Know Yer Onions ...

Had a lovely weekend in London and Essex with my old pal, Pansy Smilso, and The Gorgeous God Daughter.  We went to the Valentino exhibition at Somerset House.  They were in raptures.  I confess to being wholly underwhelmed.  Sure, I appreciate the quality of the garments; the skills and the work involved in producing a couture garment (although the lighting was as subdued as a bunch of five year olds who've just been told the class hamster is unlikely to make it through the weekend, so it was pretty hard to see the detail of any of the garments sufficiently well to actually appreciate much).  It was just, I think, that no matter how much money I had, and assuming I could put aside my revulsion at spending god alone knows how many thousands on a single garment, Valentino is just not my style.  To my mind, it's the Per Una of haute couture: perfectly acceptable garments utterly trashed by the addition of unnecessarily fussy details.  So that was that.

We ended the afternoon at Brasserie Zedel with a pot of tea (both of us) and a rather fabulous Mille Feuille Vanille (me).  In all truth, that was just to kill time until The American Bar in the basement opened and we could hit the cocktails.  Honestly, Pansy is such a lightweight these days: I downed four  White Russians in the time it took her to wade her way through two Clover Clubs!!

Back in Essex, Trev Bang Tidy (Pansy's husband) was commissioned as taxi to collect us from the station and, as luck would have it, picked up a chinese takeaway on the way home.  So I helped him out with the leftovers and tucked into a couple of spoonfuls of chow mein and half a bowl of chips, which Pansy helped me with (the chips) and followed that with a tidy slice of christmas cake.  I think I might have been allergic to something in the chow mein ...

Anyhow, whilst quaffing cocktails and being our usual slightly off-the-wall selves (never let it be said we let a joke die: if it was funny then, it's still funny twenty or thirty years later. We are loyal to our shared humour for sure!) we did actually get around to some serious conversation.  Turns out, according to Pansy, if you can get past the prickly exterior, I have enormous depth; I'm multi-layered like an onion; although the second layer is almost totally demented.

An Argument For Tights ...

My eye was caught just now by an advert for a pair of stockings from John Lewis.  They looked rather nice, so I clicked on the link ... and they're £43 a pair!

Yes, you read it correctly: £43 pounds.  For a pair of bloody stockings!!!!!

I'm gobsmacked!

Money Makes The World Go Round

Overheard on the commentary from the races this afternoon that a Stable Lad has won £1 million on a 5 way accumulator.  Good for him. Bet the bookies are feeling seriously sick.  But it got me thinking how far that amount of money wouldn't go.

Obviously, how much one needs to maintain a comfortable/secure lifestyle depends on the age at which one acquires such wealth but the younger you are, the more you'll need.

Thinking about how far £1 million would go, if you did the sensible thing and invested the capital and simply lived off the interest, you really wouldn't be living the lifestyle that most of us imagine to be that of a millionaire.  I've no idea how much interest that amount of money would generate, but I doubt it would be a substantial sum in the current economic climate, and I don't know that you'd be looking at an income of more than say £50,000 pa, if that.  And that's quite a sobering thought, really.

Ok, so as incomes go it's about twice the national average in the UK, but it's not astronomical; it's not way, way beyond the imaginations (and earnings) of a substantial proportion of the population.  And that's presuming, of course, that you didn't  use any of the capital to say, buy a house - just a pretty average family home.  £50k a year would, of course, give you a fairly comfortable life.  It would allow you to offer a certain amount of financial help to family and friends, but only in a fairly modest way.  Likewise, it would enable you to support more charities and good causes than you might otherwise do, but again nothing that would really make a big difference.  The amount of money any one person would need to win on the Lottery, or whatever. is really quite substantial if they have dreams of making a big difference to more lives than just their own.  And that saddens me tremendously.  Because it's a very frail hope that an awful lot of people hold on to.

It also takes my breath away inasmuch as it brings home just how very wealthy the wealthy must be. And I'm not really talking about the affluent middle classes with big houses who can afford private schools for their children or fund them through Uni.  I'm talking about the people who can afford to buy the £several million plus country homes advertised in the local paper here each week.  Or the houses and apartments in London where they then dig down below basement level to install a swimming pool, underground garage and a cinema room - at the very least.  I can't begin to imagine the levels of wealth they possess.  And it's wrong.  Certainly when 17% of all UK households of working age are in receipt of Working Tax Credit to supplement their income (and 30% of those are STILL classified as being low income with WTC) something is very wrong.  Note: That's people IN WORK who receive benefit to 'top up' their earnings in order to be able to live, not simply people in receipt of benefit.

