A disastrous 6 months

 

The other day marked the halfway point of my spending chronicle. 6 months in already, time flies when you're being a disaster. Disasters have more fun. Disaster is the new black. Don't know about anyone else but I've not had a shabby 6 months at all, bereavement aside. Been to Sweden three times, South Korea once, London five, celebrated a birthday, consumed copious amounts of food, copiouser still amounts of alcoholic beverages, been to the cinema 22 times, got myself BT Sport at home, and of course spent a fair chunk of money on material things. Time to take stock therefore. What kind of disaster am I? A minor mishap or full blown calamity?

In total I've spent 2290 pounds and 62 pence on stuff that some might argue (unsuccessfully) superfluous. That equates to £381.77 per month which I think is fairly reasonable. Go go minor mishaps! 6 monthly reports call for a graph of course:

So far so good. On closer inspection however, it appears I've bought 45 items of clothing and 9 pairs of shoes. At this rate I might break triple figures by the end of the 12 months of blogging. That's probably quite a lot of clothes. And shoes. Epic force majeure! Although come to think of it, almost all of those clothes, and definitely all the shoes, were bought in the sale so that makes it all ok. Minor mishap for real. Me 1 Buyers' remorse 0.

Buoyed by a holiday underspend and an investment windfall, I've gone on a bit of spree of late. All awfully vital purchases clearly.

 
 

A Kenwood Chef KMC010 to take care of all your baking and cooking needs. Been wanting to get my hands on one for a good, good while. It's a mechanical marvel, a home cook's wet dream. All for the price of £349. It comes packaged in the most ridiculously over-sized box so having it delivered to your work is not such a good idea. Trust me. I also grabbed the opportunity to buy a mini mill to go with it, £25 which includes 4 glass jars with lids. Soon to be filled with freshly ground coffee beans.

I'd managed to wreck the screen on my old Samsung Galaxy S5 in the space of 11 months so went out and bought the new and improved version, though not the one with a bent screen. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and it was drawn at £538. Splashed out £8.30 on a new-with-tags River Island checked shirt from eBay and £4.50 on a green knitted jumper from Topman. Come winter time you may just find me wearing both at the same time. And of course I couldn't help buying some more footwear. River Island loafers with tassles £27.50, Base boots for £20, Base brogues for £21 and Rock and Religion plimsolls for £7, all from the trusted companion that is the Asos sale.

So, 6 months worth of disastrous spending has come to an end, here's to another 6! Who knows what the future has in store? Or what stores will feature in future? All will be revealed in due time (although if you're Asos you're in with a good chance).

Random acts of kindness

The altogether depressing outcome of the general election has left many (non right wing) voters in a state of despair. A couple of weeks in and Cameron and his cronies have already let their intention be known, in case anyone had been foolish or blasé enough to disregard it during the campaign. 13 billion pounds worth of welfare cuts, EU referendum, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, making industrial action really rather difficult to mobilise, the next 5 years are going to be brimful of unbridled joy.

It's easy to feel a tad deflated, just like the UK economy itself, as it would suggest that for most Brits the main priority is to look after number one. Caring, compassion, community, who needs it? Thank heavens then that people are still able, willing and keen to support fellow humans in a difficult situation without hesitation and without making a big song and dance number out of it. Philanthropic donations are clearly enormously significant for the beneficiaries, and there's a distinctly humane ethos behind them, but the financial clout required for such a grand gesture is the reserve of a distinguished few. The rest donate their time, skills, expertise, enthusiasm and money, knowing full well they won't have a boulevard or hospital wing named after them, rather because they're fully committed to the cause.

My colleagues informed me that during the evening social at last weekend's Younger Women Together event in Cardiff, a fellow hotel guest got chatting to staff, volunteers and clients at the event and upon discovering that everyone there were women under 45 who had been diagnosed with breast cancer he decided to buy bottles of wine and champagne for all, without fuss and fanfare. Simply because breast cancer had affected people near to him and that was his way of showing support. Such random acts of kindness can make all the difference. Obviously a freebie makes one happy but more importantly it shows that people care. That you are not alone.

