Another Christmas has been and gone, as hectic and uneventful as all those which proceeded it, the distraction of planning where to go on New Years Eve has passed, (we went to Thekla, and a fun, if slightly messy time was had by all) and here we are again, edging slowly, gloomily, through January. In an attempt to explain the conundrum I refer to as ‘The January Blues’ I will relay to you a misery inspiring top five of the mirthless topics of conversation I have been dragged into so far this week.
1. The weather. Numerous accounts of what terrible, cold, grey weather we are having has passed between myself, people at work, people on the bus, people in the newsagents where I buy my cigarettes (another resolution broken already), in fact between myself and people anywhere that warrants small talk. We English really do need something new to discuss.
2. Ahem, the weather. Again. An extension of point one really. The discussion of the terrible weather inevitably leads on to the discussion of the lack of sunlight, of useable hours in the day, and to getting up in the dark, and returning home in the dark. This leads to the assertion that you, I and everyone I speak to suspects they may in fact have that January specific illness, Seasonal Affective Disorder, complete with glib acronym, SAD.
3. Money. The amount of debt everyone has accumulated over the merry Christmas present buying period, which at the time of accumulation presented the dream of happy smiling faces Christmas morning, but that now looks totally different in the grey light of January. ‘Its not as if Christmas was that special anyway’. Every year.
4. Sickness. Everyone has either a cold, or more often (at least as they tell it) flu. People are ill. People have no energy. If you aren’t ill yet, you’re paranoid that you may get ill. There is no time for illness in January. You need to work all the hours you can to pay off all that Christmas debt after all. This leads to you sitting on the jam- packed bus on the way to work, next to some bloke coughing his guts up, covering your mouth with your jumper sleeve and praying you don’t inhale any of his germs.
5. Vital Statistics. The other conversations I have been begrudgingly involved in are those ‘informative’ ones, where someone has picked up apparently factual statistics, collated by no-one knows who, worked out for who knows what reason, and obtained, no-one knows where. Statistics this week have included; ‘did you know today is statistically the most depressing day of the year?’ ‘Did you know that statistically the most suicides occur on this date every year?’ ‘Did you know that most couples break up on this date every year? Really. And all in January. It’s apparently a very unlucky month.
So why must we be so morose about life at the start of every New Year? We need to fight back, slap January around its miserable grey face and think of all the positive aspects that this time of year can offer us. Right, having wracked my brains for at least five minutes, here are some positive things about January…
1. January sales. Although it is disturbingly hectic in town, and I had to practically physically fight for it in Debenhams, I picked up a beautiful new coat for a tenner! Also, although you know you probably won’t even attempt all that health and fitness related stuff you resolved to do, you can always ease you conscience the easy way and buy vitamins, which are also half price.
2. A clean slate. January is the best excuse to forget/ignore all the stupid and shameful things you did in the previous year. That bumbling, far from eloquent mess you personified last year has no bearing on the ‘new’ you. You have turned over a new leaf, and you can declare it to people. They might even believe you. You may even believe yourself.
3. Laziness. There are undeniably far fewer daylight hours, and baby it’s cold outside. So stay in. You have to wear bulky clothes, so you may as well eat as much junk as you like; no one is going to know (until summer) and the darkness means you can have lovely long lye-ins without the sun interrupting your slumber in the morning. Animals stock up on food and hibernate in the winter, and if nature dictates it, who are we to argue? You’re not wasting the day, after all, its only five hours long.
4. Being Grumpy. Even saints get bloody grumpy for no discernable reason sometimes. Those days where you just want to moan, put the world to rights, be arsy to clients at work, tell salespeople what you really think of them, start an argument with someone for the hell of it. Well, January is the best excuse in the world. Blame it on SAD. It’s a real illness. People may even feel sorry for you if you’re lucky.
So if you think about it, maybe January isn’t all that bad after all. It just depends on how you look at it, and while I have been writing this it has actually started to snow! Given the fact that it has up until now been raining all day, it probably wont stick, but looking out of my window Bristol really does look very beautiful, and snow, no matter what your age never fails to cheer people up. There are in fact lots of faces doing exactly what I am and looking out of their windows at the weather, and I just got a nod of mutual snow appreciation from a very cute bloke in a suit from the office window opposite. Hmm, could be the start of some beautiful January romance, after all, he’s probably single, it was ‘officially’ break up day at some point last week…
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Monday 4 January 2010
Show Hippies
I moved into a shared house in Bristol, because basically, the room was really cheap. I knew one of the blokes who lived there, and liked him a lot. And it was in this shared house that I met him. That modern day wonder, the show hippie. Not that he wanted to be known as a hippie of course. Having made the mistake of branding him as such, I was quickly corrected;
‘I hate it when people call me a hippie. I’m not a hippie’.
‘So what are you then?’ I had to ask.
‘Well… not a hippie. I just believe in being self sufficient. I hate the system… people get so caught up in the money and the materialism. They need to get back to their roots, to creating things for themselves, to live free from the man, maan’.
And this is how he talked. Nice idea right. I’m not a massive supporter of capitalism or anything, but there is nothing worse than a show hippie.
