On A Budget

I've been out for cocktails. It's mid-month, so this is a risk as payday is still a long way away. But I've been trying for so long to live within a strict austerity budget in a seemingly endless attempt to reduce the debt I'm in. Initially I viewed it as a challenge: anything the ConDem government (was there ever a more apt abbreviation?) can do, I could do better. I was determined to be financially solvent by the end of 2011. I had purpose.

The summer, therefore, has been something of a damp squib - and not just because of the weather. No holidays, few big nights out, minimal expenditure and old, faded clothes.

Yet now the novelty has worn off. I'm close to breaking point. Close to embarking on a FTW spending spree on credit cards and money that's not mine but that the bank seems more than happy to provide. The end is in sight, but the monotony of my existence has become painful.

So cocktails it was. And despite the ample amount of gin, rum and whisky, I can't shake this feeling of irresponsibility. Unemployment figures are up, but I have a job. I may feel frustrated at being 26 and still living at home, but I have a roof over my head. I have a family, friends and at least some money each month to piss right up the wall.

This feeling is compounded when a homeless person stops and asks me for change. I start my usual "sorry, I haven't any change" response, but it sticks in my throat. I give her a pound, but that seems woefully insignificant compared to the amount I've just spent on alcohol. It doesn't seem right. Maybe this is a symptom of what's wrong with society? My inability to go without, I mean. My feeling so hard done by when really, I am among the better off.

Yes, I am broke, most of the time. But I'm still part of society. I'm not excluded, ignored or kept on the edge. I think back to my time working in local government. I hated the job, it wasn't something I wanted to pursue, but it was hard not to empathise with some of the people I met; many of whom had suffered and still do suffer the exclusion and fear I've thus far managed to escape.

It's partly this experience, I think, that causes the boiling rage inside when I read comments under right-wing newspaper articles, or when I hear the government demonising the 'benefit scroungers' that are supposedly bleeding our country dry. All this, from a group of people who have, I imagine, never known hardship, nor even approached it unless it offers a PR-friendly photo opportunity.

This city - perhaps even this country - is a cruel mistress. London is, in my opinion, an incredible place. Much like an outdated office block giving way to a gleaming skyscraper, she changes her look, her mood. At times the streets seem paved with broken dreams rather than gold. At others she glistens like a huge Christmas tree, beckoning to you, offering her cultural delights, her unrivalled social scene, a feast for someone with the money and inclination to gorge themselves on.

And so I find it impossible. I can't imagine my life without London, but at the same time I can't imagine being of the few with the means to really enjoy everything on offer.

I will settle for the middle ground, which I can, I hope, realistically aspire to. I will try and resist the seduction of happy hours, 2 for 1 offers and everything else that's distracting me from my route to financial solvency. At times, it will be boring. At others, it will be difficult. But the end result will be worth it, I think. There's enough to worry about (double dip recessions, illness, the volcano under Yellowstone National Park) without adding money to the huge pile of woe. So back to the budget, Read, and stop whinging. You could be a whole lot worse off.

Fuck...all that from a mojito...maybe drink is my problem, rather than my budget.

On a Dilemma

I had planned to start this post with a call for you to refrain from judging me, but I've changed my mind. I want you to judge me. I want to know what you think of what I did, of what I thought.

I shall start from the beginning. I was waiting for a train. A light drizzle, typical of the Great British summer, fell gently over the platform. The overhead wires crackled and fizzed, the raindrops collected in shallow puddles. I felt at ease. I like the rain.

The train pulled up and the doors opened. And elderly couple pushed past, rushing further up the train to get on another carriage. I assumed they just wanted to be at the front.

