red handed. So I stopped doing it for the most part, accept sometimes I can’t help it and it slips out. I mean, you can’t impersonate a British accent constantly while in America, move to London, and not have a few slips up. So back to me hitting Georgie with my bag on accident and turning around to profess my apologies:

ME: Oh, sorry! Sorry, I didn’t see you sorry!

GEORGIE: Oh it’s alright.

ME: Alright, well… bye.

GEORGIE: Good-bye Georgie.

ME: (I thought she was making fun of me for saying her name) Haha, um good-bye.

GEORGIE: Good-bye, Georgie.

ME: *snickers* good-bye Georgie (with my accent)

And Georgie smiled. HAHAHA. I had the goofiest smile on my face. And here I was thinking that Georgie was getting annoyed by how I said her name with my fake accent, all the while she likes it. Hahaha! I guess you just had to see the look on her face, but it’s rather like when a small child wants something and you have to say ‘please may I have X’ for them to repeat it so they can have X, and then you smile and give it to them. It was brilliant! And I literally laughed half of my walk to the tube. I get to class that week only to find out, we actually don’t have class. Whhatt? Heads up would have been nice, but oh well, it was only 2:30, so I decided to go back to work for 3 more hours. What the hell? Turns out it was the beest decision ever, otherwise I would have missed out!

So back to the office I went, continuing to gather info for our development meeting. Ben had just finished having a meeting with some guys about something and the rest of us are preparing for own meeting when Ben gets a phone call from the guy who was just in the office. “Oi, everybody, Willow is outside! Let’s go!” Whatttt?? Next thing everyone is putting on coats and running outside. Willow? You mean the actor from Willow? Warwick Davis? Yes that’s exactly what I mean! And he was so tiny!

Apparently they were filming a TV show that sounds like something Eyeworks did a couple years back, that involves a celebrity and kids. Can’t explain the whole premise, but if you’re that interested, the show for Eyeworks was called ‘Hider in the House’ and yes, one day, I had to go through clips to find something. Anywho, the two Bens apparently know one of the Production ladies on the set and start talking to her and next thing I know, they’re going over to talk to Warwick Davis. So I turned to Josh:

ME: They’re going to talk to him! Oh Josh, come on, let’s go!

JOSH: Why?

ME: Because it’s Warwick Davis! Just come on Josh!

JOSH: No. I don’t even understand why we’re not inside working. I just came out for coffee.

So Josh didn’t care, but I thought it’d be a great photo of huge 6 ft Josh and this tiny little man. But guess who did get a picture with him? No, sadly not me, but Ben and Wicksey did! And although I didn’t get a photo, I did get to say hi. So back inside we went, the whole time Ben is giggling about the photo on his phone and Wicksey is following him saying “let me see! Send it to me!” haha quite like children, but guess who was having second thoughts about not getting his picture? Yeah Josh, I know you were. Although he started joking about how he wanted his picture with him to either have him up on his shoulders or spinning him around or picked up enough to see him kicking his little legs. Funny, and yet it’s not. But here’s the photo of the Bens and Mr. Davis.

The blonde Ben on the left is my boss, Ben Crompton and the Ben on the right with the dark hair is freelance Ben Wicks. Obvs, the little man in the nice suit in the middle is Warwick Davis. And look, now you people can see what some of the people I work with look like!

So on we went to our meeting the whole time Wicksey is trying to decide what to call this photo on his facebook wall, the Wind in the Willows? And then it was someone’s birthday so there was cake! This is where I used my new found knowledge to say, “look Sarah, we’re having pudding!” and she just laughed and said, ‘yes Devon, we are.’ Ha, go me. Ben ended up letting us leave early since there was another tube strike scheduled for Wednesday. Although, the tube strike starts the day before, and lasts 24 hrs. So it would go in effect Tuesday at 7 pm and go until Wednesday at 7 pm. And if you’re wondering how this affects the tube, it’s like this.

And that’s with leaving work early before the big rush and before the strike officially started. Keep in mind, by the time i fought all the people to get off the tube and platform, find my camera and turn around to take the picture, others pushed their way on. Can you imagine what it's like when I get off work on time? Or when the strike actually started? I ended the night with some delicious salad, hummus and pita bread while watching some American TV in bed. It’s getting colder and darker thus sucking my energy making me want to spend more and more time in bed. Oh you tricky tricky London, don’t be so mean!

Love,

A-can-officially-say-she's-met-a-celebrity-Devon

P.S. I forgot to add that I like the sound the track makes right before the train appears in the tube on my 'things I enjoy about London list'. It's like little electrical clicks, and there's something quirky that I find oddly comforting about it.

2 comments:

  1. so that good looking blonde man with an English accent is your film-y boss? You're in trouble.

    The wickster has some wild hair.

    next time we need a picture of Georgie and Josh.

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  2. 1) I second your sister. More pictures of your coworkers.
    2) I'm a little embarrassed to post this on your blog but both Ben's are very handsome. Very handsome.
    3) Did the mention of Warwick Davis remind you of The Fandango Sisters? What are the odds?
    4) Did I miss your post about the Harry Potter red carpet somewhere?

    Keep writing. I am living vicariously through you.

    PS: So handsome.

    ReplyDelete