Monogamish

Yes I'm back.  I don't really know why I'm writing this, nobody's pissed me off especially about it or anything, it just happens to keep coming up in my life a lot at the moment and I don't really get it, or I seem odd and different, so I thought I'd post something.

So the general topic areas are kink, and open relationships I guess.  I don't really mean this as a bitch or a whine, more I just dont get it, or I don't seem to fit with what's accepted, but it'll probably come across that way anyway.

So I don't have a boyfriend these days.  I'm mostly fine with that, I've moved beyond the 'nothing serious for me now thanks' stage and am into the indeterminate 'not actively looking but if a nice boy decides to turn up and jump up and down in front of me i'm not going to ignore the fact' stage.  I'd quite happily date, but that's because I'm a serial dater if left to my own devices - I love dating, it's just relationships that cause the problems for me, but whatever, at the end of the day I am officially single at the moment.

Being kinky, single doesn't always mean free/available/whatever.  Lots of people have kink relationships that many be separate to the normal concepts of boyfriend/girlfriend/partner etc (normal of course usually being relative where kink relationships enter the mix).  This can be for a variety of reasons which it's not worth me stipulating because I'd inevitably miss some off and horribly offend some subsection of the kink community, but suffice to say without being 'normal' partners, there are plenty of sub/dom/slave/pup/owned/master/whatever combinations out there.  To be honest it's getting to the point where I almost feel that I'm a bit odd for not being in some way 'owned' by someone (or owning them if they so happened to inspire my dom/top side).  Most of my friends are kinksters and the vast majority of them seem to have these extra layers of what they can and can't do or what they'll only do with certain people or what they have to ask permission for and so on and so forth.  And the ones who don't have this kind of dynamic going with someone seem to be actively seeking it.  Frankly I find it all rather restrictive, and yes I suppose that is the point what with the whole thing being based on power dynamics but I find it odd that I might have to ask someone else permission to sleep with a guy who might eventually become a boyfriend.  Once he is my bf most kink relationships seem to negotiate free reign to any kind of activity with the bf as well, but until then, and the many other scenarios that could form in my head.... Like I say, I just don't get it.

As I say it all seems fairly restrictive to me, and I don't like restrictions - at the end of the day I'm a slut - that's the vulgar way to put it.  The more complex way might be to say I'm very autonomous - just like how everyone's bitching about facebook atm deciding what's "important", I can decide for myself who I want to sleep with and who I don't, and equally who is worthy of my time and energy, and who isn't.  I don't need someone 'domming' me to tell me that.  (That sounds offensive to people who are in these kind of relationships, sorry I don't mean to be, I'm speaking from a very personal perspective here.)  And in fairness, most people who know me know I'm not exactly easy to dom, I am a very very tricky sub, and I don't give up control in anything that easily or for that long.  

Ideally I'd like some form of full relationship at some point in the future yes, and I'd like it to be somewhat kinky, and I'd like it to be open.  I'd like to be free to sleep around with who I choose, to not have to ask permission first because pure and simple I don't actually find that that practical unless my partner is the sort of person who spends his nights at home with his phone glued to his hand for me to text and give me permission and that sort of guy I probably wouldn't want to be with.  Just as equally they are free to sleep with other people.  Someone who relishes in the fact that I'm a slut really, rather than considering it something that needs controlling.  I guess to me that inherently implies promiscuity is bad because it needs to be restricted in some way.  Someone who can enjoy it, even if they don't have the same taste in guys necessarily.  But we should still come first to each other.  If I go out with them, I expect to go home with them at the end of the night.  Maybe with other boys as well, but together.  Part of the beauty to me of going out with your boyfriend is you don't need to pull, or amuse yourself whilst friends hook up, because you have your own sexy man there, and he's already eager to get you home and get in your pants even though you're gonna be out for another 4 hours.

