Homelessness

Gonna go a bit emo here, but bear with me.

There was a programme on last night called Famous, Rich and Homeless, whose basic premise was taking some rich, 'famous' (loosest sense of the word... The Guardian have gone with the term 'fairly famous', I still think this is a little bit too much creedence... if you know who Les Battersby is, then you're on the right track) folk and dumping them on the streets of London with no money and a sleeping bag, and letting them survive as a rough sleeper. It as gnarly. The Marquis of Blandford couldn't hack it and stayed in a hotel, but the rest of them slogged it out and devised their own ways of making money just to get them through. The Big Issue website sums it up better than I can

Guided throughout by John Bird, the five begin their ten day experience being dropped off in different areas of London, where they spend their days and nights trying to survive on the streets. The physical and emotional toll challenges their preconceptions and prejudices about homelessness, its causes, and the ease with which people can escape it.The participants have 10 homes and a palace between them, Famous, Rich & Homeless focuses their minds and ours on those who don’t.

And it really did focus my thinking. Despite the fact that my flatmate works for The Big Issue (not as a street vendor, as a fundraiser), and I also come into contact with people who sleep rough a lot of the time, I never fully think about how properly awful it must be to actually be stuck out there and having to tell people things in order to get money just to not feel completely rotten and hungry or thirsty for a little while. All I ever think is 'I'm glad that's not me'.
There was a woman on the programme who had perfected a sob story and told it to a girl who gave her all the money she had on her. The girl then came back with £40 she'd just taken from the cash machine for her. Granted, this is slightly mental and I probably wouldn't go that far myself, but it was so comforting to know that there are people out there who are kind, compassionate and caring enough about people they don't even know.

On my way to work, I come across quite a lot of homeless people. I don't ignore them, but I never feel a big urge to help them out, either. A frail looking middle aged lady approached me and gave me her story about sleeping rough and how she used to work the dole, but now she had no job and nowhere to live. She made me feel really sad, so I gave her some money. I almost had a lump in my throat when she was thanking me profusely. I rounded the corner, and the usual woman was selling the Big Issue. I almost passed out with the wave of guilt that washed over me. I bought a copy. It was her last one. She looked well happy, which made me happy. I would definitely rather she had my money than I spend it on some junk, as that is what invariably happens on a daily basis.

Anyway, I guess the ending to all of this is that you should probably just THINK a little bit when you see someone who is worse off than you, and if you can, HELP THEM!

The Big Issue and Centre Point are probably the two main ones when it comes to helping out with homeless issues, as well as Shelter and Crisis. There are more specialist ones like Grand Central Savings and St Mungo's.

You get my sentiment. Here are some causes that I'm quite passionate about and help out when I can:


Macmillan
NSPCC / Action For Children
Addaction / Drugsline / Phoenix Futures
Amnesty International
Dignity! Period.

Really quick blog about important things

Here is some important stuff that I need to say before I leave work in approximately 5 minutes (slacking cos the boss has gone home early. As usual. Lead by example, that's what I say):

• I couldn't be bothered to write a blog post about Britain's Got Talent LIVE!, but it's okay cos the entire evening has been documented HERE!!!!
  What fails to make the cut is that we got back home in time for Big Brother, which was a particular highlight, and also that the programme was only £5. Apart from that, it's pretty well summed up. Actually, George Sampson was amazing too. Love you, George. All the way through I wished that I was 10 years younger so I could fancy him.
• I went into the Carphone Warehouse to get a cheap mobile phone to take with me this weekend. It's a bit of a con, cos they say you can have a mobile for £4.99, but you have to buy a £10 top up. I've never had a pay as you go phone, so I don't know whether this is worth it, is it going to last? I just don't know. It didn't matter though, because I think the salesman took a bit of a shine to me and gave me this phone I was looking at for free. He said that drug dealers come in and swap their phones round all the time because they're paranoid. Worst salesman ever, but I wasn't bothered. Thank you drug dealers, thank you Carphone Warehouse.
• Not sure why they call it 'Carphone Warehouse' - has it been called that since the halcyon days of in-car phones? My mum had one of those when she had her own business. It was totally rad. We had, pretty much, the hottest (not physically hot) car EVER. ALL of the windows were electric, so were the wing mirror adjusters. The colour was 'greenstone', which meant it looked like it was a dark grey colour, but when the light shone on it, it went sparkly green. It was a Fiat Tempra.
  At the time, my parents were doing pretty well financially, I went to a well nice school. and got awesome presents for Christmas like a Go-Go dog and a Sylvanian Families vintage mansion. The mansion was a bit of a waste, because in the end me and my brother just used it as a base for the Autobots to hide from the Decepticons. I think the same year, my brother got Scorponock (Dreamwave version under Megatron, well evil), so he pretty much needed the vintage mansion to look after the troops. I also think he got a dart board and darts for Christmas, as I distinctly remember there being a lot of little holes all over the outer shell of the mansion. This could also, of course, be attributed to Bruticus going postal on it. Either way, I wasn't that bothered.
  How have I digressed so much? Oh yeah, so Carphone Warehouse. Great place. Shop there.
• You know how I said I was gonna go early? I have ended up staying late.

