Trout Pout and Breeze Block Bum - i love the Daily Fail!

So I sat and watched Children in need with my 7 year old son the other day. We had a lot of chats about how it is that in 2011 people end up drug addicts / homeless / alcoholics / and how children are often embroiled in these problems and suffer the most. My son asked me why no one cares and I couldn’t answer it. So I was having a sneaky look at the daily fail [again] and sure enough it’s chokka full of ground-breaking journalism. One woman wants her lips to be the size of Jessica rabbit’s lips and as such has spent thousands on lip fillers and now resembles Pete Burns … specifically Pete Burns the morning after a really heavily loaded night.. Another required a larger arse and so filled hers up with concrete until again she appears farcically dismorphic and enters a room several seconds before her arse arrives.

Poutus Troutus

Arsus Maximus

So how do we account for social responsibility? How many lives could have been saved if the money funnelled into cosmetic surgery … no heck .. the entire beauty industry is re-routed to GOS. To any of the amazing hospices around the UK / globe? To a cancer charity. To an orphanage.

If we did that, then we would all be happier. Or would we? Walking around in our hessian sack dresses using charcoal as eye liner owning nothing but knowing we will never go hungry, will never war again … it’s such a lovely utopic notion. Yet, the human hierarchy is hard coded in us, in 2000000 years of existence we’ve failed to build a society that cares for the poor, the disabled and the elderly across all boundaries. We’ve failed to redistribute the wealth to make sure that suffering is minimised for all. Across the world it’s just the same.

“I am better than you, but she is better than me”. Our sub categories are what dictate our lives. I am clever. I have 9 gcse’s grade A, I have 5 a-levels and a degree. I fit into this box. I came from a free spirited background exposed to classical music / folk music / art in all its guises. I danced, sung and acted my childhood away. I have travelled all around the world and my friends form a rich global patchwork quilt coming from all countries and religions. I have a thick mop of frizzy hair of indistinguishable colour and a grin the size of the Cheshire cat. I can call up on all the experiences I have had to enable me to forge ahead and turn misfortune and challenge into something positive. So on a sliding scale I tend to fair better in life than say someone from a socioeconomically challenged background. Someone denied education.  Someone denied an upbringing that centred on a peaceful, secure childhood. Someone exposed to an adult world when they weren’t done with being a child yet. So I’m privileged.

And yet whilst my body is the original 1976 model, I tame my frizz ball of a barnet with overpriced gunk from the hair dressers. I’m possibly addicted to benefit max lash mascara. I like to smell good. I have my own sense of style which involves an obsession with pashminas and silk scarves and shoes. I’d rather shop at Waitrose than asda. I drive a 4x4. I’m to the right of left. We own 13 guitars, multiple full sized weighted keyboards, saxaphones, mandolins, harps. I’ve spent more money on these material non-essential items than I have donated to charity. So I am no better than blubber lips and pavement arse in the daily fail.

If I had a thousand pounds and wanted to spend it on a holiday, surely by Plato’s republic I ought to simply look to whose need is greatest. Each time I would arrive at the bottom on the pile. A million starving / sick / neglected children come first don’t they?

This is the point my son was trying to make. It was mildly revolutionary if not communist the suggestion he made. If we all just had enough and not too much, then no one would suffer anymore. He doesn’t want children to suffer just because he wants a new toy.

Yet we chase happiness. I’m sure music came from banging a few rocks together around the camp fire, it accompanied stories and differed from civilisation / continent. It grew. We made instruments. I’m sure we started investing in these instruments.  Whatever its legacy … music makes us happy. Material items make us happy. Aren’t we allowed to chase happiness? Trout Pout and Breeze Block Bum … aren’t they just chasing happiness too? Shouldn’t we just accept it if they aren’t harming anyone other themselves.

At which point we hit the phone and made a large donation. He went upstairs and arrived back down clutching a £20 note … he was saving up for the new Harry Potter Nintendo DS game.

I don’t want my son to feel guilt to be in his situation. Grateful yes, but guilt no.  He has the nicest soul I’ve ever seen in a child. He knows he’s a child of the globe neither being black, white or Asian he is as ‘patchworked’ as they come and he belongs on this planet. He deserves everything he can get from it and I am solid in my knowledge that the upbringing we are giving him will in time allow him to make his part of the globe a better place to be.

The natives are getting restless

In Aldershot.

I hear that there is a protest being arranged as ‘The Ghurkhas are ruining the town’ … having lived here for some 13 years I can assure you Aldershot is being ruined but more by the right wing, poorly educated ignorant bigots who also reside.

Apparently there is a social networking page up on arse book which is gaining attention. Great.

Yesterday a local mum who I thought was at the very least intelligent enough not to propagate the fallacy of what ‘them’ get up to informed me that ‘they’ are shitting and pissing in our streets. All of them and it’s really not on [meanwhile the under 30 generation neck 12 pints of wife beater and regurgitate their stomach contents on the pavements of Aldershot – this is ok though]. Oh deary dear. Have we not learnt by now how very damaging sweeping racist generalizations can be. Have we not already been down this route of victimization and segregation and figured out that only bad things can come of it.

