Sleep vs. Blogging

Gah, sorry for the lack of blogging going on recently. I've had a very manic week and it's been the choice between sleep and blogging. Sleep won, every time.

I'm composing a post about the lovely Edwina Currie who I had the pleasure of hearing speak last week, and another about power dressing. Funsies. It seems I've become a little bit (!) biased towards political posts depite promising not to. Things in the political world have just been giving me plenty of 'ranting' ammunition over the last few weeks. Although I'm sure this will only increase leading up to the election, so I promise to attempt to not be too much of a bore on here...

Irregular Customers

Like most other students who had the misfortune to graduate into the recession (thanks Gordon), rather than obtain a fantastic graduate opportunity I'm working two different jobs both of which I'm fairly overqualified for. Not that I can complain - many of my friends are in worse situations. I can count myself lucky that I have found one job, let alone two.



My first job is a barmaid in a local pub; this has provided me with many opportunities to get to know the, ahem, colourful regulars. For instance, the woman who claims incapacity benefits but still manages to dance away on Friday nights and has to have two half pint glasses, from a certain tap, with no head. And then MUST keep the same glasses ALL night. Lovely.
Or the pub quiz obsessed alcoholic who spends his entire time reading question books. One chap chooses to spout the Dail Fail at me on a regular basis, providing me with some real gems such as:



"All the immigrants, they swim across the channel to get here."



"I'm pretty sure they don't Geoff. It's quite hard to swim across the channel."



"No, no. How else can they get here from Afghanistan?"



And



"Only 40% of people voted in the last election, and they were all black."



While these comments provide an element of black comedy during a long and tiresome shift, it is also scary. These people are a reflection of society, a society labour would rather not amit exists - the benefits cheat, the lonely alcoholic and the potential BNP voter.

I'm hoping that WHEN we get voted into power next year the Tories follow through on their promise to overhaul the benfits system; and while drinking is a terrible burden on the public sector there does seem to be some progress towards at least attmepting to change attitudes.

The last example is trickier, and shows perfectly why Nick Griffin had to appear on question time. He managed to show himself up completely, but I do feel that had he been hounded less the effect of disgusting the nation would've been stronger. Not only did he come out with some horrdendous homophobic comments (best rebuff - "the revulsion is mutual") he failed to demonstrate any from of charisma or intelligence. Watching him was like watching my sixth form debating society, on a bad day...

But - HORROR - according to polls a whacking great 30% of British voters now consider the BNP to be a viable political party. Were they not watching the same program as myself and others?

I'm not sure how lightly to take this statistic though, as even The Fail took a strong anti-Griffin stance. Unfortunateley they are political players; however idiotic they may be, they still managed to produce results in the last election. And that is why we need to give the BNP as much coverage as possible, because there is only so many TV appearences that can go by before the public realises what cretins this 'political party' are made up of.

I know I'm a bit behind the times, but I wrote about 90% of this last Friday and it seemed a shame to waste it...

Donny Bear

My Mum found this picture of ToryBear hilarious - she noticed a striking resemblence between him singing karaoke and a certain eighties heart-throb...

What do you think? Remember that this is the woman who sobs "how did I raise a Tory?!" down the phone whenever I mention my political preference....

Oh dear.

Women(have)2Win

As a young woman involved in politics I’m far from ignorant about the difficulties faced by our fairer sex in what is still an extremely male dominated area. My CF branches at University and at home have, including myself, only three regular female faces. Conference was equally male dominated (a party of eighteen from our constituency had just three women) and I often felt slightly out of a place as a very young woman not accompanying a husband or working under an MP.

The lack of female presence in politics is something that needs to be seriously rectified; it’s something that I feel very strongly about. But no matter what female friendly initiatives have been done it hasn’t seemed to affect the numbers of women in politics. Even the measures taken to select more women didn’t encourage close to enough onto the approved list of candidates; unfortunately this seems more to do with perceptions about the world of politics and women’s reluctance to participate in such a testosterone fuelled environment.

Or so I thought, until a friend pointed out that in the seven recent conservative primaries, only one of the candidates selected by the public has been a woman. So it seems that it might not just be women who are reluctant to join politics – the voting public also appear to be reluctant to let them join too.

Theresa May - shadow minister for women and

co-chairman of the fabulous initiative women2win

As a response today David Cameron announced an initiative to get more women into political power – remove the choice in future candidate selection by imposing all-female shortlists.

