Conversation Killer

Last night I went out for drinks for a friends birthday. There was a mixture of her friends there, some of whom I knew, some I'd never met before. So, as you would expect, some conversations were a bit stilted, nothing more than small talk.

At one point I ended up in conversation with a girl I know reasonably well and her boyfriend who I had never met before. I mentioned the problems of funding in the theatre, not expecting anyone to be interested but in response to a question about how my job was going. I said it was a difficult time for the theatre and there was a bit of a money problem in the sector.

To which the boyfriend said

"One month I'm going to ask for my salary entirely in cash just so I can see what such a large sum of money looks like in notes"

I didn't quite know what to say at this point and at the earliest opportunity I moved to talk to someone else. I was well aware that this person had a well-paid job as I'd been told previously about his girlfriend's boasts. But is it not rather an odd thing to say in conversation? I don't have a problem with someone else's success and I am well aware that I made the decision to work in an industry that is never going to lead me to such material wealth.

But really is that what passes for polite conversation these days?

Good Consumerism

My recent gallery visit also, inevitably involved a just as long visit to the gallery shop. The Photographers Gallery shop (unlike say the V&A which stocks anything tenuously related to any of its displays), does stick to things related to the gallery – photography books, postcards, design magazines and photography equipment. But it is still one of my favourite gallery shops because I love photography books. I covet them. I could spend all day browsing them.

And I was thinking as I sadly put down the £23 exhibition book that if I won the lottery/robbed a bank*, I would buy loads of books. Glossy photography books, to fill bookcases and rest on my coffee table, to be dipped into, flicked through, admired and inspired by.

Forget designer clothes, flashy cars and big houses, all of these things I can manage without, but I hate not being able to buy all the books I want. Because books are good things, providers of knowledge and they should be free to everyone. (I realise there are libraries, which are fine for some things but not the sort of book I’m currently coveting, which I want to be surrounded by, not have to remember to return after four weeks).
To me, buying books is good consumerism, likewise films and music (of a certain quality obviously) – as opposed to clothes and shoes buying which always makes me feel guilty = bad consumerism.

The other thing about this is that these books are usually available to buy online cheaper (Amazon has the exhibition book for £16) but somehow it isn’t the same. There is something about buying the books in the gallery shop, it feels more special that way, then just clicking to put a pixilated purchased into a cyber shopping trolley.

* Would a Judge show leniency if I was caught robbing a bank to buy books?

Bonus

We have had a refund of £570 from the electricity company. The electricity meter was stored in a cupboard outside of the property that we didn't have a key for so we were paying based on an estimate for four years! We also got £16 back from the gas comapany and BT.

Yesterday we received a cheque for the return of our deposit - less £100. There is a dispute over whether we had the carpets professionally cleaned - we did, but the carpets were about 20 years old so there is only so much a shampoo can do. I fail to see how something described as 'worn' four years ago can be expected to be in better condition now, but that is why I'm not a letting agent.

But all in all, a nice little bonus sum.

Less excitingly, we will probably be spending a fair amount of this on blinds and curtains for our apparently freakishly large windows. They really aren't that big (we aren't living in a glass house), but there seems to be some sort of conspiracy with curtain manufacturers to drive us to despair and custom-made window hangings.

Structure

OH and I were discussing what we would do if we had so much money that we never needed to work again.

This conversation came about because his recent stay in Australia was with his former boss, for whom the above scenario is no longer a fantasy but a reality. But he doesn't seem to be sitting back and enjoying his wealth & leisure time and in particular is embarking on one business scheme that doesn't seem very viable and is causing him loads of stress. His former business partner on the otherhand seems very content, is building his dream home and doing lots of travelling. The OH said that with that amount of money, he would take the second route and do very little except committing to getting fit and going watch lots of cricket.

Now whilst I wouldn't take on ridiculous projects that would cause me nothing but stress, I don't think that I could do nothing. Since leaving my other job at the gallery, I'm finding it difficult enough to occupy myself on weekends - I really wouldn't be able to cope with a whole lifetime of not doing anything. The problem is that I don't have enough self-discipline to structure my time myself - I need an external force such as a job to give me a structure to build the rest of my time around. Left to my own devices, I just end up pottering about, hardly able to motivate myself to do anything other than noodling around on the internet, watching bits of television and drinking endless coffee.

So its probably as well that I didn't win the lottery last night and still have to go into work tomorrow!

The Politics of a Handbag

Who'd have thought that a handbag could be should a contentious issue? But it is. Its one of the great debates of our time - the Sunday Times even had a two page feature on it a few months ago in the Culture section rather than the Style magazine and there was a round on University Challenge devoted to identifying designer bags.

I have just bought a new bag. Not a Mulberry, a Chloe or a Marc Jacobs, but a humble Topshop bag. Its made of real leather, I like the colour, it has room for all of my things and it cost me £50. I'm rather pleased with it but I know that to many people, it is a huge social faux pas these days to not have a designer bag.

But I can't afford to pay £500+ for a bag. And nor do I envisage a situation in this lifetime where I will be able to. (I do have more than £500 but that is reserved for furniture, washing machine and other boring things and if it was going spare, I'd probably rather spend it on some art).

Now from many people I've heard the argument that a designer handbag is a good investment and that buying cheap bags is a false economy, but for me it still doesn't add up. I'm not so fickle that I'm buying a new bag every other week according to the latest trend but nor can I see a bag lasting me a lifetime. I reckon I normally stick with the same everyday bag for about 2 years so at £50 that is £25 per year. This means that I would need to use the £500 designer bag for over 20 years for it to be better value.

Then there is the quality issue. I dislike plasticky market stall bags as much as the next woman, but really how much better quality can a £500 bag be than a £50 bag? I'm still clumsy and forgetful, prone to losing things, getting caught in the rain or spilling coffee over things and unless I've missed something, these bags don't come with supernatural powers that will protect them from these inevitabilities.

I'm not criticising anyone who can afford to spend that much on a bag (as it seems nearly everyone other than me can), but what I do object to as that I feel like a second class citizen because I can't (or won't). I've bought something I really like (and needed), but its made me feel a little sad in the same way as when Charlie Brown buys that pathetic little Christmas tree that everybody else scorns.

(If you haven't seen it, I thoroughly recommend 'Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown' - it makes me weep everytime I see it)

Small Successes

These are the small things I've done this week. I've not done any big things for quite some time!

- Swapped 5 books via ReadItSwapIt - I thereby declare it a success but I won't be doing any more swaps until I have read this small stack of books.
- Sold two textbooks on Amazon from my arts management course, making me £15. They cost more than this originally so it isn't technically a profit, but that was two years ago, so the money is a bonus now.
- Signed up to my local Freecycle where as luck would have it a fashion student was looking for bags of old clothes for a project, so she came to take away the three bags I'd sorted out at the weekend as being for charity (who probably wouldn't have wanted them anyway).
- Returned a dress I bought before Christmas without buying anything else.
- Received the Honorarium (a small discretionary payment) for the four months work I did at the Gallery before I left, which I thought I wasn't going to get as it is discretionary, so another unexpected bonus.


I still haven't been swimming in 2007, have eaten too many biscuits at work and am no nearer moving house, but small steps are good.