This week Katie reflects on what she does for a job and realises she loves it
“So what exactly is it that you do for work now that you’ve moved to London?” my friend asks; filling my glass from the bottle of red we’ve just ordered.
“I’m a gossip columnist”, I explain, “on the newspapers.”
“Yeah – but what exactly is it that you do all day?” he looks at me suspiciously. I take a big gulp of Rioja and have a think; because actually, I’m not that sure.
When I was at school and we had those meetings with the career advisor she never asked me if I liked the idea of rocking up to parties at random locations, forcing my way into conversations with people I didn’t know and – in the next five minutes – grilling them for the most intimate secrets of their private lives. But if she had, not only would I quickly have answered in the affirmative, perhaps she’d have had the sense to point me to journalism. (Instead she suggested law and I failed my A-levels).
“I trouped through the mud in leopard print heels”
It’s hard to tell other people what I do all day because actually the best thing about my job is that I never know what I’m going to be doing. The only rule really is to get a story.
On my best days I’ve been eating five course dinners in the ballroom at the Dorchester, and on my worst I’ve been sitting in the rain in tears, in a muddy field in Wales.
I’ve been sent off to cover stories from Edinburgh’s parliament to gay lap dancing clubs in Soho. And covered parties for everything from the opening of a private members club, to the launch of a new sex toy. I’ve been to book launches in the back rooms of old bookshops on the outskirts of town, on the penthouse floor of city hall, in the crypt of a church and in a garden centre in Richmond – where I trouped through the mud in leopard print heels.
My job has taken me to the GQ awards and a room filled with celebrities from Naomi Campbell to Lily Allen. Then it’s taken me to a warehouse in the back streets of Shoreditch – where the best celeb on offer was Rebecca Loos.
Most of the stories I get come from the parties I go to. Where the basic modus operandi is to march up to whichever celebs have bothered to turn up and ask questions.
“What are you doing here tonight? Are you working on any interesting projects at the moment? Is this your boyfriend? Are you pregnant?” Is a progression that usually works for me. And after you’ve fired your questions you just hold your breath and wait for a quote.
Then there’s stories you get off sources. People who say too much when they’re drunk, exbest friends with a grudge, people with something to benefit if a story appears – like perhaps the owner of the nightclub where celebs are always, conveniently, caught acting outrageously. In all other circumstances, hard cash helps.
So that’s it. Although, sometimes, when time’s running out, your editor’s screaming down the phone, asking why there’s no scoop, you’ve walked three miles in your Primark heels, it’s 3am, you’re sitting in the back room of a club – totally sober – bored rigid, but afraid to leave because of the unlikely rumour that Kate Middleton is about to turn up; it can seem like a nightmare of a job. The truth is – compared to real work – my job is the best, easiest, most entertaining way to make money on earth.
I take another swig of my wine and realise, as I’ve been waffling on, we’ve managed to finish the bottle. My friend looks rightly bored.
“So basically that’s your new job then?” he asks, eyebrows raised. ”And that’s what you do… nothing.” I sheepishly nod.
“You lucky b*tch”, he says. I’d have to agree he’s right.
