This summer, I have undertaken two internships in our beloved capital. One I will refer to as The Music Job, the other as The Press Job.
The former all started with me sending one of those ‘omg I love you let me come and see you and work at least in smelling distance of you’ emails. Can I just say it was well worth the risk. People love having their egos stroked, try it: just send an email… one of the greatest things about the internet is that cold hard rejection can just be dragged into the trash can at the bottom of your desktop. And no one can see you cry. While you’re at it, why not be inventive? I once worked in a shop where the manager received a hand written, Dickens-style CV in the post on lavender scented paper, no less. Anyway what I’m trying to say is… there’s no harm in putting yourself out there with a bit of flamboyancy.
So, Day 1 at The Music Job. I’m on the tube, it’s 30 degrees in London, I can’t tell if I’m sweaty from the nerves of working for a record label which I admire or because the London Underground refuses to install air-con, a basic human right. After disembarking the train and trundling along in the humid, London smog I finally find the office. Google Maps, I am eternally grateful. I knocked on the door and that’s where it all began. Everyone was lovely. I looked around the room. Everyone had a Macbook Pro. Sheepishly pulling my 8-tonne Dell, the width of my shoulders, from its case (when I say case I mean old, crum-ridden Sainsbury’s bag I’d fashioned as a rain shield), I made a mental note: surrender to Apple. It’s time.
I am now on Day 37, and the internship is going great. Music industry veterans are human too. In terms of meeting like minded people and learning how to use industry websites such as Fatdrop and Wordpress, the experience has been a great extension of my skill set. That sentence is going in my CV. I have encountered, though, some slight obstacles during my time at The Music Job. Can someone answer me this: How to write an album review without sounding like a pretentious twat? Or in my case, how to write ANYTHING without sounding like a pretentious twat. The strangest thing about music journalism is the inclination to use crazy imagery to personify sound, e.g: “Check out this dreamily hallucinogenic yet naughty mind-fuck of a choon with tremors of spice running through it.” Am I describing the effects of LSD or a chicken korma? I don’t know anymore!
Another issue I have is placing names and faces. I walked in on Four Tet in the loo the other day and it was only after I giddily described the incident to my manager as ‘oops I just stumbled upon a tall dark stranger in the toilet!’ that she informed me it was Him.
Feeling a little overwhelmed, I took a week off so that I could take part in The Press Job.
Interning at a national newspaper requires me to buy several publications every morning. I read these on the tube, where I spend most of my life. The tube, as mentioned earlier, is warm and moist. Therefore the newspaper ink is warm and moist. Consequently by the end of my morning commute I am left with fingers covered in warm, moist ink which has leaked, like tears, from the miserable coverage of the day’s events. The ramifications of this whole predicament are endless: inky hands, inky face (looks I have moustache after wiping away my SULA* and a beard after scratching my chin in deep thought) and profound embarrassment at not being able to fold a broadsheet without elbowing an elderly person in the ribs.
And if this wasn’t emotional enough for 8 o’clock on a Monday morning, the latest events from around the world are so depressing and the images of despair are so moving that I am reduced to weeping in public. Ok, mornings are challenging anyway. At least there’s usually an over-sympathetic yet slightly handsy fellow commuter on your carriage to dry your tears… or rub your thigh.
The excitement, however, of working in the media and breaking news stories, interviewing inspirational people and probably pissing a lot of them off is worth a bit of harmless flirting on the tube. It’s an addictive industry for which I may have sacrificed some of my values, albeit after 5 days.
If you can get over the constant sense of drowning/feeling out of your depth for the first couple of days, then I’d recommend interning to everybody. Students with long summers especially. Forget tanning (and by tanning I mean sleeping 'til sunset/contracting chlamydia/getting a tattoo you’ll regret) in Thailand and, in the words of André 3000, ‘Git Up, Git Out”! There’s nothing more satisfying than a hard day’s work. Except perhaps a nice long slice of salami with crumbled feta and fresh rocket on a bed of sea salt and rosemary focaccia. I’ll end on that note as I’ve just remembered that there’s a gourmet sandwich in the Italian Delhi across the road with my name on it.
*SULA = Sweaty Upper Lip Alert
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