I adore reading things aloud. My favourites to read out loud are Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. The Just So Stories are magnificent to read aloud. But obviously. the whole point oif reading aloud, really, is reading to someone. And i don't get to do that. Iread the small bits of plastic and lumps of wire. That can be an advantage in that they don't care if you get bored and wonder off. But really i wish i could read aloud to someone. One day i'll have someone, and i'll read to him and he'll read to me. That's quite a simple fantasy, isn't it? It might actually come true. I used to sort of think i'd like to have a child to read to, but aswell as the obvious obstacles, it seems a bit selfish to create life just to have someone to read to.

All this, of course, is linked to the fact that i used to think i was a pretty good actor. Back in primary school we did a hugely shortened play of Little Women (We used to hae this thing, bookweek, which i absolutely adored. It culminated in each class putting on a performance of a book, but there were loads of other things too. Once we all made puppets of our favourite characters. I remember i made Reepicheep from the Chronicles of Narnia. The whole bookweek thing seemed sort of to peter out though, as time went by.) and i played Laurie, who, i never hesitated to point out, was the main male role. (Apart from the narrators, of whom they were quite a few.) I, of course, believed i was absolutely excellent, but i was probably quite bad.

At secondary school, in year eight, we read Henry V, and i was the about the only person that read the same person for pretty much the entire time. I was Henry, and i still maintain i was pretty good. This, though, was possibly because i was a little better than everyone else at reading Shakespeare without pauses at the end of each line, not because i can actually act.

Since then i've got steadily worse. There was a drama festival in, i think, yewar eleven, and that was, at the time at least, one of the worst moments of my life. I seem to remember that being one of my longer diary entries. No doubt i'll discuss it in more detaiul next time i'm stuck for something to talk about.

In the last four years i auditioned each time for the school play, and the best part i ever got was in year eleven. I polayed Simon Zealotes in Jesus Christ Superstar, and i got a whole song. It was my song. I absolutely adored doing superstar, but not just because i had quite a good part. E was in it too. He didn't have any words, but he was an apostle, which meant he and i ended up at most of the same rehearsals and hanging around in the same groups backstage. The play only started a month or two after i'd started having feelings for him, and it was the most contacct i ever had with him in my life. That was one of the times about which i wonder whether if i'd been slightly better at talking to people, specifically to him, things might have gone differently. I'm not suggesting for a moment he might have fallen in love with me, but he might perhaps have liked me a bit more. We might even have ended up friends. Maybe if we had that could have cured the obsession. But, obviously, none of that did happen, so i remain obsessed to this day. The closest i got to befriending him was becoming an expert on every single line in the play so tyhat everyone, E included, turned to me to know what was going on. I absolutely adored doing Superstar though. I cried when it was over.

This year there were two school plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Grease. I ended up playing Eugene in Grease. The smallest part, as far as i can remember of anyone in the entire sixth form. And i was blatantly typecast. I personally don't see myself as hugely Eugene-ish, but i think i might give that impression. I did enjoy it though. I made some friends i wish i'd kept. It seemed to me, though, that playing Eugene made me actually start to hate the main plot. It didn't seem fair to me that rather than Danny changing at all from an idiot and a bully that it has to be Sandy who changes from the sweet intelligent one to the slutty one with silly hair. Posssibly my favourite part, though, was going round the huge production line for hair and make up. Not because of the actual make-up, just because it's so nice having people fuss over you like that. Also, of course, that moment i shall treasure, where three of the girls were playing with my hair. Before that, the best compliment i'd been paid was being told i was a natural at having make-up put on.

I am a bad actor, though. I've realised this now. I managed to fool other people and myself because i can read well. For all the actual acting i do i may aswell be simply reading straight from a book. if my face shows any emotion it's a ridiculous pantomime. i am a bad actor. Not that will stop me. The university i'm hoping to get in to promises, as part of the french course, an opportunity to perform a frnech play. In French! There is no way, none at all, that i will not at least be trying out fopr that. If i get a tiny part i may drop out though. It wouldn't be the first time. But now that i have a more realistic idea of my abilities, perhaps i'll be less insulted. Probably not.