Now I am all for making it easier for women to get into politics, but this isn’t helping women into politics. It’s shoving them forward with one hand while holding men back with another. Any sort of discrimination is unacceptable, whether it is positive or negative, and ideas like this will do nothing to help female politicians. Quite the opposite.

I want my local MP or PPC to be selected based on their suitability, not their breasts, and I find it slightly patronising when ‘initiatives’ such as this one are suggested. Yes, we need more female politicians, and yes we need to do something to make this happen; not by shoehorning women into positions of power.

To help women achieve their potential as politicians we need to help them move forward, not hold men back. And ideas like the one proposed today will do nothing for the former, and heaps for the latter.

Bonfire Fright...

Bonfire party at my Mum's last night. Despite being on my feet for eight hours at work all day it was lots of fun, marred slightly by the fact that the fireworks were manned by two pyromaniacs. The results were...interesting.

Now I know why fireworks should NEVER be thrown on fires...

But lots of fun all the same.

Den gets petrol happy with the bonfire.

I do love a good fire though, it takes me back to my scout days. At University I was always the one clamouring the gather firewood during the long summer days (that should've been spent studying). There's something lovely about wrapping up, trying to keep warm by drinking (copious) amounts of mulled wine and waving sparkers around like a five year old.

However, the reason this party was quite early in the whole 'bonfire' season is because my Mum is jetting off to Australia in a few weeks to have a look at places to live. Which is a fairly scary thought.

Even though I've not lived with her for a few years, and have always been very independent, it's totally different having someone thousands of miles away rather than a hundred or so. I'll also hopefully be going to live with her for a year, and even though I'm very excited we're approaching the point of no return in terms of life changing decisions.

Not that I begrudge the thought of spending a bonfire night on the beach. I will miss the mulled wine though...

So yesterday, it wasn't just the fireworks (literally) whooshing past my head that were making me nervous. The thought of impending change was lending more than a helping hand.

Work life in-balance...

I've just realised that I've ended up working every day between my Lancaster visits. That's an eleven day stint. Not cool.

The most annoying thing is that because I'm being paid minimum wage I'm not exactly earning the big bucks for my trouble. Can someone please remind me of why I needed to do a degree? Because at the moment I am the most (academically) qualified person in both of my jobs, something that's not reflected in either wage or responsibility.

With 48 people fighting it out for each graduate job, it's small wonder that I find myself in this situation. To be honest, I'm lucky to have two jobs when I have a fantastically wonderful few friends who have enormous brains but have been forced to sign on. Not, however, through a lack of trying.

But has this deficit been mentioned in the jobs crisis? Of course not. I can't blame the politicians really, it's our own bloody fault. A woeful amount of young people turn out to vote, so it's unsurprising that policies tend to be aimed at older generations. In 2001 voter turnout for the over 65s was 87% - for the 18-24s a mere 53% bothered to exercise their democratic rights. It hardly seems worth whacking graduate jobs on the agenda when half of those affected won't actually be giving you an extra vote. And us young 'uns are supposed to be all full of drive and enthusiasm, yet so many don't take the five minutes needed to vote. A right that people have (very recently) died for us to have.

It's shameful.

So, I have the right to have a good old moan about the state of affairs because I use my right to vote. Which is good, because if there's any excuse for a grumble then working eleven days in a row has got to be up there with bank holiday weather...

Gosh, I have been moaning lots on here though. I promise future blogs will contain less depressing material, perhaps I'll talk about clothes. Or rainbows and bunnies.

Maybe not.

Hello buoys...

For anyone interested, here's how I ended up preserving my modesty at work tonight:

Kaftan & cossie - Accessorize

Leggings & pumps - Dotty Ps

And, using only my quick wit and charm, I managed to garner over £10 worth of tips. The feminist on my shoulder can sleep easy.

Unlike moi, who consumed far too many vodka redbulls. But thankfully I have Strictly Come Dancing to entertain me until the effects wear off...

The female ooo-look

I've got work later on, and tonight my bar is running a 'beach party'. This means that I'm expected to turn up in some sort of beach wear, preferably something bikini-esque and titilating.


I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. Granted, it's not being run as a deliberate attempt at prostituting the (exclusively female) bar staff and my boss sees it as a fun thing for us to do. A night out, but at work if you will. But there still feels something decidedly...exploitative about the whole thing, and I'm not sure how willing I am to participate.

