Eccentric Seal

I've recently joined weight watchers, a relatively sensible weight loss plan with the emphasis on gradual weight loss, sensible eating and getting your five a day. It's something I can live with. In the sense of being able to actually stick to it without dying of hunger and giving it all up in despair. And also and in the sense of being able to reconcile it with my  shaky, but still existent  feminist principles. The written matierals,the website and the plan itself, are pleasingly free of judgement. There are no good or bad foods and you are not made to feel like eating is "sinfull" or "naughty" or shamefull in any way. Instead there is a workable system calibrated to allow you to eat just under the amount of calories you use each day, losing a sensible maximum of 2lbs per week. So far, so good. Encouragement and peer support is important so every week I go for a weigh in and a little meeting which is  both deeply naff and oddly heartening. Yesterday I g...

I've been applying for a lot of jobs lately. Mostly very similar posts, involving similar tasks and needing similar attributes. Mostly very similar to jobs I've done before. Whats interesting, given how similar are the jobs, is how different the person specifications can be. Here's one I just applied for. The job involves giving legal advice to univeristy students These Attributes are "Essential": Ambitious Graduate Must present a professional image These attributes are only "Desirable": Knowledge of the principles of advice, information or advocacy work Knowledge of Student Funding System Knowledge of Welfare Benefit System In other words, this employer thinks it is more important to recruit someone middle class than someone who can do the job. Incredible  isnt it?

The reason I became a homeless 16 year old hippy was that I was desperate, just desperate for somewhere to fit in. I was sick of being misunderstood and rejected and attacked. I was fed up of being hated and lonely and messed about. Several years earlier: the antipathy that was like a background noise to my life had spilled over into mob violence on the estate and something crystallised in my understanding of the world.   My burden was not manageable after all. I was the centre of a dangerous vortex that would engulf those I loved as surely as it could me. I was not going to be able to handle it by myself. Not with stoicism or backchat or violence or with any resources I was capable of drawing on. My parents couldn’t protect me, they couldn’t even protect themselves. I was fucked. I’d felt like an outsider and a freak all my life and could point to no end of incidents and anecdotes to prove it. Never mind that every incident was different. They all involved me and they all pointed ...

 Dirty Hippy  When I was 16 I was a little hippy. On the left is a picture of me at my hippiest. As you can see I'm laughing hysterically in a supermarket while wearing an ambulance-mans hi viz jacket (as was the fashion for little hippies at the time.) Also I'm very stoned. I was a happy little hippy and I lived with a lot of hippy friends in caravans and boats, derelict warehouses, abandoned buildings, all sorts of funny places. We knew a lot of tricks for survival and it didn't matter that we never had any money because there was always some new scam to get by and besides we had each other which was great because we were all a lot of fun to be around. So one day, someone had told me that you could pick up a lot of fruit and veg off the floor at Berwick Street market at the end of the day. Berwick Street would definitely be the best place to go, because a lot trendy rich people like to hang out in Soho and that means...

It seems like this couple: http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/handmade-weddings-depression-era-hobo/  have the internet up in arms after over their cultural appropriation of depression era poverty as their wedding theme.    Kenwood House: Dream Venue   This reminds me of something that happened when I was planning my own wedding.   Hampstead Heath is a beautiful big park in London, which I just adore. At the top of the park is Kenwood House, an old manor house which is now run as museum and restaurant.   Kenwood House is licensed to perform marriages and I loved the idea of having my wedding there. I could picture myself coming out of this big white building, family and friends around me and looking out over rolling parkland at all the families picnicking and the kids running around. I just thought it would be perfect.    Hiring a manor house does not come cheap but I was encouraged to see that they also do a reception ...