I live in a relatively quiet part of town and I would say out of my immediate neighbours the Nepalese form roughly 30% of the population. In 5 years I have never seen one Nepalese family behaving in a disrespectful way. My immediate neighbours – shaved headed and pit-bull owning regularly delight me with parties lasting well into the early hours, throwing rubbish over the fence, taking drugs openly and peppering their outside daily conversation with certificate 18 expletives. But then again I’m one of ‘them’ by marriage. I have an Asian husband and a mixed race son .. We’re always crapping in the street – you know us we just can’t help it. Must go as I’ve got an appointment with the council … they’re offering me a huge mansion 50k worth of benefits and they’re bringing my husband’s family over all for free. 

Actually the only point I think I’d like to make as a generalization is that life is too easy here regardless of colour.  I’m surrounded by local people who don’t work full time as “there’s no point”. One generation after the other chooses a life of hand-outs rather than stopping the cycle, encouraging kids to do well at school and telling them that failure isn’t an option … this is the only opportunity you get.  I know what I’m talking about I really do. I lived in a council estate. I didn’t come from the gutter as my mother [an intelligent British feminist] always spoke to us about the future and what our opportunities were – she worked full time and set an example. If we chose to give up at school then we were choosing a life with fewer opportunities and that to an extent we had to fight for what we wanted. Not by pointing out how dreadfully unfair life is but by getting on with it and making the most of what we had. I just see lazy winey people who have given up. It’s like disciplining a toddler really, if they don’t get what they want, they have a tantrum.

March 31st will be a good day indeed [I hope]

Dear blog

I’m sorry I’ve neglected you.

I’ve had things on my mind plus I run 2 other blogs.

There is a real sense of understanding ‘time’ and a real need to somehow stretch it out and make everything count at the moment.

In the corner of my eye, just out of visibility there is this huge giant clock showing a count down. At the moment I’m at work and that count down is firstly to the end of the day when I can escape this festering landscape of repetition… then there is increasing awareness of the END date. Which for me is March 31^st … and then I’m increasingly aware of time slipping through my hands like a large strand of bunting I just can’t quite grab hold of it and make it stop. My son has started junior school, be it the summer tan, the new haircut or the new uniform but he suddenly appears to have matured. He’s taking responsibility for more and more. TICK TOCK TICK TOCK. Sometimes it’s deafening.

2012 shall bring some relief to this work related lunacy I’m sure of it. Well I’m hopeful of it.

Time and what can be accomplished in the measured doses of it seems to be playing a large part in the microcosm I live it. My best friend in the entire world has Hodgkins Lymphoma stage 4b. This sucks. Rather a lot and it’s a case of here we go again. It takes x amount of time to be diagnosed and x amount of time to start treatments. Answers are vague and decisions seem nonsensical.  I’ve been in denial with her, angry with her and now we’re accepting it together. My role is one of clown, one of perspective giver and one of empathy provider.  

I’m very much aware though that this magical state of 31^st March is one where not only my life, but hopefully hers will turn a corner. So much seem to be waiting March 31^st.

Then in wallowing melancholy I think about people who meant a lot to me. People I’ve lost through life, through death and that too makes me fearful of next year. Who next ..? Who else is going to depart?

I watched a work related video yesterday. In this video they told us how everything is going to be great when we lose our jobs, how the only thing stopping us is ourselves. So that’s ok. Duh! If I make it ok it will be ok. That’s ok then. Whilst I was being subjected to this saccharin high fiveness of corporate crappolla I looked around the room to see a vast majority of ‘colleagues’ donning droopy slack jawed expressions like they were actually enjoying being told how great not having a job will be. I was sat next to one lady who applauded the positivity oozing from the egocentric speaker. I too could be like him if I made that choice. BLUGH. I guess its freedom of choice really. If people like this shit then who am I to gripe.

So perhaps I need to make the choice to stop being obstructive with my opinions, make the choice to take the easier path of acceptance. This is after all what Buddhism tells me. I’m just such an obstinate witch at times, although I’m told this is due to inherited Karma. Sometimes that’s crystal clear, like looking through a sheet of glass, other times it’s more like a mirror. I just see me cocking up and being shit and I’m frustrated that I can’t change and refuse to believe this is a cyclical and inherited.

Anywhooo enough of my negativity. Plaster the face of optimism back on and attempt to spread good cheer and happiness.

Lilly

x

“HAVE CYCLISTS INFECTED HOUSE PRICES WITH AIDS?”

My working day

I come in.

I copy a file and send it to China – this takes 5 to 6 minutes.

Then I check facebook.

Then I check the BBC web site.

Then I check facebook again.

