This perennial question of childhood never really had a rock-solid answer for little me. Some other kids always knew – doctor, lawyer, vet, ballerina, princess etc. I think I had some ideas, largely about being a writer or a diplomat but these were hazy and are potentially retroactively imagined. On my school’s ‘Dress as What You Want to be When You Grow Up’ day, I chose to be an astronaut, largely because it was a cool costume that my mum could make very easily (she is still proud of the plastic tubing connecting the helmet to an ‘oxygen pack’ I wore on my back). The idea of space exploration is slightly stomach-turning to me now and I think even then I was more motivated by the idea of a cool costume than any real desire to be on a NASA mission one day.
So, whilst I don’t know what I wanted to be when I was properly little, I do still have a list I wrote when I was 16 of the different jobs I then considered as potential future careers. As an alternative to actually choosing a defined career path (bleurgh), I am instead going to rank them all here, worst to best, and see what I’m left with.
17. Model
Okay the very fact that this is on the list shows the effect of the diet industry on the brain of a 16-year-old girl. Add in being very tall and having a flair for performance and it's unsurprising this made the list. In reality, I think this would be actually very horrible. Although some models are incredible and do make art – see Laetitia Casta in the YSL SS ‘99 show or Shalom Harlow in the Alexander McQueen show the same year.
16. Miranda Priestly
I am not quite sure how ‘being’ a fictional character made it on the list of jobs but although I do admire Miranda I actually do not want to be a Anna Wintour-pastiche CEO of a fashion magazine with no work/life balance and a reputation for being ruthlessly harsh to all her employees. Still, kind of a feminist icon.
15. Entrepreneur
I don’t have any ideas to entrepreune.
14. Advertising
Definitely would be fun to come up with straplines and ad ideas but essentially morally bankrupt and a bit pointless. Sorry to all aspiring advertising executives!
13. Actress
I did have a little acting moment back in the day – Prospero in a school production of The Tempest, thank you very much. And whilst I really enjoyed it, I am not sure I ever had any really great talent. I think I also fundamentally don’t get the point of acting as a pursuit for myself. You get to inhabit different people, learn about them, see the world from different perspectives, create art and try out different lives. But I think you can do all these things without being an actor, where you are really financially unstable, might have to deal with fame and also have to put huge amounts of effort into what can be quite an embarrassing pursuit.
12. Museum Curator
Meh.
11. Costume Designer
Okay, I would enjoy this so much. Can I sew very well? No. Do I come up with ideas for period drama dresses on a weekly basis? Yes. I was so obsessed with the meaning behind costumes I saw in Game of Thrones, the Vampire Diaries and the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I watched them. Truly think I would love this so much but also entirely outside of my skill set, very difficult and would require complete retraining. Perhaps later in life. Or I could just design my own clothes – much less fun (there’s no need to use a particular fish-scale armour technique to demonstrate a character’s affinity with the sea) but more practical.
10. Cookbook Gal
Yes, this is what 16 year old Ella wrote down verbatim. What does this mean? Well, think Nigella, think (deep breath) Deliciously Ella, think Julia Child even. I have always loved reading cookbooks (especially more word-y ones like Kate Young and Ella Risbridger’s). I love cooking, I quite like writing and I would never say no to presenting my own cooking show. Would especially love to do a deliciously fake and bizarre show like Nigella’s where she winks at the camera and intentionally says things incorrectly. Here’s a photo of Nigella at Oxford just for fun. What a woman.
9. Director
This was actually the plan for 19-year-old me. Complete undergraduate degree in History and then go on to do a Masters in Film at UCL (where Christopher Nolan studied). This desire has faded significantly as I realised that much of my obsession with art films had actually been a circumstance of lockdown (I am now wont to watch very trashy films interspersed with a very rare return to cultured cinema). Also, I have made zero effort to learn more about how cameras work. Kind of important as a director.
8. Historian
Okay these are getting a bit more serious now. I was definitely tempted to become a postcolonial historian when first starting my degree. Could still imagine it. But being a real-life historian means SO MUCH time cross-checking old letters and manuscripts in archives somewhere random. Whilst that is still quite interesting, I’m just not sure I want to commit to that now. I do still love history and would love to remain as interested in it as I am now. Also love history TV shows and would love to make one myself – ooh what about a special on the Picts! Maybe some day.
7. Politician
Yikes. Horrendous thought but also potentially one of the best ways to make big change in the country/the world. Would mean challenging your deepest convictions, putting yourself at the mercy of the press, ringing on people’s doorbells to ask them to vote for you and taking on deeply stressful work. But still. Could do something good? Maybe?