I got home from work n a Wednesday, another uneventful, long day in another indistinguishable admin job, to find show hippie sitting on the sofa, joint smoking lazily away in the ashtray, Xbox controller in hand, staring fixedly at the screen.
‘Good day?’ I enquired as I took my shoes off and put my bag down.
‘Yeah man. You?’ He asked without looking up.
‘Same old, I’m knackered’ I replied. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’
After a long pause, ‘Yeah’, he said, still not looking away from the things he was killing on screen.
So off I trundled, downstairs to put the kettle on. It took me ten minutes to locate the kettle and two mugs, and to rinse them in the small space between the pile of festering plates in the sink and the faucet, so feeling pretty pissed off, but not in the mood for a moan (I’m no one’s mum after all) I took the tea upstairs, got out a cigarette and sat down. But fragile peace was ruined as I took the first drag by the following comment;
‘It must get you down, yeah? Working for the man’?’
Fuck. Here we go again I thought. ‘The man’ The bloody man. I really was in no mood to get into this conversation, so I didn’t respond. Until came the next show hippie pearl of wisdom;
‘I couldn’t do it’.
Right, that was it. I was actively pissed off now.
‘So what have you done today?’ I asked. Intonation intended, but sadly overlooked.
‘Well, (big toke from his joint) I’ve been making these patchwork trousers’.
Right.
‘And I planted some more tomatoes’.
But no time to do any washing up. I thought silently to myself, and opted for the much less stressful option of not entering into any debate.
‘Cool’. I said, and left the room.
Thursday, I get home, and there he is, sitting on the sofa in his patchwork trousers. Attention glued to the Xbox again. Only today, I had a glass of wine after work, and when I got in I had poured myself another. In a paper cup left over from one of their house parties, because I really couldn’t face the kitchen.
‘Another day working for the man.’ He said.
And after another dope filled pause;
‘I couldn’t do it’.
Well, that was it. Today I had to get involved. Where does this lazy tosser get off (I thought) judging me whilst sitting on his arse, in his bloody patchwork creations playing Halo all day. Given all the weed he smokes, I’m amazed he can manage to be judgmental and shoot aliens at the same time!
‘So what would you like to do?’ I ask.
‘Well, (another big toke) I’ve never really found a job that suited me’.
‘What job do you think would suit you?’
‘One that helps sustain the planet. Where I’m not part of the system’. I just know I couldn’t work for the man’.
Argh! The man again.
‘So what would you do to sustain the planet?’ I ask, genuinely interested in what answer this lazy bum is going to come up with the save the world.
‘I don’t know. I grow things and I paint. I did a degree in art, but I got a 3rd because they didn’t understand my work.’
Tempted as I was, I managed to restrain myself from pointing out that you had to do a fair bit of work for an art degree, and that, rather than misunderstood genius, was much more likely to have been the key to his downfall.
Anyway, he continued, ‘I work at the health food shop on a Saturday, but I can’t do anymore hours because if I do, I don’t qualify for jobseekers anymore, and then they wont pay the rent and I haven’t found anywhere else to live yet’.
What? What? Jobseekers? What happened to hating the system? This little shit is getting his rent and his dope paid for, and I’m living in a cheap room and working in a job I hate so I can pay mine? So maybe he has a point. I’m starting to hate the man too. I put this point to him. And he says it’s a means to an end. What he would like to do is be self sufficient. Build his own home, grow his own veg, be one with the earth. Like an episode of the good life but out in the sticks, with felicity Kendal in dreadlocks and patchwork trousers, and really high on weed.
‘So why,’ I ask, ‘do you not follow this dream?’ ‘Why not move to the country and live out this master plan instead of signing on every week, playing computer games and growing the odd tomato plant in the centre of Bristol?’
And the following comment put an abrupt end to the conversation.
‘Because I like the music and drugs scene here, it’s more fun than the country’.
I got up and left, and calling behind me, show hippie shouts;
‘Any of that wine left?’
Buy your fucking own I think. But the little bugger has it right in some ways.
Yes, his morals are nonsensical and really he lacks the conviction and motivation to follow any of them through. Yes, he is in his late twenties, perfectly capable of finding a job, but opting to spend his days sitting on his lazy disillusioned ass anyway. But, he does have enough conviction to at least attempt to expound some morals. He also is perfectly right to condemn the system and damn the man.
However, what he has that I lack is the tenacity to ignore any social judgement and use the system to get his rent and living costs paid, to value himself, without any proof, as being above all the jobs that the rest of us take to get by. I know it’s a recession and jobs are bloody hard to come by, but while we’re all trying, some of these show hippies are apparently doing better than we are, without the feeling of hopelessness, tiredness and pessimism. And the cheeky little gits are judging us as lacking in moral fibre whilst doing it. Maybe I should just pack it all in, get down the social and take up patchwork.
‘I hate it when people call me a hippie. I’m not a hippie’.
‘So what are you then?’ I had to ask.