I like to belong, I like to be owned.  But I don't want to be just part of a collection, or 'stable'.  I want to feel they belong to me too.  Just as I am owned, they are my owner, and they can get me to do things because they say so, they can use *that* tone of voice on me out in public just to secretly remind me who's in charge, make me smile, and get me a little horny whilst everyone else is none the wiser, but I am *their* boy, not their boy for the weekend whilst another guy has them monday - wednesday and another thursday and friday nights.  people do fall in love, people do *belong* to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness.

To be honest, Chris was pretty good on this, no he wasn't particularly kinky minded - I wasn't expecting suspension bondage out of him any time but even with the little things that really get me going and don't really intrude on sex or take up stupid amounts of time to do it was usually a case that they simply just didn't enter his head to do them because he didn't think like that, but he belonged to me, i belonged to him, we were very much each other's boys, and we were both free to fuck around with who we liked and get our kicks when we wanted and we both enjoyed that about each other.  Actually him sleeping with other guys made me really jealous on a certain level, but in a way that never hugely bothered me, it was more, i wanted to be there so Chris could have sex with me instead of the other boy, i wanted him, because he was mine, it was horny greedy bottom jealousy really, and that was kinda hot.  In terms of the sex/relationship/kink/ownership kink mentality I'm looking for, Chris was almost perfect, okay not so much on the kink front, but you don't usually get everything you want, it just sucks it didn't work out for other reasons.

All these endless relationships within relationships within friendships within exes within families within stables within harems within whatever the fuck people choose to make them confuse me.  Don't get me wrong, if they work for you great, and I don't intend to judge you for them really, I just simply don't get them, I don't get how you can feel fulfilled or completely appreciated in them, partially yes, but fully no.  And yes, I'm aware this all sounds rather odd coming from someone who is practically polyamarous, but at the end of the day, I guess I want the traditional relationship, that just so happens to be both kinky, and open, but those are almost separate independent qualifiers to the actual relationship part.

Of course once I do find that perfect guy, I then just have to tell him not only am I the standard kinky, I also happen to have some very sordid, somewhat illegal bloodplay fantasies I'd like to enact, and I'm bisexual and may occasionally want to sleep with girls, and hope that neither of those two things freak them the fuck out, cause for some reason a lot of people find those two 'kinks' very very difficult to be okay with.

I don't feel I've explained myself very well as usual, but I'm going to cut my losses and post this anyway.

5:  Joel, Jme, Axdn, FDC, Adam.  Well that's probably a rather significant change from the last time I posted this list.

As long as you get your workout done...

I'm having a really good day.

I dunno why, nothing major's happened really, maybe I'm going manic again, but it's always hard to tell, part of going manic is your self awareness tends to go completely out the window.

I haven't slept much recently so I should be wrecked, and work has kinda got screwed up and is sapping my good mood, but flirting with boys on twitter is keeping me going.  My day started with going to Asda, that's how relatively unspecial my day has been.

But anyway, I was gonna blog about why I go to the gym, and why I enjoy it.  Because that's what I feel like blogging about, so that's what you can read.  I know I don't really *need* to go to the gym, sure I have the standard gay vanity issues, I'd love rock hard abs etc, but I'm 105lbs and a 27" waist with the blessing of an ongoing overactive metabolism - I can eat what I want and I don't put it on and somehow I get nutritional value out of it.  So I don't need to go to the gym, I don't need to lose weight, I don't need to watch what I eat, I don't need to run off that extra slice of cake or bulk up on muscle - lets face it a 5'2" muscled boy would look a little odd. I certainly wouldn't suit it at any rate.

Gay vanity aside, I do like being healthy, it gives me something to do, and it's something you can see and feel very obvious results very quickly with.  Whilst my stomach could probably extract nutritional value from anything, what i put into my body still has an effect.  If i eat food that's shit for me, I don't suffer any serious health effects, but my skin is more prone to spots, I feel worse, my already odd digestive system gives me a fair bout of cramping as punishment etc.  If I try and eat healthily, it works, I feel more alert, I can keep going for longer (yes in that way too :P) and my body ultimately works that much better.