I don't know whether the problem could be that I have no choice but to participate. Anyone not in 'the spirit of things' will be either chaistised or sent home. I'm all for fancy dress, but not when the choice is to get my baps out or dress like some enuch surfer.

The thing is, I'm not sure exactly why I have an objection to all this. It's been organised by my (lovely) female boss, and it's not being mooted as a formal way to exploit staff - just as a bit of fun. The fact that my choice is taken away from me can't really be a deciding factor in my reluctance - we have to dress up on halloween, NYE and christmas eve and that's always brilliant.

One thing making me uncomfortable is my co-workers undisguised glee at the prospect of serving customers dressed in bikinis. For my whole life I've been brought up in a strongly feminist household, and it makes me upset to see very intelligent young women so happy to flash the flesh, safe in the knowledge that a few hundred men will be taking more than one mental picture home with them.

During work (mostly, it must be said, due to the said 'assests') I try to cover up as much as possible, and it really angers me whenever I get eloquent comments like "you've got massive tits" growled at me as I try to do my job.

Thinking about it, what's really making me angry is that I should be able to serve in a bikini. I should be able to serve in little more than nipple tassells and a thong, should the mood ever take me. I should be able to wear what I like without having to endure crass comments on my appearance. In what other profession would it be acceptable for a customer to enquire about my bra size and marital status? But I can't. I can't wear something tonight without being incredibly self concious in the knowledge that I'm being scrutinised continuously but drunken louts.

And, no, I'm not just having a moan at a few comments. It's frequent and comes from men of all shapes and sizes. I've even (on occasion) has women commenting on my appearance.

And it's not bloody fair.

Daily Fail

The Daily Mail is a curious creature, both respected and depised depending on the readers knowledge of both politics and journalism. The majority of those who read it seem to be ignorant of the bigoted message that often underlies it's stories (or at least, that's what I'd hope), however sometimes those who participate in it's 'journalism' sometimes find their acerbic views too much to contain.

This seems to be true in the case of Jan Moir, who today wrote a column that seems to assume Stephen Gately couldn't possibly have died from natural causes. He was one of those gay people, you see.

It can't be the case that his death was natural because "Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again." Well, actually Jan, they do. About 500 people a die from Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) every year, and their average age is - shock - 32.

The basis of Ms Moir's assumptions (because, frankly, that's the politest thing to call them) seems to be that while not all homosexuals are "like George Michael", the rest of them are. So the young couple couldn't possibly have invited a friend back to their house for a post clubbing cup of tea or similar. It must have been because they wanted to engage in something altogether seedier, something sexually depraved probably involving illegal substances.

The fact of the matter is that Stephen Gateley died from fluid in his lungs, something that affects people who are straight, gay, transgender or bisexual. Whatever killed him was not discriminative, and neither should we be.

It is worrying when even the Daily Mail believes something to be too bigoted - the website headline has now changed to "A strange, lonely and troubling death". It certainly seems to describe Ms Moir's career. Bu- bye.

I'd like to share with you my favourite ever Daily Mail quote. I loved it so much I tore out the article and pinned it up on my notice board: "Government whip Sadiq Khan urges fellow Muslims to abandon their victim mentality and 'step up to the plate'. The Americanism - derived from U.S. baseball - doesn't really work here. The plate Muslims step up to here usually contains chicken tikka biryani."

Brilliant.

"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit"

I wish I could be a witty fool, but the only time I ever think of myself as witty is after a few glasses of vino, and alcoholism seems a steep price to pay for a few laughs among friends. So I'm quite happy to be the foolish wit, at least I can keep my common sense.

Blogging, everyone's at it these days. And, seeing as my life at the moment consists of work, work, and reading the blogs of others I thought I'd put myself out there too.

I'm not fashinable enough to write a fashion blog, not well enough connected to write a political blog, and too boring to simply document my day to day life.

So this blog will simply be musings on whatever takes my daily fancy. It could mean some long (and slightly ranty) posts about the failing of the Labour party, film/theatre/book reccomendations (and if I find lots of spare time, even reviews) or whimsical thoughts to long to put onto twitter.

Provided I don't suddenly become hip, an MP or obtain an existence of excitement or glamour this is the way it'll stay. Although the third option would be quite tempting... But unlikely.

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