Kerry In Derry

Level of conviction in own genius: 7
Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 3 - painting!
Watching / Reading: 'Return of the Jedi' on telly / 'The English Civil War' by Diane Purkiss to fill in the rather large gaps in Channel 4's 'The Devil's Whore'
Hair Day: Needs serious colour NOW

juice have returned from a week in Derry working hard as musicians-in-residence at Ulster University. It was something of an alternate universe where we lived together like 'Friends' in a self-catering apartment, if a little less glam New York than politically-steamy Bogside. And while a few years ago we might have been putting our hair in rag-curlers and painting each other's nails before hitting the bars, there was more of slumping, exhasuted after a day's work, in front of endless re-runs of 'Scrubs', scoffing homemade fish pie and being Molly's chief court jesters along with Uncle Tom, as Anna's baby and incredibly saintly sitter came along with us. When not getting fat, square-eyed and doing silly dances for 9-month-olds, we were in the department running improv workshops, helping in performance classes, trying out students' compositions, getting dancers to sing, performing for various schools and doing a couple of formal gigs. The latter pair were as different as they could have been: the first, a more trad lunchtime concert in the billowy acoustic of the Great Hall, was a big, fruity and enjoyable sing; the next night's was awarded the ignoble award of Juice's Worst Gig Ever, what with our multimedia sesh being beset with technical problems and it being so late we were still singing at midnight and were drooping with tiredness, but mostly due to the very bad behaviour of a crew of drunken wee 1st years, who heckled us a number of rather uncomfortable ways and made us want to sink into the ground and die a quick and quiet death. Music students at York are NEVER like that... tut tut. Still, we shall press on defiantly and next time we encounter such insolence, we will attack them with high kicks in our luminous tights and killer heels, before blinding them with Barry M glitter powder and shrieking our most stratospheric notes into their ears until their heads explode. Ha.

Have been enjoying a spot of painting this last day, what with having a whole free weekend with nothing at all to do, blissfully (apart from a trip to Broadway Market where I was very excited to star-spot one of my new favourite actors, cheeky-chopped Rafe Spall, grrr). Am covered in oil flecks, have bought more canvases and spray glue and a new brush and am loving every blithely amateur second of it...