6. Journalist
Yes, but not how 16-year-old me meant it. I have realised I do not want to do vox pops or be the journalist on the scene minutes after a big explosion. I am simply too British and awkward to be shoving a microphone into the faces of people who do not want to talk to me. Every time I open the Financial Times (leaching off of family subscription), I gravitate towards the Life & Arts page or the Opinion page. This, I think, is where I would thrive. Writing a little piece on something random? On my own thoughts? Yes please.
5. Professor
Okay, is this the same thing as historian? Yes, potentially. But picture the scene. You wear a slightly chic, slightly dreary outfit – mostly brown. Or maybe a black turtleneck and tortoiseshell glasses with red lipstick. You walk into a lecture hall. You change everyone’s life with the power of your teaching. You mark some essays, have some interesting conversations. Feel vaguely intelligent. Is this an underpaid, actually quite stressful job that I’m treating like a sort of fun pastime? Yes. Still, might be fun.
4. Lawyer
Hahahaha. Okay, so not a solicitor. I tried that a couple months ago and no. And my ‘trying that’ consisted of completing one application and giving up on all the others because I realised it wasn’t for me. But I would be lying if I said I couldn’t see myself being a barrister or something one day. Eeek, scary to even write that. Because there are so many reasons not to (very hard, financially unstable, quite geographically limited). But it is a sort of perfect marriage of a lot of the things I am interested in.
3. Essayist
Perhaps the most iconic and unrealistic job on the list. Think this might actually be my dream job. Writing little, pithy essays, zipping them off for publication at journals and papers around the world? Yes please! In my mind I’d be Carrie Bradshaw thoughtfully typing at her computer, wrapped in a stylish fur coat, but with fewer puns. The reality would probably be scrabbling for money and begging for my work to be accepted. Ugh. The fantasy is just too good. One day, maybe, I shall call myself an essayist.
2. Author
Yes please. Truly the ultimate thing you can be as a person in my mind (unless you’re full of yourself and write about the ‘dark side’ of being a man). The art of it, the pain of it, the drama of it. Fantastic. Wouldn’t matter to me if I wrote romance books or the next Booker Prize winner, I truly think this would be the most fun I could possibly have.
1. Diplomat
This is less explosively exciting than being an author but also, it’s a job where I would get to move every 3-5 years, travel the world, work in international politics, meet lots of new people and do lots of schmoozing. Make change, but without too much spotlight. Have a relatively stable income. Not sure how happy the (imaginary) husband and kids would be to move that often but we can deal with that when we get to it. Feel like it would consist of making lots of speeches, tackling serious issues but then also going to lots of cocktail parties. I am sounding flippant but do actually really want to do this. Let’s see what happens.
Some Recommendations
Books
I am still making my way through Anna Karenina, which I am actually quite enjoying. Very much here for the romance and intrigue and in the biggest shock ever, I don’t mind the extremely long passages about Levin’s experiences with farming! Tolstoy is so good on the relationships between men and women, on parodying people’s attitudes towards life in a subtle but cutting way. This is even making me think I might need to read War and Peace one day. Some favourite quotes so far, all from Mrs Anna Karenina herself, about her not very nice but also not awful husband whom she’s cheating on:
“he has never once thought that I’m a live woman in need of love”
“I listen to you, but I am thinking of him.”
“setting against him every defect she could find, forgiving nothing because of the great wrong she was doing him”
Films
Io Capitano by Matteo Garrone - incredible film charting the journey the teenage boy Seydou makes from Sudan to Italy in his quest to move to Europe. Very insightful into the processes of the migration journey in all their horrors and difficulties. Not just important but also beautifully made. Incredibly acted, with Seydou as a character managing to still be so innocent and youthful despite everything he’s been through. Also, fantastic use of magical realism, which I have a real soft spot for.
Restaurants
Kipferl, Camden Passage, London
Lovely Austrian food. Only tried the savoury (rosti with fried eggs) but I will certainly need to come back to sample their kaiserschmarrn.
Café de la Tour, Calais, France
Wandered in here in search of a hot chocolate and stayed for Moules Roquefort and chips as well as some very delicious Belgian beer. Felt very much like somewhere locals ate too with very reasonable pricing, good but quite inattentive staff and overly bright lighting. Had the best time here and the mussel portion is definitely enough for two.
Things
This salad recipe from Bon Appetit (minus the pear because my mum hates pear). Have made it loads of times and it is so delicious. Looks very impressive with all the colours, especially when plattered up as suggested.
These crisps - so so good.
And finally I am very obsessed with this interview of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki by (unexpectedly) Jonathan Ross, where Ross asks him why he decided to adapt the never-before-adapted Crime and Punishment for his first film. Kaurismäki responds with this:
“you write a stupid script and you start from this level and you drop 20 centimetres down, it doesn’t really matter. If you go up and drop and fall down, it’s more stylish.”
Ella x