Living below the line

Here are some friends Kirsty and I made in Kolkata. They were the first kids we met who asked us, not for money, but for a chapati. They are smiling so much because they got biscuits and lassi. And everyone loves a photo.
Before I went to India, of course I knew about poverty. I mean, Comic Relief is on every year. But when you see it with your own eyes, you walk past it lying in the street, it's different. When you talk and laugh with children who are all bone and carrying their baby brother or sister on their hip, your heart breaks a little bit because you can't help them.
But we, and you can. With a little help from Unicef, we have decided to take part in this year's Live Below the Line. The challenge is for us to spend only £5 for five days of meals each. This is the maximum that millions of people around the world can spend on food a week. For us, this means 5 days of porridge and cheesy pasta. But we are lucky enough that the challenge will be over before we know it, leaving us with just a memory of how difficult it is. For people who actually live below the poverty line, this is a way of life.
OK, I know we haven't got a lot of spare cash at the moment. Most of my friends are as poor as me: living in a very expensive city on nearly minimum wage jobs is hard. But don't try to fool me. I know you are all coffee addicts. How about giving up a week's worth of coffee and donating the money to our cause instead? Or on Friday night, get your flirt on, find some banker to buy your drinks and give us your beer/wine/JD&Coke money. That's your challenge.
Ours starts on 29th April. You have almost a month to donate, and you can do it buy clicking HERE!!!!!!! Now definitely no excuses, plenty of time to accommodate a whole variety of paydays. But please please please don't just read this and move on. Don't just be impressed by our noble and generous spirits and forget about it. As soon as you read this, click on the link (look here's another!) and give us whatever you can afford. £5, the same as we're eating on for the week; £500, if any random millionaires are reading this; or £1.50 because every little helps.
Thank you so much, in advance, for your gift. Those kids at the top of the page...their smiles are for you.

Ladies

This morning I settled down with a cup of tea and a couple of chocolate digestives to watch New Girl. Unfortunately the episode I wanted was not online. This is a minor tragedy in a day that I wish to spend doing very little. Instead I had to content myself with Girls and then a weird BBC4 programme about Ladies: An Elegant History.
Just slightly different portraits of women...the first involved STD's, an abortion and babysitting in a transparent dress. And that was just one character: the British one who at least sounds the most like a Lady.
The second was presented by a woman who used to be editor of The Lady Magazine (I didn't even know there was such a thing) who, after learning from many sources that Ladyhood is coming back into fashion now we have more or less acheived equality, decided that she wasn't a Lady and wasn't sure she likes the idea. She was definitely a Lady. In denial.
So what am I? Lady or not?
One one hand, the life of the Girls was not a million miles away (mainly just the stuggling to pay rent on a job you don't really care about front really) It does, at least, seem a little more like real life than the assumption that walking out of a room in a certain way can advance you in life...open doors for you.
But I must say, I'm kind of a sucker for that kind of stuff. I would like to be able to glide around a room as if balancing a book on my head. Mainly as a party trick really, and because I suspect lazy posture is to blame for the fact that, at 24, my back hurts if I walk around with a bag for too long. I will of course maintain that I don't like to carry a bag because I feel so free without one. And it's true...free from pain. Oh dear.
Anyway, I also love a floral print, cupcakes and pearls. One doesn't indulge in these loves all the time of course..I'm currently wearing hippy India trousers and sitting with my feet up, eating the above mentioned biscuits. Can Ladies do that?
Or maybe it's nothing to do with fashion. Maybe it is an attitude. Like self-respect. Something that some of the characters in Girls are missing...hence, they are not Ladies.
"You're a lady. I'm a lady. We're the LADIES!" A remark smartly rebuffed by the British one (another Jess). "I'm not the Ladies... I hate women who tell other women a certain way to be."
Maybe that's a good point. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy loves that Elizabeth braved a muddy hemline to see her sick sister. It was his sister (or something), the "Lady" that was bitchy about it. Jane Austen knew her shiz, and don't tell me anything different.
In conclusion, this is a rather confused musing on whether I am/want to be a Lady. Is it an old-fashioned and out-of-date set of restrictions that allow us to be mean about each other; or is it a new and improved way to be elegant and self-assured whilst indulging in a mutual love of all things feminine. Things that we are allowed to reclaim now Kate Middleton is here, and (apparently) economic difficulties make knitting and cooking trendy.
Whatever. I kind of like the way I am so maybe it doesn't matter what that is. "A rose by any other word..." and all that.