When I was a kid I was a really fussy eater, now not so much, sure I still have my likes and dislikes, but I'm a lot more open to things now.  And I've learnt for the same cost of a packet of chicken from the shops you can buy a LOT more veg etc and make a dish ends up bulkier, more filling, tastier, and even looks a lot better with the mix of colour.  Colour really is a simple and easy way to tell how much goodness is in your food.  Salads, stir frys, soups, paella, there's plenty of dishes you can make that you just chuck anything in and by the time it's cooked it tastes great no matter what.

Raw food helped me get over a lot of what I traditionally don't like.  You can make just about anything as part of a raw food diet, ravioli, cakes, spaghetti, allsorts.  It takes some forward planning but it's a good way to try different things.  I don't like tomatoes, I don't like nuts, I'm not especially keen on turnip or avocado, but I like all these things in certain contexts I've discovered, usually such that I can't notice them, but hey it works.  I'm not militant on my diet.  I eat white bread and white pasta, if I want mcdonalds I'll get mcdonalds, I ordered pizza the other day, I ate an entire bar of chocolate yesterday.  But once you start getting health stuff into your diet it becomes ludicrously easy to form into a foundation which you then build around and you feel better for it very quickly and see the progress in yourself within a week or two.

And that's why I like the gym, I can see my progress - I might not be where I want to get to yet, but I can see each week how I get closer to my goal.  I can run non stop on the treadmill for 20 minutes at 80% of my top pace now.  If I do interval training I can quite happily go for a lot longer.  Earlier this week I upped the weights up using on my leg presses and today I was able to do the full workout with the heavier weight.  Next week or the week after I'll be upping the weights I'm using on my arm workouts too I reckon.  I keep pushing myself that little bit further each time.  Especially with my cardio.  Just one more minute, just until the end of the song, just until the .5/full km, just until that round number of calories... when I'm struggling I tell myself I can do those last 3 or 4 minutes at my normal pace and push through, or i can do 2 minutes at my flat out top speed.  Of course my body will eventually work out I keep moving the goalposts and stop responding to it, but for now it's good....

Of course I get self conscious, I in fact really hate being at the gym in some ways, am I doing it right, are people laughing at me, what the hell is this gay ass skinny boy doing weights for, i can lift so little, that guy's so much bigger better etc.  But I force myself to get over it, I blast my music into my ears and find a way to focus just on me, it forces me to deal with part of my severe self consciousness, and I get through it.  And I figure everyone had to start somewhere; combined with the progress i get to see myself making, I know one day I'll be the guy that other boys are drooling over.

Plus you get that fun endorphin kick at the end of it all from working out, and the even better one when you hit a workout target one day.  I was a really sickly child, 5 minutes of exercise used to have me in a hospital on a nebulizer, so the fact I can now run harder longer and steeper on a treadmill than most of the rest of my gym is a point of pride.  And now that I've got som,e cardio strength back, I've started mixing up my exercises a bit more again - and oh god I'd forgotten just how crap I am at cross trainers.  Within 5 minutes I was at the "no more, please no more" point.  But now I have something else to work on, and I know I get there.

This is why I love the gym, I get the feeling of accomplishment from it, I get to feel healthy, I get endophins flooding my system, I get pain, which everyone knows I enjoy anyway, and I get to come home, make 3 bacon rolls, and eat them feeling perfectly smug because I know I worked off double that at the gym.

When you feel all alone...

So when my parents came down this week they told me they've given my dog away. Like already. With no notice. :(  They'll be going away for 3 months at the end of the year and I don't have the money or space to have him down here with me, and my landlord doesn't allow pets besides, kennels are expensive for 3 months, and he's gone to a good home - a lady nearby who recently had her dog die and her 2 sons are going away to university in September so she'll be on her own, and she walked him 4 miles home so he'll get out a lot - currently with my mum looking after my 2 year old nephew 2 days a week he gets shut up at home a lot, but still...