Today I have been thinking a lot about the game version of 'The Hobbit' for the Commodore64. I'm starving.

Seeya.

Glastonbury 2009 - prepping

When I say 'prepping', I mean I called my mum and said I didn't have anything, she asked me what I needed, and now I have stuff. I still had to go and get my own backpack, like. I don't like owning my own backpack, it almost says 'look at me, I travel!' - which I don't. Well, not all the time. And I don't think I'd like to slog it out round the world living out of a backpack and sharing mudhuts with rats. I would definitely much rather have 5* hotels. I have the internet.

So, yeah, anyway, with that in mind it's a WONDER that I'm going to Glastonbury. Or any festivals, for that matter. I moan about the dirt, but then 365 days pass and I'm well up for it again. I haven't been to Glasto for a few years, mainly because the last time I went the rain was torrential and it completely flooded out. This is why I usually stick with ATP and indoor events. I'm sure it's going to be great, though.
I'm apprehensive about my welly situation... I really like the ones I have, but they're a bit too big for me. I can see many 'welly still stuck in mud, but Ellie still walking' situations occurring.

We're not going down until Thursday evening, which suits me fine - less chance of getting EVEN MORE DIRT all over myself.

This is a tentative list of stuff I wouldn't mind seeing:

Thursday: Metronomy

Friday: Lily Allen, Fleet Foxes, Regina Spektor, General Fiasco, The Streets, Q Tip, Animal Collective, British Sea Power

Saturday: Eagles of Death Metal, Broken Family Band, PASSION PIT, Hockey, Bon Iver

Sunday: Blur, Nick Cave, Micachu & the Shapes, Brand New


Probs won't see hardly any of them.

Warm tonight

I'm so warm that I feel as if I've been punched in the head, urrghh!

Anyway, to business. I read quite a distressing comment on Facebook, from on girl I went to school with to another...

"Congratulations on geting (sic) married and being pregnant xxxx"

I think it is, possibly, the most depressing sentence I've ever read. I know the girl who sent it had all the best intentions for it, and I definitely know that the girl who received it would have been really grateful, but it made me feel really empty. Someone must know what I mean?

I had big plans for this blog entry, but I left it so long in the day to send, that now I'm flat out of inspiration and all I can think about is watching season 3 of Ugly Betty and eating pineapple, neither of which I shall be doing.

I was also going to go into great length about going to see Britain's Got Talent LIVE!, except now I can't really be bothered to do that either, though I did sit and read through the programme before and I reckon I could have done a much better write-up of the acts who are on. Bit more biased according to who I like the best. Of course.

Written too much shit. Am v. tired now. Maybe tomorrow I will go through my top three fears, which are probably:

• death
• going into space
• going to jail

In position

Getting a bit sick of always having to sit in the same position on my bed in order to make use of some premium stolen Internet. I keep on having this epiphany that the wireless signal I'm stealing has actually been set up to catch people like me out as Internet stealers. It doesn't seem all that bogus at 1mb/s download speeds - and all I have to do is sit here:

And get a bad back. Seems too easy.