Then I get a cup of coffee. And try hard not to look at facebook. [Seriously why am I on facebook … please don’t answer that, I already know it’s because I am losing my grip on reality and instead prefer embellished sound bites of needy people who aren’t actually part of my organic world]

Sometimes I get to reply to an email or listen in to a telco or copy a graph into a report.

Then something awful happens. I get bored, and I end up reading the daily mail web pages. The daily mail keep its finger on the pulse of Britain by often inaccurately reporting on the gritty social affairs of celebrity weight loss, reality television couplings, the royal family and their fashion choices. It interjects sporadically with attention grabbing headlines such as “Mama Mia! Most popular pizza in Italy is actually manufactured in Lancashire... by a German company” [HOLY SHIT this changes everything!] and “Hidden heart risk for cocaine addicts even if they feel perfectly healthy” [Next they will be telling us that smoking causes cancer or something such crackpot idea].

I found this  daily mail headline generator and generated the following attention grabbing headline  I knew it was the cyclists fault. Bloody tree huggers.

“HAVE CYCLISTS INFECTED HOUSE PRICES WITH AIDS?” ….

So back to my working day.

My ex boss has even less of a reason to exist here at work. So she keeps herself busy by spying and snouting on me and her old team and trying not to get caught browsing the internet.

She also uses English last seen in colonial pre war film. If I ring in sick she emails my entire floor with ‘Lilly has taken ill’. I wish sometimes she would expand on this single line and add ‘she has an attack of the vapors’. In confidence sometime ago I was airing a particularly grievous opinion. Her response was ‘As women we are prone to outbursts and emotion and hysteria and you must learn to act more like a man’ [Hello … Hello … It’s Emily Pankhurst on the phone for you from the suffragettes asking WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING???]. My favorite is when she asks me ‘to do the needful’. I fight the urge to go and wee in a corner.

Back on topic.

So I sit at my desk. Discretely watching 4OD or i-player. I can see how retched this is. Pointless even. I have been exceptionally outspoken about this situation and those who manage me know I am doing literally nothing. There is the knowing nod that work is around the corner but in the meantime I’m attempting to fly beneath the radar

OOOoo facebook – I haven’t checked that in 40 minutes. Someone may have had their hair cut. Or be making a sweeping statement about how all immigrants should go home and stop living in 6 bedroomed houses driving jags and draining the NHS.

It’s really rather like being in the 6^th form common room on study leave really. Only I’m 35, with stretch marks and fewer spots and a massive mortgage.

4pm … I’m out of here.

The SHINY list

Life, being the unpredictable beast it is, has been kind to me. I have often wondered if anyone would realize I am a fake. I’m largely mediocre at everything, and hideously self-conscious, and seriously unqualified in my area of work. And yet for 14 years I’ve sort of sailed on through with no one noticing. I sort of took the money and hid. Now though, my large company is terminating its R&D presence in the UK. My job is moving to China. Pretty soon, by Christmas or next March the bubble will pop and the end will come. It’s all ok. It’s a relief to tell you the truth.  Fiscally speaking I won’t actually require gainful employment for 18 months or more.

Ultimately I have always felt rather short changed. The eternal compromise of being averagely middle class-ish took away my ability to just be a mum, I had no choice but to work. The precious hours between work and sleep don’t allow me to complete every chore or explore all the fun things I know and want to do. So I have my household rules which consist of the following:

-          The toilets are spotless

-          The cats tray is clean

-          We eat good, home cooked food [of clean plates too – get me!]

-          Personal hygiene

Other than that i fill our lives with love. Although consequently my washing pile resembles an obelisk, I half expect David Bellamy to appear from my overgrown erm meadow like back garden and I haven’t hovered the stairs in well over a year.

So … decisions decision decisions.

I am making a list – I can’t think what to call it. Hmmm. How about my Shiny List of happiness. Yes, from hence forth this will become my Shiny list.

So in the following order this is my Shiny List.

-          To take 4 – 6 months off work to be a mum.

-          In that time I want to

o   Drop off my son and pick him up daily – although in order to guarantee my gold dust child minder will still be available when I have to return to work I need to keep on paying her. Sigh.

o   Redecorate my entire house AND visit Ikea when few other people are there.

o   Work on my illustrations and stories and web site.

o   Take my husband and son away on an incredible holiday back to my husband’s country of Malaysia.

I don’t see my situation right now as being one I need to worry about. For me, I haven’t had a day out of employment since I was 12. I went from paper round, to dishwasher in the local Italian restaurant to working for several shoe shops to bar work, club work, cold calling double glazing sales person [for that I will always be eternally sorry] and finally I graduated and became somehow involved in IT. A natural progression, I feel, after obtaining a degree in politics. Obviously.

So having a certain pot of money to live off that if well nurtured and invested could last 2 years + leaves me in this stagnant void.  I think I should rename that to a happy pause, as I am happy to be out of the rat race. The festering landscape of repetition that accompanies a ‘career’ in IT will soon be landscaped into a life free of futile life justifications and the eternal compromise that every working mum knows about.

Albeit temporarily.