To clarify, whatever you might think, and going by the incoming twitter messages there appears to be an onus i should do, i don't hate my parents right now, possibly because i don't want to think about that part in detail or i might.  what i hate is that the animal that has been with me since i was 13, that when i was really messed up in the head, and hating the world, i would go downstairs and sit on the floor and hug him and he would lick me, is gone.  And unlike people, he always seemed to understand that I didn't want distractions at those points, i didn't want to have to play with him, or deal with his mischief, of have him insist upon tummy rubs, he'd sit there for hours on end and do the closest thing a dog can do to hugging you back for as long as i needed it.  It seems stupid, but the comfort, and understanding a dog can bring you is something you can't properly explain except to those who have also owned dogs.

I haven't been at home in any real way except for occasional intervals for 5 years now, and I'm sure the lady will let me visit him if I asked, but I wasn't prepared for this.  He was my dog, and every time when I went home my parents would comment how he'd suddenly have so much more energy and appear visibly happier, and every time I left, he'd mope for days.  Who knows whether dogs have a sense of time, and how much of our world they understand, but they understand enough to know certain things, to always be the mischievous runt around me and lie down next to me whilst I watched films and sleep, just because I was home and he could be next to me.  Even though he probably spent a lot more time actually being looked after by my parents, he knew who he belonged to, and he always ran straight for me whenever he saw me, and that's why I miss him already.  That's why I'm crying.  Because for once, I can't sit in the middle of the floor and hug my dog whilst I hate everything else around me and know he'll never make me hate him, and he'll always be there when I need him.  I was kinda prepared for him to get sick and die, he was 11 years old, but this just plain sucks.

When I started thinking about all this song came on.  And it seemed like the perfect description of the moment

A warning to the curious

Dear all,

Whilst it gives me dry amusement that my phone is now inundated with offers of coffee, nights out, nights in, shoulders to cry on, films, cookies, cake, films , hugs etc in regards to my last blog post, you've all kind of missed/ignored the point.



Regards,

Blah blah and so on and so forth

Back to the drawing board

This post is likely to be all over the place, and for that, I apologise.  I am probably also going to cause a lot of offence, and for that, I don't.


I'm down.  And I'm trying to own my feelings and be productive about it and sort my life out, but at the end of the day, I'm still horribly depressed, and disillusioned.  What's odd is I had a pretty good run, from around the end of sixth form, through till about 2 years ago.  Sure I still got down, but I was, for me, relatively stable, though that created it's own problems as I don't deal with just being 'ok' so well.  But then things started to go all over the place again, for no obvious reason, and in the last year or so it's been really really bad, I'm ping-ponging through emotional states fast enough to give those just watching the situation whiplash these days.  But fair enough, at least I know it's for a reason nowadays; I am actually crazy, my mind doesn't work properly when it comes to this kinda stuff, and I just have to accept that and deal with it.  Like I say, I might be horribly emo, but I'm at least trying to own it.  And yes I'm sure most of you cringe horribly at that american figure of speech, but you know what it means and so I intend to use it.


So once again, I kinda lost faith in my friends.  I've been doing that on and off over the last while, and it's hard to tell if it's just my down periods, or not, but this time around, I guess I just decided whatever it is, I'm sick of it, it's another one of those feelings that I keep coming back to, so whatever the reasons for it, it's clearly important enough for my mind to dwell on.  I'm sick of being the one who always has to go to theirs, who always has to ask them what's going on, of just being the largely proactive one in most friendships I have.  Time and time again I find the people in my life can't even have the courtesy to simply get back to me either way.  And yet I get bitched at for always being the busy one, for working unsociable hours, and yet when I am free, and asking around for things to do or people to see, others can't even find the time to say "sorry i'm busy" or, "i made other plans" or even a simple "i don't feel up to it today".  I'm not asking for expensive trips to theme parks or the like here.  A 20 minute coffee would keep me pretty happy.