Anyway, today I made a really great iPod playlist when I was on the bus. 'On-The-Go 1' is it's moniker for the time being. 'Bus Sounds' might be the next stage for it.
I've taken the liberty of writing out what's on it and saying why I love these songs so much. I'm no music journo, so my descriptions are really crap and biased, but hopefully you'll agree if you've heard them, or want to hear them if you haven't. Whatever bro.


1. Elle S'appelle - Little Flame - think this is the only song of theirs that I actually like, cos it's the only one that doesn't sound like they just completely ripped off Hot Club de Paris or National School. More like a double rip off of the two, but it works and is full of joy. Love it.

2. Mint Royal - Don't Falter - I remember when this came out. I was still at high school. I had it on a mix on my minidisc player (remember those? I didn't think anything would ever come smaller than a MINIDISC. Clue was in the name!) and used to listen to it on the bus all the time. I HATED getting the bus. Thinking about it, a half to the first stop was only 27p. Great days. Anyway, if you don't like this song, then I don't know what's up with you. It's got Lauren Laverne on it as well. It's almost 10 years old, but you would never know.

3. Desaparecidos - Mañana - You know when a band slips out of your consciousness, but then someone reminds you of them, you pick up your iPod and whereyou'd usually just skip past them, you stop and think 'I am DEFINITELY listening to this!'? This happened to me the other day. Someone said 'do you like Desaparecidos?', and I thought 'christ, YES, I do!', and I haven't looked back since. This is my favourite song on Read Music / Speak Spanish. It's mega full of energy. ACE. There's one of those cute conversation interludes at the end, just before the next song comes in. The next song, 'Greater Omaha', reminded me of...

4. Calories - Drugged - pretty much one of the greatest song I've heard this year so far. It's so simple, and at times mainly sounds like drunk men (rowdy, but not horrible) singing together, but it's brilliant. I don't really know what else to say about it. Give it a listen.

5. Sebadoh - Skull - Don't think I could ever tire of this song. Unless you locked me in a room and just had it on repeat, obviously. It's so good. I think it gives an important insight into drug-taking, too. I'm always sort of... not TOUCHED by the lyrics, but I think the whole song is important. Well good. Love Sebadoh.

6. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Oregon Girl- Was gonna put 'Travel Song' on here, but thought it was 'too obvious'. Wish I was from Oregon.

7. Wolf Parade - Grounds For Divorce - PERFECT SONG! It reminds me of hundreds of different occasions all at once. The way Dan Boeckner sings is wonderful. DOO DEE DOO DOO DOO DEE DOO DOO. That's me doing the tune. Can you see how strained these descriptions are getting? Jeez.

8. Les Savy Fav - Sweat Descends - Nothing much to say about this but YEAAAH! WOOOOO! BEST SONG EVER!!!!!!

9. Death Cab For Cutie - Expo '86 - GREAT SONG. SO GREAT. Keep wondering what 'Expo 86' is? I was alive in '86. Why wasn't I invited to this expo??? "I AM WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO GO WRONG, I AM WAITING FOR FAMILIAR RESOLVE"

10. Get Up Kids - I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel - How could you not love a song that's called this? Even before you've heard it you love it loads. Well, I do anyway. I remember once I went to see them and they played this live. I almost cried, cos I'm so emo and ting. ~cry.


WELL, that was fun. I got bored towards the end, as you can probably tell. Watching Big Brother now. In bed. What a life.

Hiya

If you've come here because I've bullied you into it from Twitter, HELLO

Manchester Piccadilly - freak spotting

Train station, innit? I mean, Manchester is totally full of freaks at the best of times, but this place is FREAK INTERCHANGE, especially on a Friday night / Saturday morning.

I've never really seen any drama go down in there, though. No one getting arrested or fighting or anything like that. Am I going down there at the wrong times?

It used to be quite exciting a couple of years back when you stood at platform 13 (North Wales bound) looking down onto where the Star & Garter is and there was loads of prostitutes hanging around. But then I think they got a little scared off because they started building some halls of residence, then they opened a really nice hotel and generally scared everyone off.

The hotel (this one) is all dark glass. I think I'd quite like a job cleaning a couple of the windows now and again.