Property Porn

Ever since I can remember I have wanted a house. My sister and I used to fall asleep describing to each other how ever room of our dream home would be decorated. My tastes, I hope, have improved since then: I distinctly remember describing a room that was half green and half pink with an imposing four poster bed. Now I dream of a free standing bath in the most enormous bathroom. Theroe are French doors leading to a balcony and....

Maybe I have ridiculous bathroom aspirations but my ideal home has become alot more modest; the floor plan (which I used to draw myself) has shrunk from depicting a palace big enough to house not just me but my sisters, cousins and any family we may have, to a 2 or 3 bedroom flat in London. I wouldn't, of course, turn my nose up at a brightly painted townhouse with iron railings out front if it was offered. 

Now, instead of pretending to be an architect and drawing up very over complicated residences for myself, I play the estate agent game. You look in the shop window and pick the place you'll buy when your numbers come up. Sometimes, when I've bought a lottery ticket, I even do this on the Internet, just so I'm prepared. Then there's endless 'Location, Location,' 'Grand Design,' 'Escape to the Country' programmes. My flat mate calls it property porn. 

Said flat mate, who shares this property porn addiction, is currently in the process of buying her first flat. I have never been more jealous in my life. Just think of all the Ikea joy that awaits her. The antique shops and EBay. The Dulux samples. The kitchen shops, photo printing, curtain sewing...ah, to be Kirsty Alsopp! 

My house would be sooooo beautiful. Surely I deserve one, don't I? 

The trouble with having this as an aspiration is it seems too unattainable. It's easy to save for travelling or a new laptop. You just take food from work and walk everywhere. A deposit though! For a girl who works in a cafe and a shop and spends her money on trips to India and replacing her constantly malfunctioning laptop, it's just impossible. 

But I have dreams that begin with my house. Dreams that involve a sunny office with a typewriter, a new found ability to cook (it would be such a waste of a fridge if I didn't learn), a piano. 

Instead, I must content myself with trying to fill my empty room. On the cards is a desk, some drawers, many pictures. At the moment it is like a cell in there. I've hung my jewellery on the wall to make it look less bare. Everyone who sees the room is shocked. Sigh. That's what you get for moving house on the train. Daddy!!! Please bring me some more stuff. 

This does mean though that I can get a little but excited at decorating this small space so I can yearn a little less for dream house until I miraculously save a deposit. Likely? 

The death of punctuality

There are many virtues. A Wikipedia search showed me more than I could really be bothered to count. They included curiosity, frugality, cleanliness, honesty, courage and (weirdly) continence amongst others. All wonderful things I'm sure you'll agree. I would hope that everyone is, at the very least, continent.
As with many things in life, it seems that fashions change. Some virtues are stalwarts (like the little black dress), some grow in value and some are forgotten. Some are even forgotten by Wikipedia which upsets me a little because punctuality is one of the most undervalued virtues, and one I possess in abundance. I'm a little too punctual in actual fact, which is why other people being late is reeeeeeally annoying. Just be in time. If I manage it, why can't you? It's too cold to wait.
OK, I realise it's not cool to be on time. No one wants to be the first person at the pub so I've recently made a real effort to be late for stuff. It goes entirely against my nature though. However, because I am one of the only punctual people I know I've made it a new year's resolution to be less so. Be more selfish and take my own sweet time. (N.B. This will never be true for work, I'm not that much of a rebel!). It's what people expect...to such an extent that it's no longer particularly rude to be late, just stupid to be early.
This effort has not been wholly successful. Last week work forced me to be two and a half hours late for a birthday party..and I missed out on a Nandos. A few days later I aimed to be fifteen minutes late for a meeting, was actually twenty-five minutes late because the person I was meeting text me to put the time back, and I was still waiting for 5 minutes. Not fair! I just wanted someone other than me to notice all my hard work in changing the very core of my nature.
Part of the trouble is that I have a lot of free time at the moment so I'm just excited to be out and seeing people. Keener.
Perhaps the writer of the List of Virtues was also struggling with excess punctuality and deleted it from the list on purpose to deny its malevolent influence on their life.
Anyway, even though I don't think it would hurt if everyone arrives when they say they will, I guess as a minority I will have to adapt. Boo. Any replacement virtue suggestions will be considered. What with being at least half an hour late for everything from now on, I've got plenty of time to work on it.