I'm not perfect, in fact I'm pretty damn flawed, and I'm guilty of these things, I know it, the other day my mind went so insane I couldn't even answer my phone to explain to a friend I wouldn't be coming out with him like I'd promised to.  But generally, I aim to make those instances the rare exceptions in my life.  I know I'm a good and loyal friend.  I might be late to meet them every time, but I will let them know I can meet, I will let them know I'm running late.  And if I haven't heard from them in a while, I will drop them a message to see what's up.  Maybe work is just really busy, maybe they took an impromptu holiday, maybe they lost their phone, there's logical and sensible reasons people might go silent for a while, but I do at least make the effort to notice, and ask why.  It continually bothers me that I regularly have more interaction with my american friends than I do with the large majority of people who live in the same city of me.  How do they manage to keep up with what's going on in my life and how I'm feeling and what's bothering me and find ways to distract me from my problems, when people living less than 10 miles away can't?

But yes I've considered if everyone else always seems to be the problem, maybe I'm the problem.  Maybe I expect too much of the people in my life, maybe I don't come across in the right way, maybe the people I make friends with just aren't the sort of people I imagine they are, and I don't mean that last bit as a criticism on them, genuinely.  So maybe it's time to do away with the large majority of people I've been calling friends, and populate my life with new people.  I told you I reinvent myself every so often and was long overdue.  Well here I am, no longer in a relationship, new house, aiming to change job, seems the most sensible time to change the kind of people I'm surrounded by too.

So I did the symbolic facebook friends cull.  I excepted family members and people living 50+ miles away, as I don't expect them to necessarily have that much social contact with me (and yet somehow, they probably constitute the majority of my social contact), which left me with about 40 odd people, of which maybe 10 - 15 are people I genuinely want, or still count as friends.  The remainder are pretty much either people I keep in contact with for work purposes, or partners of the 10 - 15.  And then there's the inevitable few it's just easier to keep than get rid of.  The rest of you, I don't really care for any more, and it'd be a nice vindication if that bothered you, but I'm not that foolish.  And yes, that probably includes you.


Even those who are left, I don't expect your support, or shoulder to cry on.  I'm counting myself back at square one, and yes it's hard and hellish - I know from experience - but in a nice emo/psychotic/generally antisocial way, I don't like to rely on other people too much, it always leads me to disappointment, and at least if I rely on me, I know what to expect.  Yes this is all horribly stereotypically emo and yes I'm blogging to people about it going oh woe is me pity me etc, but as stated, I don't care at the moment.  I wrote this for me and for the few people who will prove to be worthwhile friends over the next few months.  That's the beauty of a blog, you don't need justification, or reasons, you can just vomit words onto a computer screen, click send and people still read it, no matter how much they judge you about it.

A lot of blather on earnings, inflation, and living wages

Yes, it's that time in my life where once again, I blog about money matters, and harp on about a concept which I fully believe deserves its champoins: the living wage.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just released this document: http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/minimum-income-standard-2011-full.pdf which is handily summarised in the following BBC news article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14019760.

The news article actually focuses on the rising cost for families of raising children, and the amount of money needed to do such things nowadays, however it includes some of the basic informations relevant to singletons that is part of the JRF report.  The JRF report in itself focuses on the larger issue of a Minimum Income Standard, i.e.  a living wage.  It does this on a UK wide basis, so naturally various generalizations are made in order to poivde a suitable set of assumptions that can be plugged into a statistical analysis, but I'll cover that later.


Firstly, lets define a few things so nobody gets confused, because all of the following are (unless otherwise stated) very separate things:

National Minimum Wage (NWM): This is what the government says all employers must pay, currently set at £5.93 per hour, assuming you're 21+, regardless of whether you work full or part time.  This is due to increase to £6.08, an increase of about 2.5%, this is below the level of both the CPI and RPI (markers of inflation, detailed below)

Consumer Price Index (CPI): A measure of inflation, currently around 4.5%  An internationally recognised measure of the comparative cost of goods and services.  Importantly, the basis for many benefits was changed recently to this index, rather than the higher RPI, meaning benefits are generally lower and buy you less for your money.

