The Emperors New Clothes

I have been working on a dissertation for the past few days now it’s starting to feel like I am writing it in my own cold blood drawn from my wounded corpse with a rusty quill. Like most borderline personalities I oscillate from thinking I am completely useless to believing I am no less than genius. I totally underestimated how long it would take to write up an 8000 word academic report. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I realised that I am actually not capable of producing a year’s work in 3 days.


One of the issues I am discussing at the moment is the changing educational profile of the average student. It used to be that you had to be literate and reasonably bright in a bookish sort of a way to go to university. In the late 80’s the government decided that pretty much any public building with young people over 17 in it was now to be called a university. They then decided that everyone had the right to attend university and soon after that revelation they decided that higher education was no longer going to be free. Cunning!

Simultaneously British manufacturing companies decided that they would stop producing their products at home and in order to maximise their profit margins, outsource production to unpleasant places in the East as it was cheaper. Banks, communications businesses & service providers did the same thing and rather than provide employment in Britain they set up call centres and processing centres in far flung corners of the globe where life is cheap and employees even cheaper.

So basically Britain has very few employment opportunities for unskilled young people who haven’t done particularly well at school. The government makes it very hard for these people to get benefits or training but has no problem offering them a loan so they can pay the fees at their local university. Universities are happy to take on these fee paying students, in fact they expand so they can offer places to more of them. They drop entry requirements in the name of ‘equality and diversity’ in order that they can justify offering a degree programme to a teenager who couldn’t write a note for the milkman.

Many of these students claim to be dyslexic but the reality is most of them have been completely failed by the school system and some of them are just not that bright. I can’t imagine why a dyslexic person or someone who just can’t read and write would want to take a course that requires them to do the thing that is most difficult for them. Of course there are exceptions to every rule but I have always been inclined to take the path of least resistance. Hence I am not performing with the Ballet Rambert at the weekend or modelling lingerie in Paris come September! In the world of political correctness it has become sacrilege to suggest to someone that maybe they are unlikely to do well at something they can barely do at all.

So I am writing about ‘issues of diversity and equality in higher education’ or more accurately ‘how the fuck do we get all these illiterate people through a 3 year degree program so we don’t loose their fees?’

'We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are' Sartre

Having spent the day updating my CV’s and applying for about 100 jobs that I really don’t want I am left to reflect on the reality that I really do seem to have wasted my life away. I don’t appear to be qualified for anything much at all. There is a whole 20 years that I can’t account for other than there’s a 18 year old boy living in my flat who says he is related to me. On paper I appear to have haunted rather than actually lived on this planet. In reality this is true.


Is this what they mean by existentialism ?

I could be a genius if only I could get round to it ...

My ideal job would be ‘novelist’ , I would sit at my computer in a vintage night gown tap tap tapping away while cheques written in all my favourite currencies fluttered on to my door mat every morning. Unfortunately I can’t get it together to write more than a paragraph a month and it’s very hard to negotiate a publishing advance with that kind of output in this kind of economy.

I am always talking to you and I am sad that you can’t hear

Looking for comfort in all the wrong places as usual, I returned to the Spiritualist Church last night. The medium was a trembling charlatan who alienated the congregation with her vagaries and generalisations. My dog has demonstrated more evidence of clairvoyance than she did. It’s perhaps not surprising that an attempt to find meaning in life by contemplating death proved futile. A friend of mine who used to suffer from depression told me that his melancholic disposition cheered considerably when he realised that death was inevitable.

Let us be lovers and marry our fortunes together

I am off to the land of the free tomorrow – my flight is delayed but I don’t suppose that means I could have a lie in and stroll up to check in at lunch time. I think that means by lunch time I will have slathered myself in Exxon Valdez quantities of La Prairie skin caviar from duty free.

‘Would you like any help madam?’

‘No Barbarella I would not! I am just dabbing on as much expensive stuff as I can because I am fucking trapped here and this is the only way I can make someone pay.’

