Tuesday heralds the beginning of a period of decadence, as I promised myself on Monday.What do decadents have for breakfast, apart from other decadents, obviously? A brief perusal of my Mother's kitchen reveals porridge and cornflakes. Hmm. You wouldn't catch Caligula starting a busy day's buggery and vice on Oat-So-Simple. My usual breakfast is tea so strong that you could trot a mouse on it, followed by a Camel Light, and rounded off nicely by the sort of coffee that they force between the teeth of people who have had a bad shock. I worked for a very short time in Florence, where the chic Italians met their friends before work at 8am. They would swing their tanned legs off their fashionable Vespas and enter a dark bar, where they would breakfast on double expresso and a small Grappa, smoking furiously the while. Their insides may have been foully unhealthy, but their outsides looked great. Of course, you need the weather and the style. Huddling round a dripping awning with a damp cup of Nescafe , prior to getting on a bus smelling of dead dog, to moan with your dumpy pallid comrades about your depressing job in a call centre doesn't add up to La Dolce Vita.
Since becoming officially self-employed and consequently poor, I have pondered the work thing, a huge obstacle in the path of the budding sybarite. To have money is necessary; luxury costs. But luxuriating is a full-time occupation. When I first encountered Jobcentre Plus, we were understandably wary of each other. I was suspicious of people who made their living from understanding things written by the scribes of the Department For Stealth and Total Obscurity, as we excessively educated dole-ites in the 80's knew it. Everyone I knew in the Boys From The Black Stuff era was starting their own creative business on a £40-a-week allowance. Perversely, innumerable artists, musicians and stand-up comedians stayed alive and working in this fashion. I am not at all sure that the Thatcher Government had intended this to occur, but occur it did.
However, these are different times. When I turned up in Williamson Square, a nightmare in Nicole Farhi, too old, too qualified, and too "without own van" for anything they had to offer, I expected snottiness. The staff were,on the whole, charming. They were also ruefully aware that their job was impossible, and that my position was untenable. A dear friend of mine had a very different experience in another part of the Jobseekers Forest.When confessing to a degree in Dance, she was ridiculed loudly in front of an office full of people, and roundly ( "DANCE! DANCE! what do you do for a degree in DANCE!?) disbelieved. We planned a return to the Jobcentre premises with a retaliatory vanload of interpretive modern dancers, who would act out what they thought of this treatment to music by Einsturzende Neuebauten. But we did not own own van.
During this period, it was suggested to me that I apply for a vacancy as a lecturer in Horse Medicine in Knowsley, despite an egregious lack of vetinarary experience and a natural tendency to over-prescribe. I thought
I might retrain, and enquired about computery things. I was offered a basic English course, and something to improve my confidence.No, not a voucher for a lovely lipstick, but some time spent with a lady who would ask me to think of ten positive things about myself, and then show me how to breathe. I have been breathing mostly unaided now for quite some time, and I can think lots of divinely satisfying things about myself without assistance. Look here, I am a self-obsessed egomaniac ..sorry..self-motivated target-driven individual who works as well alone as in a team...I have verve, brio, and can do that funny clicky thing with my toes after two or so brandies..
None of it was any good. So now I think I shall have to apply for funding. I could cite a series of disadvantages; acute facetiousness, discalculia, and dyspraxia being but two. I could also make a good case for being a Work of Public (House) Art. Soon, I shall be old enough to be Listed. I will be open to the public all the year round, except for Tuesdays, which will be my day for being renovated, and Bank Holidays. I will also be a Tax Loss. So don't miss this unique opportunity to invest in one of Liverpool's historic old wrecks, preserve her for the nation.Your children will thank you. Well, they probably won't, but that's kids, innit?
Since becoming officially self-employed and consequently poor, I have pondered the work thing, a huge obstacle in the path of the budding sybarite. To have money is necessary; luxury costs. But luxuriating is a full-time occupation. When I first encountered Jobcentre Plus, we were understandably wary of each other. I was suspicious of people who made their living from understanding things written by the scribes of the Department For Stealth and Total Obscurity, as we excessively educated dole-ites in the 80's knew it. Everyone I knew in the Boys From The Black Stuff era was starting their own creative business on a £40-a-week allowance. Perversely, innumerable artists, musicians and stand-up comedians stayed alive and working in this fashion. I am not at all sure that the Thatcher Government had intended this to occur, but occur it did.
However, these are different times. When I turned up in Williamson Square, a nightmare in Nicole Farhi, too old, too qualified, and too "without own van" for anything they had to offer, I expected snottiness. The staff were,on the whole, charming. They were also ruefully aware that their job was impossible, and that my position was untenable. A dear friend of mine had a very different experience in another part of the Jobseekers Forest.When confessing to a degree in Dance, she was ridiculed loudly in front of an office full of people, and roundly ( "DANCE! DANCE! what do you do for a degree in DANCE!?) disbelieved. We planned a return to the Jobcentre premises with a retaliatory vanload of interpretive modern dancers, who would act out what they thought of this treatment to music by Einsturzende Neuebauten. But we did not own own van.
During this period, it was suggested to me that I apply for a vacancy as a lecturer in Horse Medicine in Knowsley, despite an egregious lack of vetinarary experience and a natural tendency to over-prescribe. I thought
I might retrain, and enquired about computery things. I was offered a basic English course, and something to improve my confidence.No, not a voucher for a lovely lipstick, but some time spent with a lady who would ask me to think of ten positive things about myself, and then show me how to breathe. I have been breathing mostly unaided now for quite some time, and I can think lots of divinely satisfying things about myself without assistance. Look here, I am a self-obsessed egomaniac ..sorry..self-motivated target-driven individual who works as well alone as in a team...I have verve, brio, and can do that funny clicky thing with my toes after two or so brandies..
None of it was any good. So now I think I shall have to apply for funding. I could cite a series of disadvantages; acute facetiousness, discalculia, and dyspraxia being but two. I could also make a good case for being a Work of Public (House) Art. Soon, I shall be old enough to be Listed. I will be open to the public all the year round, except for Tuesdays, which will be my day for being renovated, and Bank Holidays. I will also be a Tax Loss. So don't miss this unique opportunity to invest in one of Liverpool's historic old wrecks, preserve her for the nation.Your children will thank you. Well, they probably won't, but that's kids, innit?
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