I knew this would happen. Having failed in my bid to secure ownership of my very own fort at the end of 2006, I've regrouped since the new year and have spent the week putting forts to the back of my mind, and pressing on with Plan B: getting into Malory Towers. Well, Roedean School. But I'm sure it's just like Malory Towers. And having read my sister's entire collection of Enid Blyton masterpieces at the age of ten (without threatening my masculinity at all), I was quite looking forward to taking on the role of 'Houseman', and getting 15k a year for having midnight feasts and drinking ginger beer.

So having received the 'application pack' (you never get forms these days, only packs) on Tuesday, I dragged my Mum down to Brighton today and spent the entire afternoon grappling with numerous pages of A4 over the coffee table, and attempting to herd scores of random thoughts into something approaching an application, whilst simultaneously trying to suppress the fort, sorry, thought, that Housemen and Fort Custodians aren't really the kind of jobs I was born to do.

But I managed it. Until 8:30pm, when I went down to the Co-op and bought today's Brighton Argus...


Oh my god. I have an entire blog to demonstrate that I can write about entertainment (well, slag off celebrities anyway), a whole page of "clean, accurate and intelligent copy" (don't argue with me on that one) about film, and three plays and an album to prove a passion for the arts. And I like food and drink. It's the job I've been waiting for. And I have less than a week to apply. If only I was good at working to strict deadlines.