I'm sick of hearing about how the feckless and work shy are draining this country of its resources whilst those with a work ethic support the weight of the world on their shoulders.  Yes, ok, so maybe the public school fee payers do work hard to earn their money.  But the inference in that well-worn and oft trotted out statement is that everyone else who doesn't earn as much, by definition, doesn't work as hard.  And that's utter bollocks.  And it really, really pisses me off that they fail to see the inherent, underlying inequality.  Or, rather, they ignore it or make fatuous statements to support their positions of privilege. (Yes, I'm having a rant!!)

And then we go to the other end of the scale where the (soon to be ex) wife of Silvio Berlusconi has been awarded around £29 million a year in their divorce. Not as a one off payment, but per year.  It's an obscene amount of money.  It's reported that the adjudicating judge ruled against her having any claim on his property portfolio so ... what the hell must that man be worth???  Of course there are those who would argue that she deserves every penny/euro for putting up with him for as long as she has.  Well, maybe she does.  But what ever possessed her, or the soon-to-be-new Mrs Berlusconi to marry such a repugnant, immoral little scroat in the first place?  Oh yeah ...

Which leads me to the question ... just how vile, twisted, perverted, ruthless, morally bankrupt an individual does one have to be before your money ceases to attract people to you?  An unanswerable question I'd guess.

This Is The Way The World Ends ...

I was buying cat litter when the world ended.

I was still buying cat litter after the end of the world had come and gone.

I'm not sure whether that says that nothing changes; that life just comes down to shit in the end; or something else entirely.  Possibly all three.

It's the end of the world as we know it ...

Tomorrow.  Just after 11am.  So make sure you have a decent breakfast and get your tea break in early!

That is all.  Thank you.

The Tattooed Poet Project

In the days of flat sharing with Pansy Smilso, I used to have this poster up on the kitchen wall:

I loved it then and still do: it has more resonance now I'm older and have learned that the measure of value is far, far wider than simply monetary.

Despite some people seeing me as being 'square' or totally uncool, in my youth, I flirted a bit with the avante garde, certainly in terms of my appearance.  I wore hats before they were cool; moved on to gloves (still have a bit of a love affair with them); and teamed my work issue uniform skirt and jacket with non-regulation shirts and some of the most way-out shoes it was practical to wear in a catering environment.  It was my little bit of rebellion; a way of asserting some independence by refusing to be confined in a convenient box; a way of refusing to be labelled.  Although, of course, I was self-labelling, but anyway ...

As part of that I kind of wanted a tattoo - used to tease my then boss, who was so uptight and conservative, that I was going to get one just to see her reaction because I knew, if she'd believe it of any of her team, she'd believe it of me.  That was back in the day when tatts just weren't fashionable: you'd have to find some back-street or sea-front dive to get them done in; designs were of the traditional 'hearts, skulls and roses' variety; and only women who were real scrubbers really had a tattoo (although plenty had ankle chains - including the boss!).  Then they got fashionable and I went right off the idea: I didn't want to be one of the tattooed masses!  Now, however, I've changed my mind again.  Whether that's a mid-life crisis, or the realisation that some (although by no means all) can be really beautiful works of art.  The trouble, again, has been in deciding what design I want.  I think I've made my mind up and it's something I've designed and which has some personal significance (I really - and pardon the pun - don't see the point otherwise), but I came across this whilst searching the net for possible inspiration:

I'd love it!  But where would I put it?  I'm not having a tatt down the inside of my arm so across my shoulders seems to be the only realistic option, but I know I'm not ready to have something quite so big (and I may never be) but, oh how I wish I could work out a way to incorporate this with the design I've already chosen.

Then again, it's a mighty big statement to have to live up to ...


(By the way, there is actually a Tattooed Poets Project https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tattooed-Poets-Project/154955387862114?ref=stream)

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas ...

I like the build-up to Christmas.  I like dressing the tree and getting everything ready.  I just have an intense dislike of the day itself.  It's my birthday, and I loathe it.  I can't go anywhere or do anything that I'd really like to; I can't spend the day with the people I would otherwise choose to as they're usually spending the day with their families.  And even if I do spend it with other people then they are inevitably celebrating their Christmas - as they've every right to do.  (I've considered having an 'un-birthday' in the middle of the summer, but it just doesn't feel right).

But the one thing I absolutely detest more than anything else; the one thing guaranteed to wind me up ... getting a Christmas card with 'Happy Birthday' written in it!!  

Bah humbug ...