Retail Price Index (RPI): A UK-only measure of inflation, currently around 5.2%.  RPI includes multiple housing and estate costs as part of its calculation, including items such as council tax, mortgage interest payments and stamp duty on house purchases, where CPI does not.  In real terms, this can make it a much more useful basis of inflation for the layman, however for statistical and economical policy purposes, the RPI has some significant drawbacks compared to using other measures of inflation, such as CPI.

Poverty Threshold: Naturally, the point at below which, you are officially living in poverty.  This is generally taken as 60% of the median income.  This works out about £120 per week for a single person.  That figure is after income tax, NI, rent, council tax and water costs. But before other utility bills, food etc.  Naturally, depending on where you live, the poverty threshold for that reason would vary according to average rent and water rates in the area.  A person on the minimum wage, working 40 hours a week can pay rent of approx £400 and be *just* above the poverty threshold.  It is important to note that utility and food bills, commuting costs, etc may reduce available/disposable income significantly.  60% of median income barely puts you at subsistence costs, that's why anything below it is called poverty silly!  Which leads us to the next and final definition...

Living Wage: Synonymous with the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) in the JRF report, this is what is deemed required to live an 'acceptable', yet modest, standard of living.  What is acceptable is of course subjective, and most reports concerning living wages do extensive research with polling groups to determine what people expect, but as a rough guide, it is usually the poverty threshold, plus some extra money for (as examples:) cinema once a month, a friend's birthday present, a new pair of jeans or some t shirts every few months, the occasional newspaper purchase etc.  Regular heavy nights out are not included in this, it's arguably a level that will help keep you sane by allowing you to go out for a movie, for a drink, for a film, whatever once in a while.  You're likely to still have money woes, but you can at least afford a roof over your head.  A small roof, but a roof nonetheless, along with water and heat.  Hopefully it's already obvious why I argue living wages should be a more realistic minimum wage.


Back to the JRF report, they developed their own price index based on research regarding public opinion on what constitutes an acceptable standard of living and expected outgoings, this MISPI came in much higher than the RPI or CPI, as the MISPI attempts to account for the fall in purchasing power attributable to CPI or RPI linked inflation, in addition to the increasing cost of the items that make up those indicies themselves; things like the rising cost of bread, fuel, etc.  The idea of these 3 indexes was to show that the purchasing power, especially for those on lower wages (i.e. around the poverty threshold), is limited by the inflation tracking method.  Additionally, wages would need to increase by the same index to maintain the same relative level.  If the price of bread inflates at 7% but wages only at 5%, suddenly you're 2% short on the cost of bread.  Thus, by switching benefits from the higher RPI to the lower CPI, not only have benefits fallen, but their purchasing power has also fallen, for the segment of the population most reliant on them (but then anyone following economic developments of the last 4 years shouldn't find this surprising).

After a lot of stats work, the JRF document arrives at an MIS of approx £240 per week for a single person.  This is after income tax but before rent costs and coucil tax etc.  Figures for other types of household are in the document, but most people reading my blog are going to be operating on single household bases, even if in a couple.  This represents about 77% of the median income.  Gross weekly income to achieve this needs to be £288pw or £7.67 an hour.  This is a difference of £1.74 above the NMW, or if you prefer almost a 30% increase on what is legally required.  This represents a minimum salary of £15k pa


Naturally there are problems in the JRF analysis, the most obvious which is that its figured are generalized over the entirety of the UK.  Ni ether is any provision made for the variances caused by the needs or different societal habits of the separate cultural groups in the country.  Living wages by their nature vary by region, they are dependant on the cost, availability, and provision of goods and services specific to a particular area.  Rents naturally vary significantly across the country, especially contrasting rents in the north of England to the south east London & home counties area for example.  Along with that, typical council taxes, commuting costs, insurance premiums, etc vary.  Rural properties are given a dedicated exception in the JRF report, and the different in increased heating and commuting costs generally incurred as a result of living in the country affect the MIS figure greatly; in fact for a single person living in the country the MIS gross income is almost £19k.  The rent used in the MIS calculation is based on a council rent in Loughborough, equating to approx £50 per week.  As many of you reading this will know, in London, that will get you diddly squat.  However the JRF report does recognise its limitations and even the inaccuracies of the published figures stating "not everybody who has more than the minimum income can be guaranteed to achieve an acceptable living standard. However, someone falling below the minimums unlikely to achieve such a standard"