The Other Blog

This week I cheated on Blogspot. Not only that, it was with Wordpress: the main rival. And can I just say, Blogspot, you are much better. I'm not just saying that..Wordpress is confusing.
Why, you might ask, was I on Wordpress this week? Well reader, I have started a second blog. You can check it out here. It's a productive step towards writing something that is not just the first thing to pop into my head, which is essentially what this blog is. I still like this blog best though, remember that.
So this new blog, A Vertical Expression, is for my very professional persona as dance critic extraordinaire. I even have a suitably pretentious title for it so I feel justified in dishing out my opinions. I might start to wear a beret to any performance I attend. It will be my Vertical Expression hat, and I will take myself very seriously in it.
I may have made a mistake with the title though. It's from a quote by Robert Frost: “Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.”
Hmmm...I like the phrasing but is he saying that dancing is all about sex? That's awkward...I really didn't get that first time around. Thank god I went with the Vertical Expression part rather than the Horizontal Desire part or people might really get the wrong idea of what the blog is about. [Looks embarrassed.]
So I'm stuck with a name that Freud might approve of but I'm not sure is an entirely accurate description of how I feels about dancing. I mean, this morning I danced around my room to I Love To Boogie by T.Rex and did not have any horizontal desires at all. In fact that is the song I would like to be played at my funeral so...you know.
But now I'm stuck with the name and to punish myself for a lack of thought on the name of my more professional blog (a very important decision) I am sharing my shame with you all.
Although, really I shouldn't have told you at all and you would never have noticed but I'm a very honest person and this makes an amusing speak-my-mind blog now.
Despite the now cringy name, the roots of which we will NEVER speak of again, I think it'll be a good blog. I already highlighted the superior talent of my friend Alex and was simultaneously mean about some tiny elements of the show. It's got to be a winner! You should definitely invite me to all your future performances (for free....with a glass of complimentary wine) and I'll be complimentary and/or mean about you too. I have a whole stash of adjectives to use up.
So go read, and enjoy. I have a beret to purchase.

The joys of free food

When I was at school, every May we would make a small Welsh musical and a couple of Welsh language rock bands (fricking cool) and descend on the Urdd Eisteddfod and the glory it held. After winning (in the case of my sister's band) or not (me) we would hit the many stalls to collect as much free stuff as possible. Pens mainly, or information booklets. Or these weird fluffy stickers with googly eyes. Then we would stuff our faces with candy floss and hit the walzers. For all you who don't know, the Urdd is a Welsh children's festival. It is a beautiful combination of wellies and fairgrounds and traditional dancing, all culminating in the chance to win a chair. Absolutely worth the camping it demanded.
But my point is not about forgotten childhood talents but about the surviving joy of acquiring free stuff. The reminiscence was just a pleasantly nostalgic opener.
Yesterday I went to Borough Market. It's mouthwateringly beautiful. I saw fruits I've never seen before. And the cheese...epic. I wish I'd thought to take a couple of photos for your viewing pleasure..I'd've Instagramed them up a storm too. I forgot though in the surge of food lust that overtook me.
Anyway, after actually paying for a hot dog with red onion marmalade and some mulled apple juice (mmm!) we went on a freebie hunt. Of course. Obviously. It goes without saying.
So in tiny, Borrower size mouthfuls we had what probably equalled a meal of various types of cheese, a selection of cured meat including ham and venison, bread and olive oil, crackers and chutney, chocolate, more ham, more cheese, bread and vinegar, biscuits and marmalade...
It was like being at the Urdd again except my childish satisfaction with a free Biro has matured into a frightfully middle class love of organic food. I do like that I'm true to my roots though.
I wonder how much money the stall holders loose as a direct result of people like me? That's why it's so expensive perhaps. That, and the yumminess. If I had £12 to spend on a small piece of cured venison I would. It would certainly be a positive step up from the Heinz Classic Tomato Soup that I'm heating up as we speak.
But despite my slightly sad lunch I'm still quite full and happy from my freebies so all good. Now all that is left for me to say is that I may consider returning every week for my fill. But you should definitely go too. Invite me..I'm a pro at this by now.