Well done England.  We’ve done it again.  I won’t comment on the football from last week, because, well, I fell off the sofa laughing so hard (I knew it would happen).  Today we have successfully done it again.  Tim Henman has lost his Tennis match at Wimbledon against some unseeded guy and there goes our hope of him winning. 

As a country we seem to excel in loosing at things.  Instead of poking fun at it, perhaps we should celebrate it.  Like Hey we can’t win anything! let’s celebrate.  Although saying that we did do a rather good job at the last couple of cricket test matches. 

We can look forward to the Olympics though (not that I’ll be watching).  I won’t place any bets on who’s going to win or loose anything.  I would say we’re more likely to win a few medals at the Olympics, so I’m wishing the British team good luck.

One thing I *think* I can guarantee with the sport is that Michael Schumacher will win at Mangy Cours at the weekend.  Let’s just hope we get some good coverage of the racing going on during the rest of the race as I really couldn’t give a hoot about the red cars winning, I’m hoping the other teams win or at least get some points, I’ll be cheering for the British hope, Jenson Button.

We Londoners are notorious for moaning about public transport, and with today’s tube strike I’m not about to break the mould.

Money? Safety? Working conditions? Sandwich allowances? To be honest, I’m lost on what the tube drivers are striking for today. And suspect many of them may be too.

For anyone unfamiliar with the current state of Trade Unions vs Big Employers in this country today, a quick perusal of any of our papers will reveal characters of Pantomime-esque proportions. Union representatives are usually cockney barrow-boys made good, thugs-in-suits, apparently electing their leader as the one with the thickest neck. Employer representatives are usually aloof ex-Oxbridge twats, whose cold personalities convey impassive explanations of their company’s position.

Stubbornness is the order of the day. So ‘Boooooo!’ and ‘ Ssssssss!’ to the lot of ‘em. Because the losers in any strike are, of course, the General Public. The Common Taxpayer. People Like You And Me.

But I’m not about to get up on my high horse, as today’s strike made me catch a bus. The journey, despite taking three times longer, provided me the rare opportunity to take in some great sights and great people-watching.

After a twenty minute wait for my bus, I leave the fading reddy-pink shopping centre of Elephant & Castle, which I affectionately refer to as the ‘Arse of London’, behind me. Traffic slows approaching Waterloo, but eases beyond the IMAX cinema. As the Thames shimmers beneath the bridge I spot press photographers with their extended lenses, taking shots of the hordes of suited commuters for tonight’s inevitable ‘Travel Hell’ headline piece. The bus rattles past historic Somerset House to the right, cuts across the Strand and meanders up Kingsway past Holborn. It continues through Bloomsbury and the recently regenerated Russell Square before hitting gridlock by Euston. After a quarter-hour sat tight, we’re moving again and soon at Mornington Crescent, from where it’s a only a short drive through Camden with its colourful markets and shops, tramps and goths then eventually, eventually, eventually… Chalk Farm. Hallelujah!

It’s good to travel overground. But I’m not relishing the journey back. And not holding my breath for this latest dispute to be resolved.

Breathe, breathe…

Further on from the recent walking post. I found a lovely park just up from the Embankment which was absolutely beautiful.  People were sitting, thinking, reading and lunching.  Plus there was this great statue of Albert Sullivan.

in my first year of uni, when i lived in student halls, i lived in elephant and castle. walking back from uni, the tube, the shops, anywhere really, involved walking underneath the subway to avoid the bottleneck of traffic that is the elephant, and, like anywhere in london that is public and relatively sheltered, it attracted tramps. when i moved there, as much as i thought of myself as a streetwise city girl, id also never lived in a city before. the tiny midlands town i came from just didnt have tramps. id never even seen a copy of the big issue before. the only reason i had not to give any one of these tramps my spare change was that i was a poor student whose change just wasnt spare. but the longer i lived there, the more times i walked under that subway and the more times i walked past a tramp just minding my own business, the more i began to resent them. because if i wasnt persuaded by their very polite pleas for change, if i said “no, sorry” or shook my head, it would be met by “you fat bitch” or some other fairly unfriendly and undeserved comment. and it wasnt just once, it was every day. if i didnt give the tramp with the beard 70p “for a bag of chips” (can you get a bag of chips anywhere in london for 70p anymore??) or if i declined the girl with rotting teeth and matted hair 20p “for the phone” id be told how fat/ugly/heartless i was. i learnt quickly that year how to cross even the busiest of london streets, because i stopped walking under the subway altogether.