A job is for christmas - not for life

God I am so ashamed – I have only made 2 entries on my blog in as many months. I have been busy working and not only does that leave me with very little spare time but the whole experience is so totally fucking soul destroying I can’t bear to speak to anyone for the duration. So far this semester I have had one student tell me ‘he doesn’t rate me’ another kick over a chair with rage when he received his grades and some self righteous twat complain that I made a sarcastic comment in my evaluation of her proposal ! I receive daily emails from students ‘Yo Miss – why did I fail my assessment?’ Not once I have a written back ‘Because you are a fucking moron’ I am doing my best to keep it together but I am starting to feel like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.

And the ones that mother gives you ......

Age ten, I took my first over dose when my mum told me she was getting married (THE NEXT DAY) and that we would be leaving my grandparents house where we lived to share a new rented house in a couple of miles away with Jimmy! He was a dark haired man she had been seeing for a couple of months. Occasionally he brought me gifts that I stamped on - I imagine the happy couple suspected news of their union would not be well received, hence the delay with my invitation.
My overdose consisted of a topiary of the contents of my grandparents medicine cupboard. I guess I swallowed a heady concoction of paracetamol, blood pressure pills and Haliborange washed down with Buttercup Syrup. My whole family stayed up late to await relatives arriving from the South. I passed out and unconcerned they put me to bed.
The next morning I awoke to discover that heaven looked very much the same as my tiny purple wallpapered box room. Gordon the goldfish rolled his eyes at me. I came fast to the conclusion that I had been defeated rather than saved. My mum had hung a new dress on my wardrobe - it was blue and white and it had a fabric belt - plain on one side, printed on the other. Later as she helped me put it on she explained that it was 'reversible'.

You're going to feel a little pin prick

Oh God - I just remembered I have to have a blood test first thing in the morning. Despite everything I say about loving Eric I am a squeamish vegetarian and I hate them. I have fainted so many times whilst having it done; once I collapsed onto the needle and it bent in my arm – Yuk & Fuck! Another time I passed out and the barrel of the syringe burst – I woke up covered in blood with a horrified nurse staring at me – I didn’t know where I was and I thought I must have been hit by a car or something. I’ll try and talk them into giving me a pre – med before the procedure – smaller needle followed by cold hand of death oblivion – much prefer that!

I thought it was silent until it went silent

I don't normally like to go to the theatre; its all a bit close for comfort for my liking. However, I did go to the Young Vic to see 4.48 Psychosis. The performance centres around the dialog of a woman having a nervous breakdown and from what I can remember it sounded pretty accurate to me.

It's raining in my heart

If it had been made clear that Global Warming actually meant we would get more rain, I would have stopped using aerosols ages ago.

The only illness is mental illness

Just wandered home through Soho on a rainy Thursday evening – having wasted £30 on a massage that really hurt and even more money on revolting health food from the shop next door. Perhaps I am not depressed – I may have a wheat allergy. The truth is I have an allergic reaction to mediocrity that no amount of tofu is going to cure. Why would you call a massage shop Relax anyway? – nothing annoys me more than the non sexual touch of strangers . I only went there because I hurt - I am miserable, exhausted, unappreciated and generally over it and somehow the unhappy state of my life manifests itself in my left shoulder, in pain.

I looked up sadness on Google just now ‘Sadness is an emotion characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, and helplessness. When sad, people often become quiet, less energetic, and withdrawn’ so it’s official I am sad. Further research led me to some power ballads on You Tube (I’ll spare you the link) and an interesting article published in The Times discussing how medics have pathologised sadness replacing the s with m and have set about ridding the Western world of the joys of melancholia by recklessly prescribing SSRI’s anti depressants the minute we stop laughing. Thank God for that then - I hope I haven’t thrown them away!

How did this happen?

I am drinking chocolate milkshake late at night – with no hope of burning off any of the calories – even briskest walk to my bedroom won’t make a dent in them. I am attempting to create a sugar high so that I can put the finishing touches to a power point - working title ‘Motivation at Work & Other Anomalies.’ I have no idea how I got myself into this situation, I feel like Virginia Woolf in The Hours ‘I am living a life I don’t want to live in a place where I don’t want to live it..............’

