Thumbs Up........
As in all times of recession and necessary economy there seems to be a general atmosphere of making do pervading our everyday life. People doing what is necessary to continue in their everyday existence.
So a big thumbs up to the charming receptionist at the KPMG corporate offices in Canary Wharf this week who realise that no matter what cutbacks are being made, a smile costs nothing. Being greeted by him, being issued passes, and being told to wait for our contact was something akin to being checked into a five-star hotel, although not the one I recently stayed in in France - more of which later. As a result of this charming young man’s manners, smile and general bonhomie, my colleagues Jack, and Marianne and myself arrived for our seminar on the 14th floor feeling very special.
A thumbs up to the bus driver on our local 197 bus who on Thursday afternoon decided not to let four youths push their way onto the bus without showing passes. He stopped the bus between stops and and went upstairs and made the youths come down again and use their oyster cards properly. Probably at the risk of a knife in his ribs, and certainly at the risk of loud tutting from lots of the passengers downstairs who were thinking “why has my journey been delayed?”, he managed a small stand for good old-fashioned values of honesty. Every time we turn the other way when somebody leaps over a ticket barrier or gets on a bus without paying it is ourselves we are cheating. We’re the ones who end up paying, both in terms creating of a generation of people who think that it’s right to do that, and in the more real sense of rising public transport costs. I’m not sure I would have gone upstairs after the youths, but I was glad and a little bit proud that he did.
Thumbs up to the hotel manager of the hotel in which I been staying on my recent visits to Paris. It’s a rather grand hotel and certainly an expensive one. It’s been costing my client around €275 a night for me to stay there and that doesn’t include the petit dejeuner! So at that price I do not think it’s unreasonable to expect good service. Certainly not what Rich and I received from the concierge and the porter while we were staying there. I mentioned this in a review on trip advisor, a review that I thought was fair and hopefully constructive. The hotel manager obviously thought so too. On checking in, late on Wednesday night, I walked into my room to find a half bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and bowl of fruit, probably at the prices they charge in that hotel valued at around some €75.
On checkout the manager was waiting at reception for me to hope that my stay this time had been a more pleasant one and was sorry about the previous visits.
And the thumbs down this week?
To our local costcutter. Supermarket who accepted some “Healthy start” vouchers from a woman, given out by the government for fruit and vegetables for people with children on low incomes, in exchange for forty cigarettes . Perhaps the fags were for the child?
And thumbs down to TV production companies who after employing actors for lower and lower salaries, in order to fill the vast hours of space now available on the many many channels, still then ask if you can wear your own clothes and yet don’t want to pay you for doing so. There are economies and economies. And some just don’t bear thinking about.
Not so long ago, a generation before me, every actor would be expected to have his own lounge suit, and evening suit for use in weekly repertory theatre. Indeed when I arrived at drama school in the 1970’s on our list of required equipment was “a full set of evening shirt studs and collar studs” mercifully provided by my Grandfather. This worked as all plays ran to a formula and such a wardrobe was useful for many parts. These days, our wardrobe can’t extend to all the work we do, given that many actors work infrequently, and spend most of their time keeping themselves alive by doing other jobs in order to do act. And that’s not just the ones you haven’t heard of!
What I wear to act in is costume. It’s not me and the process of being given a set of clothes that make you feel different is part of getting into character. Mind you, putting on a pair of socks would do for getting into this character as it’s two coughs and half a spit in an episode of a new thing for BBC1
As they say “clothes maketh the man” and mercifully none of mine make me a supermarket manager!
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