my canadian ex boyfriend used to clash with me a lot on this issue. he was so p.c he objected to the word “tramp” and told me the prefered term in this day and age was “street people”. he couldnt comprehend why you wouldnt give money to one such “street person” and thought i must start arguments with them in order to justify their insults. but then, in canada, there are hardly any tramps at all, even in cities, and the few i saw there didnt shout or insult people when they couldnt or didnt donate their spare change. when i was younger, my dad was a lorry driver, and always told me what a desperate sight central london was in the early hours. ive been to a lot of cities around the world and not seen as many “street people” as in london, and its sad that the ones here are so bitter. i guess it goes to show how either way london isnt a city for the faint hearted.

Cristopher’s post on not giving to has clearly struck a chord. Perhaps the biggest problem is knowing where your money goes to: and that applies to foundations, trusts, livery companies and - of course - government, as well as individuals.

I’ve worked for a number of charities, all of which began small and worked brilliantly for admirable ideals. But they all too often lose the plot, particularly when they grow. Without naming names, here are two vignettes that highlight my dilemma when deciding how to give.

1) One charity I worked for got about £80,000 from a trust to help children. We got it to expand an existing and successful programme (money well spent), but £24,000 or so was for new ‘innovative’ work in three places. It was spent on a steering group, travel, a website that was never launched because a consultant never wrote the copy. No new projects were set up - the steering group merely observed three established ones (ie other people’s) and wrote about them. In one area, not a single child used the services on offer. In the other two, the extra money made no difference - they saw none of it.

2) Another charity I give money too sent me a brief, automated newsletter to say that two of its staff, who had vanished in a warzone, had appeared and were safe. I replied to the newsletter and, within an hour, got a passionate and individual response from a real person at the other end. I increased my subscription.

Some charities are used as a figleaf to cover problems that they do little to alleviate. Others are astonishing and deserve all the help they can get.

Is it enough to give and not look closely at where our money is going?

Last night I didn’t go to bed until around 4am, first of all I was watching recorded Big Brother, then a killer moth the size of a seagull got into the flat leaving Vicky and I running around trying to get it out and then I was reading my book.  When I finally got into bed the sun was coming up and the birds were singing…..

The birds were singing so bloody loudly they started to keep me up!  Then as if that wasn’t enough the planes started to go over.

Around 5 am the planes start to fly over and then they just do not stop and they are SO loud!  It drives me insane.

Then if it is not planes the odd random helicopter comes about and it circles Brixton for ages and ages and ages.

Walking through Stockwell the other day a plane was so, so, low I was amazingly shocked - planes often fly rather low over Brixton and Stockwell but this one looked as though it was going to fly straight over and land in the Oval.

Sometimes I do not notice them at all but when I am really tired and desperately trying to get to sleep it can be the most irritating thing the whole entire world.

*

On the tube to work yesterday I was reading my book and not really noticing the world go by when I heard a tramp doing one of their speeches to the entire car.  “I am a friendly human being who only wants to eat… I would never rob you or harm you but would greatly appreciate some change” etc etc.  Now in this situation I continue to read my book and let the world carry on - I know a lot of people think this is terrible and that we should aim to help everyone but I disagree.

However when I did glance up to look down the car I saw these 2 Canadian women who were covered in gold from head to toe, 5 necklaces, 30 rings on each finger, etc.  They were desperately trying to ignore the guy and were staring at the floor so as not to look him in the eye.

However I know (from when Vicky visited Canada) that in Canada they have posters on the subway urging you to donate money to tramps and saying it is a very good thing to help them.  So were these ladies falling into the London trap of “if you pretend you didn’t hear it then it didn’t happen.”? Or is it like the sheep syndrome where they would have been too embarrassed to help the guy out and give him some money because no one else did?

I had a long discussion with a guy at work who was saying he gives lots of money to people in the street and also has various direct debits each month to different charities.  Now I do not give in the street (unless someone is playing a great song and it picks up my mood) and I do not donate to charities.  This is not because I am heartless and horrible but because I earn enough money to fund my life and do whatever I want through out the month - if I want to go shopping or clubbing or to a party or whatever I can afford to do it.  If I start direct debiting out £50 a month here and there it would infringe on my life. 