Incidentally caring and togetherness are two of Breast Cancer Care's organisational values. The only UK wide support charity for people affected by breast cancer, we provide services that inform, educate and empower, to make sure noone has to face breast cancer alone. All our services are free to access thanks to the generous donations made by individuals, groups and corporate partners. As a charity that receives very little statutory funding, random or planned acts of kindness really do make all the difference.

I've done my bit by signing up to the weekly lottery, a mere £1 per week with a top prize of 1000 every week. I've also purchased one of these nifty collapsible water bottles called Ohyo for £4.99:

Not everything has to cost money either, charities and community groups are always looking for people to donate their time, skills and experience to help deliver services or run events. For example, you can sign up to volunteer at Breast Cancer Care's Pink Ribbonwalk in Bakewell on Saturday 13 June. I have.

So I encourage everyone out there to pick a charity or two whose cause speaks to you and give a donation, do some fundraising or become a volunteer. Our volunteer manager Lisa assures me that people who volunteer live longer so not only will your random acts of kindness help others but it'll contribute to a long and prosperous life.

What's wrong with this picture?

Answer: 332 patches of blue and purple.

A few days have passed since the 'historic' election win for the Conservatives and it still conjures up exasperated feelings just looking at said picture of wrong. The lamentable outcome necessitates much needed soul searching for Labour and Lib Dems as the Cons secured enough votes to win an outright majority of seats in parliament. This despite having overseen a government that introduced a feast of austerity measures that ripped up public services as we know them and disproportionally affected the lower reaches of the socioeconomic ladder. Maybe we're a nation of gluttonous masochists. Marquis de Sade would've had a field day.

There are all manners of cries of "the majority of people didn't vote Conservative" doing the rounds on social media. Whilst factually correct, a large chunk of the 67% who didn't vote blue chose not to exercise their democratic voice at all and had more of them done so a sizeable portion would've banked on Cameron anyway. Besides, the electoral system isn't built on proportional representation so that particular sentiment, whilst totally understandable, is void. 

The stark reality is that around 15 million people, or more or less half of all participating voters, opted to vote for a right wing party. Getting to grips with the reasons why this happened and producing an effective strategy for convincing a few million of those that there's a credible alternative is the key for the opposition parties over the next 5 years. Failure to do so condemns us all to years of life in Hades and I for one do not find pain and suffering pleasurable. 

As much as I hate to admit, the Cons, backed by the vitriolic right wing press, got their election campaign spot on. It's no mean feat to successfully throw their coalition partner under a bus so massive that it would have fit all dirty rotten scoundrels (benefits claimants and/or immigrants) currently having the cheek to reside in the UK and come out smelling of roses. Equally, to manage to deploy a rhetoric that has people believing that Scotland is the enemy, a Labour government will cause a global economic crisis and wealth creation is somehow achievable for all, hats off. I feel sorry for the partly self inflicted demise of the Lib Dems as all the indications of life under a majority Con government highlight the neutralising impact they had on the coalition. Cue EU referendum, snoopers charter and scrapping the 'madness' that is the Human Rights Act.

More than ever it seems the country is polarised ideologically. Half of Scotland clearly want out of the Union. People in major cities believe in a fairer society. People everywhere else have a fetish for traditional British values. People in major cities want to protect public services. People everywhere else wanks to border control.

Whether we support it or oppose it, we're stuck with a Government that promotes greed, selfishness and ruthlessness. History shows us that this has been the case more often than not over the last century so in a way the election result should come as no surprise. Cameron pledged to make Britain great again. It's our responsibility to show the bell end cretin that it's us, the diverse, multicultural, complex, joyous, fucked up population that makes Britain great. I've done my bit by rejecting capitalism since the election, despite the pull of 60% off skinny jeans at Asos. Irreverence light. It's a struggle but someone's gotta do it. For queen and country!

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/14039721/?claim=sjhnfeff9fa">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>