‘Well… not a hippie. I just believe in being self sufficient. I hate the system… people get so caught up in the money and the materialism. They need to get back to their roots, to creating things for themselves, to live free from the man, maan’.
And this is how he talked. Nice idea right. I’m not a massive supporter of capitalism or anything, but there is nothing worse than a show hippie.
I got home from work n a Wednesday, another uneventful, long day in another indistinguishable admin job, to find show hippie sitting on the sofa, joint smoking lazily away in the ashtray, Xbox controller in hand, staring fixedly at the screen.
‘Good day?’ I enquired as I took my shoes off and put my bag down.
‘Yeah man. You?’ He asked without looking up.
‘Same old, I’m knackered’ I replied. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’
After a long pause, ‘Yeah’, he said, still not looking away from the things he was killing on screen.
So off I trundled, downstairs to put the kettle on. It took me ten minutes to locate the kettle and two mugs, and to rinse them in the small space between the pile of festering plates in the sink and the faucet, so feeling pretty pissed off, but not in the mood for a moan (I’m no one’s mum after all) I took the tea upstairs, got out a cigarette and sat down. But fragile peace was ruined as I took the first drag by the following comment;
‘It must get you down, yeah? Working for the man’?’
Fuck. Here we go again I thought. ‘The man’ The bloody man. I really was in no mood to get into this conversation, so I didn’t respond. Until came the next show hippie pearl of wisdom;
‘I couldn’t do it’.
Right, that was it. I was actively pissed off now.
‘So what have you done today?’ I asked. Intonation intended, but sadly overlooked.
‘Well, (big toke from his joint) I’ve been making these patchwork trousers’.
Right.
‘And I planted some more tomatoes’.
But no time to do any washing up. I thought silently to myself, and opted for the much less stressful option of not entering into any debate.
‘Cool’. I said, and left the room.
Thursday, I get home, and there he is, sitting on the sofa in his patchwork trousers. Attention glued to the Xbox again. Only today, I had a glass of wine after work, and when I got in I had poured myself another. In a paper cup left over from one of their house parties, because I really couldn’t face the kitchen.
‘Another day working for the man.’ He said.
And after another dope filled pause;
‘I couldn’t do it’.
Well, that was it. Today I had to get involved. Where does this lazy tosser get off (I thought) judging me whilst sitting on his arse, in his bloody patchwork creations playing Halo all day. Given all the weed he smokes, I’m amazed he can manage to be judgmental and shoot aliens at the same time!
‘So what would you like to do?’ I ask.
‘Well, (another big toke) I’ve never really found a job that suited me’.
‘What job do you think would suit you?’
‘One that helps sustain the planet. Where I’m not part of the system’. I just know I couldn’t work for the man’.
Argh! The man again.
‘So what would you do to sustain the planet?’ I ask, genuinely interested in what answer this lazy bum is going to come up with the save the world.
‘I don’t know. I grow things and I paint. I did a degree in art, but I got a 3rd because they didn’t understand my work.’
Tempted as I was, I managed to restrain myself from pointing out that you had to do a fair bit of work for an art degree, and that, rather than misunderstood genius, was much more likely to have been the key to his downfall.
Anyway, he continued, ‘I work at the health food shop on a Saturday, but I can’t do anymore hours because if I do, I don’t qualify for jobseekers anymore, and then they wont pay the rent and I haven’t found anywhere else to live yet’.
What? What? Jobseekers? What happened to hating the system? This little shit is getting his rent and his dope paid for, and I’m living in a cheap room and working in a job I hate so I can pay mine? So maybe he has a point. I’m starting to hate the man too. I put this point to him. And he says it’s a means to an end. What he would like to do is be self sufficient. Build his own home, grow his own veg, be one with the earth. Like an episode of the good life but out in the sticks, with felicity Kendal in dreadlocks and patchwork trousers, and really high on weed.
‘So why,’ I ask, ‘do you not follow this dream?’ ‘Why not move to the country and live out this master plan instead of signing on every week, playing computer games and growing the odd tomato plant in the centre of Bristol?’
And the following comment put an abrupt end to the conversation.
‘Because I like the music and drugs scene here, it’s more fun than the country’.
I got up and left, and calling behind me, show hippie shouts;
‘Any of that wine left?’
Buy your fucking own I think. But the little bugger has it right in some ways.
Yes, his morals are nonsensical and really he lacks the conviction and motivation to follow any of them through. Yes, he is in his late twenties, perfectly capable of finding a job, but opting to spend his days sitting on his lazy disillusioned ass anyway. But, he does have enough conviction to at least attempt to expound some morals. He also is perfectly right to condemn the system and damn the man.
However, what he has that I lack is the tenacity to ignore any social judgement and use the system to get his rent and living costs paid, to value himself, without any proof, as being above all the jobs that the rest of us take to get by. I know it’s a recession and jobs are bloody hard to come by, but while we’re all trying, some of these show hippies are apparently doing better than we are, without the feeling of hopelessness, tiredness and pessimism. And the cheeky little gits are judging us as lacking in moral fibre whilst doing it. Maybe I should just pack it all in, get down the social and take up patchwork.
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