Now the guy at work said that’s fine I should be willing to change my lifestyle a little to help people - I still disagree. I don’t think I should have to justify my life style - perhaps I am a bad person! He certainly thought so. 

i have to say, im feeling a little jaded with expensive london living at the moment. i wouldve posted sooner except ive spent the last week not leaving brixton, barely leaving the flat, in fear of spending too much money. i know london is famous for being ridiculously over priced, and really its my own fault for moving here by any means possible - for the ostensible reason of studying no less - but im starting to become a little pissed off that if you have no money in london, the only thing you can really do here is sit and breathe the not-so-fresh air.

and so today, still battling a two day hangover, i squoze my feet into a pair of tiny pointy interview shoes, and hobbled on up to euston, for the first of probably - hopefully - many job interviews. when the h.r manager of this fairly large hotel chain turned up to interview me with fingers full of rings and wearing silver nail varnish, i realised i probably couldve worn my trainers instead. but still, half an hours worth of bullshit and bluffing later and im told that while im perfect for the job, i must await a second interview. because, obviously, i need to be vetted by a variety of people before i can prove my ability to simply wait tables. so lets hope that sooner or later, one of them takes pity on me and offers me a job, otherwise youll see me sitting pitifully wrapped in a blanket with the tramps under the subway in elephant and castle, begging for spare change…

‘Best Glastonbury ever!’ grinned Michael Eavis, ignoring the fact he was standing in the middle of a mud bath while hypothermia-stricken crusties shivered into their dhal around him. That’s OK, though - he says this every year.

Last year he may have had a point, though. I recall watching the entire BBC coverage from the comfort of my Shoreditch sofa, wracked with resentful, post-Sonar comedown sobs as I watched the Flaming Lips and accompanying soft toy menagerie belt out a magnificent, towering, heart-breaking rendition of Do You Realise?. At that moment, I would have willingly given my eye teeth (£2,000 veneers and all) to have been there. ‘It won’t be the same,’ I wailed, when the Donkey tried to pacify me with promises of going in 2004. And - as always - I was right.

This year, I watched five minutes of an uncomfortable-looking John Peel introducing Saturday night headliner Paul McCartney - thumbs aloft, kids! - and ‘highlights’ footage of mud-diving idiots (how they’ll regret it when they discover their tents have floated downstream and the only dry clothes are the ones they’re wea… oops). I had to switch off. I don’t want to indulge in schadenfreude. I can sympathise - I’ve been there, soaking wet and freezing, when New Zealand’s Millennium Gathering was rained out… although I’m such a pussy I spent the duration sitting in my car with the heaters on.

But as the old Chinese proverb says, ‘He who get Macca and mud baths one year can expect Smiths reunion and sunshine the next.’ Or something along those lines. I’m definitely, definitely going to Glasto 2005. Then Eavis can trot out his ‘best ever’ routine and really mean it.    

After pleasant Sunday evening drinks I detoured on my way home, as so often happens, for a cheeky night cap at the Karaoke. (Previous posts here and here)

It was unusually quiet.

In fact, it was relatively deserted.

No ‘Blind’ Bloke. No Trashy Generation Gap Couple. No Monkey Boy, even.

Yet their absence proved a revelation.

Because from among the unfamiliar crowd appeared a disco-dancing old lady, complete with old lady clothes, old lady umbrella and old lady handbag.

Yet in a most un-old ladylike fashion, she mingled among the young men on the dancefloor, knocking and rubbing her arse against theirs.

Frequently, as if this was not undignified enough, she would adopt a bandy-legged Maori-like stance before giving her tush a fierce shake.

After enjoying ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Roxanne’ and ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’, I slipped to the bar for another cheeky pint.

Just as I was passing my change to the barmaid, I felt a substantial weight fall against my back side.

I turned back to find Bandy-Legged Granny slamming into me and my neighbouring patrons. It was clear she’d had one too many Babychams.

Returning to my seat, the obese karaoke compere’s rendition of Cher’s ‘Believe’ was suddenly interrupted by a thunderous crash.

Bandy-Legged Granny had fallen against the fruit machine and knocked herself out.

Concerned punters gathered round and for a few moments things looked pretty bleak. There was no response from Bandy-Legged Granny. Was she concussed? Had she died?

But the chorus of ‘Believe’, which the compere had continued throughout our heroine’s unconsciousness, was enough to bring her round. Within a couple of minutes she was back on her feet. Dazed, maybe, and bruised, probably, but dancing again. And disgracing herself again.

If only we all shared the spirit of Bandy-Legged Granny, the world just might be a better place.