She wore blue velvet

Feel like Frank Booth in Blue Velvet – marking papers again, which makes me realise two things 1. I hate stupid people & 2. I am just this side of psychotic.

Now take a big hit of tippex and start cursing.

The flowers of romance

St Valentines day on Saturday, the day to band-aid your stale relationships with heart shaped chocolates and cheap South African roses or risk loosing them all together. The day that god put aside for lovers......A sobering alternative theory suggests that the holiday originates from the story of Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering. (Way to go Val!) How he made it to the post office to mail his heart is hard to figure.

You used to bring me roses

At my age I find that there are so few ‘first times’ available to me. But excitingly I have a Visiting Order for an actual prison visit! Although I have been out with a few men that should have been in jail – I never went out with any one who actually was – not so much an issue of standards simply the lack of opportunity. I was thinking of becoming pen pals with Richard Ramirez (many is the time I have confused pity with love and excitment with danger) but then I read an article that said he had really foul breath which put me right off him. Anyway we are off on a mission to support our friend and I am thrilled to hear that we will be travelling with other visitors to the jail. I shall document the whole thing in the manner of Diane Arbus. I am predicting a high incidence of blond hair extensions, spray tans and inexpensive perfume. I shall wear my tartiest outfit in order to blend. Actually one time I got a photography job and I had to shoot the lifers wing at Wormwood Scrubs. I thought it might be a fun gig – loads of tough tattooed guy like in Con Air but actually it was full of pathetic little men whose real crime was bad luck and lack of opportunity. The truth is I think prisons are a social shame – and that we as a civilised country ought to be able to embrace and rehabilitate people who fall into difficulty within the larger community and that only very dangerous psychopathic people should be locked up.

Hell is other people

I would like to call for an end to all shared dining tables in restaurants. I have just endured the most distressing lunch ever. In Divertiment on Marylebone High Street I was forced to share the community table with the most disgusting old crone ever – she had slabs of grease literally hanging from her ancient nose. I shouldn’t have kept looking but I had to keep checking it was as bad as I first thought. On the other side of me I had dopey pseudo intellectual (wearing polo neck obviously) discussing ‘prose’ in a loud voice and across from me a self absorbed girl who was just plain ugly who was talking at her mother with her fat mouth full. Why can’t they quality control people before inflicting them on others. Are you clean, not a loud bore, do you eat nicely and are you able to not blow your vile nose for the duration?

A womans work

Oh god I need a new job or a lottery win. I have come to the conclusion that education is not for me. I have been marking papers for what seems like ages and I am on the brink of writing comments like ‘you really are a f*cking idiot’ , ‘ how dare you submit this pile of crap you illiterate c*nt’ . I can’t keep it together much longer. Staff meeting tomorrow – shall have to get up early to have a bath and organise hair into something less Pagan than today. Will endeavour to affect optimistic outlook and make inoffensive small talk while inside my head is spinning and spewing green bile and obscenities like the scary kid in The Exorcist.

It’s raining on my house and non of the others

These antidepressants aren’t working! Its my last day of work today at least until January and instead of feeling joy, relief or even (god forbid) a sense of achievement I feel apathy, darkness and despair. It might be the full moon or old demons tempting me back. I’d like to lie here figuring myself out but fortunately or unfortunately I have a dog to walk.

In the bleak midwinter

Damn it's gloomy, alongside a bad attitude and glass half empty demeanour I also fear that I suffer from that SAD complex. The cold is one thing - I am quite capable of putting on an APC cardy and a bit of Eve Lomb kissmix but the grey skies are killing me. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't know the overcast is gonna last - till mid March.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

When I didn’t have a job I was really worried about money, I had too much time on my hands and no real sense of purpose. Now I have a job I am anxious, short tempered and resentful. I am on week 7 of a 10 week contract – it’s the first time in my life since I was 5 that I have actually looked forward to Christmas!