When I was in Bulgaria I used to stay up late drawing fitfully after everyone else had gone to bed. There wasn't much on television at that time of night, and about a third of it was sexual content of one species or another. They played the Pillow Book on three separate occasions while I was there, which was nice. Anyway, I remember one evening they had this show on that was a compilation of auditions/screen tests for a possibly non-existent softcore movie of some sort. The format was fairly straightforward; the program consisted of a series of three-minute clips in which a respondant to the position advertised enters, sits down and briefly discusses her acting qualifications, such as they may be, with the interviewer and possibly makes other small talk if she has the nerve. Then the interviewer requests that the applicant undress for an impromptu screen test, which the majority of women interviewed do to some degree. Some of the applicants were wearily professional, others heartbreakingly naive; clearly none of them intended that the interview footage be broadcast, even if they all inadvertantly gave their consent by signing something or other (as they presumably did); and it was the most wretched, awful, spirit-corroding thing I've ever seen on television, and not something very easily forgotten (this very queasy mix of titillation and callous predation). I very much doubt my account does it justice, but I think you're probably better off taking my word for it than seeing for yourself.

Anyway, in other news, I drew a picture of some orchids today that took three hours or so that shows some minor promise, and it's encouraging to achieve a degree of qualified success for once.