This is where I move to a move focussed approach then, based on the London Living Wage, which has been published for the past few years now by the Mayor of London, see http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/living-wage-2011.pdf.  It acknowledges the fact that London has significantly higher costs than other part of the country, especially where rent is concerned, and there are countless news articles (though admittedly probably largely from the currently discredited ((if it ever had any credit to begin with)) NOTW) about emergency service, primary care, and educational personnel being unable to afford to live within a suitable distance of their workplace.  Many London workplaces already include 'london weighting' in city pay offers, which provides on average a 10 - 20% extra increase on the standard wage to compensate for the increased cost of living in London

The London Living Wage document takes a new baseline of poverty threshold specifically for the London area, which equates to £7.25, well above the NMW and allows only £832 'extra' income over the entire year in comparison to the MIS figure of £7.67 an hour.  Allowing a buffer of 15% for increased London costs and unexpected or sudden outgoings, the London Living Wage is stated at £8.30 per hour.  This is a full time salary of about £17250.  As a personal note, I'm on about £17750pa and whilst I struggle, yes, I can live in London, I can find a place to rent, I can eat, I can pay my spotify membership and buy a book if I want to.  I can't buy myself an extra PC monitor, or some new kink gear, or afford anything other than the cheap bottom of the range mattress for the bed, but I can live and pay my bills and afford the extra bit of money for a tube and some cake at exalted each week, so yes, the living wage seems pretty accurate there.


Unfortuantely, living wages, where they exist as a concept, are generally only paid by state or government institutions.  The LLW is paid to all staff employed by the various parts of the Greater London Authority (GLA), and pay is adjusted upon publishment of the LLW document each year, which is admirable.  Non Government agencies however, and especially private sector employers, which obviously make up the majority of employers, are completely free to pay whatever they like so long as it's at least the NMW.  As a result many service staff are paid exactly that, meaning one day, we will inevitably all die from an unsanitised telephone as all the cleaners become too poor to live within commuting distance to work in London.


And now I am too sleepy to remember what I was going to go on and say, so apologies for the rather abrupt end.

Finally, visit http://www.minimumincome.org.uk/ where after a few basic questions (3 to be exact) you can adjust your costs for rent, utilities etc to find what you need to be earning as a living wage in your current circumstances, and how that compares to your current earnings, for better or worse.


EDIT:  Now I remember what else I wanted to say.

Whether you take the JRF MIS or GLA LLW, for single 1 person households or couples with children, it's perfectly fair to point out that yes, you can survive on a lot less than that, chances are we've all done it.  You can eat 8p ramen for a month, and scrounge floorspace off friends or squat, and jump the ticket barriers, and make sandwiches to take to work instead of buying out each lunch, and blag all manner of things, but these things are generally done because you have no other option but to do that. As stated above, the LLW/MIS do not necessarily claim to be an adequate wage for every circumstance, but it is a statistical average that aims to provide an adequate standard of life, not just in terms of basic survival necessities, but variation in diet, social and recreational commitments etc, below which a person would find it very difficult to achieve such things.

The original vagabond

I heard this the other day, and it made me think of you :)


Long ago and oh so far away
I fell in love with you before the second show
Your guitar it sounds so sweet and clear
But you're not really here it's just the radio

Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby
You said you'd be coming back this way again baby
Baby baby baby baby oh baby
I love you I really do

Loneliness is such a sad affair
And I can hardly wait to be with you again
What to say to make you come again
Come back to me again and play your sad guitar

I'll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I'd known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin's eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid

Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby
You said you'd be coming back this way again baby
Baby baby baby baby oh baby
I love you I really do

Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby
You said you'd be coming back this way again baby
Baby baby baby baby oh baby
I love you I really do