How wrong I was. As I settled into my seat and the train pulled away, I heard a man muttering further down the carriage. It was a whisper at first but the volume increased steadily. I soon realised that most of what he said wasn't in English. That's not a problem in itself; I am, as you may know, an avowed lover of language. It was Arabic. At least I think it was. A constant monologue that grew from a whisper into a chant, into a shout. It was interspersed with cries of "LIGHT OF THE DAY" and "Your blood is the same colour as mine!" A wee bit sinister for lunchtime on a Sunday. The rest was, quite literally, foreign to me. I thought I could hear the odd "Inc'Allah" which, from repeated listening to an MC Solaar song of the same name, I know to mean "God willing."

So that's why the elderly couple changed carriages. That's why everyone else was shifting in their seats, exchanging worried glances and, at intermediate stations, following the exodus into the adjoining carriages.

And so, I found myself in a dilemma. He who prides himself of being accepting of others found himself itching to get off the train. The crazed liberal inside me was screaming "Look at you! Where are your egalitarian ideals now? What happened to live and let live? What next? Starting sentences with 'I'm not a racist but...', or 'You can sleep with whoever you like but I'll have none of that under my roof!' You...you Daily Mail reader!" But there was another voice, a nagging doubt. A fear building up inside. A desperate call for self-preservation, in spite of my oft-touted liberalism.

What should I have done?

What I did, was stay on the carriage. I did so with my headphones in but my iPod off, a sense of impending doom writhing inside me.

I'm not sure what the above makes me. Was I stupid to stay on a train on which I felt unsafe? Or did ignorance rear its ugly head and prove that I'm not as accepting as I think I am?

I've been thinking about it a lot today. We live in a state of paranoia. You can see it on the tube sometimes, or on trains, at airports. It's exacerbated by what I think is a very British reaction to any public declaration of fervent religious belief; awkwardness.

I know full well that this man was not representative of all Muslims, all British Muslims or probably even all the Muslims on that particular train, who probably don't make a habit of praying loudly on public transport. II don't even know what he was saying - it could have been something really quite pleasant. Nor do I subscribe to the Cameronian belief that multiculturalism has failed. His lifestyle, upbringing and outlook are as alien to me as the beliefs of the man shouting on the train. But that's ok. I wouldn't, for one minute, wish for a homogenous society in which everybody thinks, feels and acts the same.

But I'm still not sure what I should have done, or whether what I did do and did feel, was right.

On the Dark Recesses of My Mind

Surprise! I'm not actually dead, despite my lack of posting.

In the last month or two I've been living life to the full. Inspiration on things to write about, however, has been thin on the ground.

The one noteworthy realisation I was struck with during my prolonged absence was that my brain is actually quite big. Bigger than I ever really give it credit for. Fear not; I am not boasting about my IQ or my ability to remember obscure Eastenders characters from ten years ago. Let me explain.

As you may or may not know, I lived in Italy a while ago. It was a special time that has given me a wealth of happy and not so happy memories to look back on and cherish. And, as it turns out, it gave me more memories than I realised. When I went to Italy at the beginning of March, I was taken aback by the number of forgotten memories that came flooding back. Sights, sounds and smells all triggered recollections that I didn't realise I had.

And that's what I'm impressed with; the huge, unfathomable depth somewhere in my head that holds memories I don't actually remember. God knows how many situations I've been in or conversations I've had are sitting there, somewhere, waiting to be woken up and set free by a trigger it's impossible to predict.

This in turn reminded me of studying Proust in my first year of university. He talks about eating a certain type of biscuit that his grandmother gave him when he was but a petit garçon. Eating the same type of biscuit years later evoked a wealth of feelings and memories of his childhood. They all came back, in glorious 3D technicolour, from a biscuit. For the first time, I think I understand where he's coming from.

I just think it's a shame there's not some cerebral filing system that I can dip into when I'm at a loose end. A talking computer system that I can turn on and say, "I'm bored. Show me something I've forgotten." I want to see all the things I don't remember, the things filed under 'Insignificant' and 'Not Worth Remembering' that my brain backed up nonetheless.

Good on you, Brain. I applaud your hard - and unappreciated - work. You grafter you. And your next mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find me some inspiration for my blog, because I miss that even more than the things I don't remember.