Calling London

There's nothing like a part-time job to teach you the value of money. And after spending four weekends ringing Londoners to ask them what they think of Ken Livingstone, I've been able to say no to my breakfast smoothie at the gym. It's yummy, but it costs £3.50 and that's about 40 minutes of autodialling and being told where to stick my phone.

I've spoken to some lovely sane people (and been complimented on my accent which is always nice), but I've also had some real crackpots. One guy told me that he didn't have time to answer my questions, but then spent 10 minutes telling me how much he disliked Alex Salmond. An elderly lady was so keen to give me accurate information that she started going through her filing system to tell me exactly which funds she's currently invested in. One woman answered her phone whilst apparently having sex - "bit busy at the moment love, bit busy. Call me later love, bit later". And at least 10 people complained that I'd called them during their Sunday dinner - which begs the question: Why did they answer the phone?

The people who work there are a real mixed bunch too - old, young, space cadets, skint actors, underpaid creatives and socially-inept academics. On Saturday I was sitting next to Klyne McDougal. Klyne is 17 and tackles each call like a Nazi giving orders in English. She shouts the script in monotone verbatim. "GOOD. AFTERNOON. MY. NAME. IS. KLYNE. I'M. CALLING. TO. ASK. YOU. SOME. QUESTIONS. ABOUT. YOUR. ATTITUDES. TOWARDS. KEN. LIVINGSTONE." At first I was bemused as to why she had more people agreeing to speak to her than I did, but then I realised it was because she's terrifying. If I answered the phone to that, I'd be convinced that the owner of the voice also had me in the sights of their sniper rifle!

On Friday I drove over to Fife to interview my Grandad about his life. I decided a while back that I wanted to know more about my family history and document my grandparents' thoughts and experiences. Besides being interesting, I figure it will be useful in writing my autobiography and making future appearances on Parky.

Mog cooked me dinner on Saturday night before we headed out to the cinema to see Notes on a Scandal. Sinead had gone to see it the previous evening and texted me the following review: "Notes on a Scandal is excellent. Only comment is, Judi Dench has massive nostrils and the bath scene will give me nightmares. That arm - yuk!" As always, Sinead's no nonsense review was spot on.

My long overdue cinema-fest continued on Sunday evening with a group outing to see Babel. It, unfortunately, was not excellent. I could see what it was trying to do, but it fell far short of the mark. There were moments of genius, but ultimately I felt that Crash did it much, much better.