Money

Hmmm... one of my good friends has just been made redundant. At the last meeting at the University of the East the dreaded 'r' word was being inserted into the conversation sporadically, causing various degrees of panic, and an email-with-warnings came round from the powers that be (who never, ever make themselves redundant- noticed that?) at the University of the West.

I have been through this thing of living off pasta and tea for years.
Will it be all that again?
I don't smoke or drink, so I'm already economising.

I am an econo-miser!

Somebody said to me 'Well, what will be different? Artists never have any money anyway', and there is a lot of truth in that.

I forecast an upsurge in blogging and electronic art, followed by an upsurge in old-skool art as people's computers conk out and are too expensive to fix.

My friend Jane came round for lunch today and it was lovely to catch up with her. She is one of only two A&R people at 4AD records and she's just signed an artist called Meryl Garbis. Jane is such a good singer and guitarist herself, and secretly I'm hoping she starts up again. She guested with Shimmy Rivers and and Canal until they split up, but actually she's great on her own.

After being so busy, it's a come-down to sit still and do nothing. I have somebody's MPhil to read through, but I'm not yet in the mood (although I'm actually looking forward to it). I have eaten a million pieces of millionaire's shortbread, and I am trying not to look in the mirror because my face is the colour and texture of shortbread and I don't want to dwell on it.

I realised today that one of the reasons I say 'yes' to everything, why I'm so busy, is fear of redundancy and unemployment dating back for years.

People of my generation became all too familiar with rejection letters, the dreaded call to the office for a meeting with a person with a grave demeanour, and, in my case, appointments in the Unemployment Exchange with bullying men in pale blue nylon shirts trying to fit square pegs into round holes behind locked doors.

It's amazing what They can get away with, with people that They think have fallen off the bottom rung of the ladder.

Expect lots of affronted articles in The Guardian and The Independent from sacked professionals who are suddenly treated in the same way as the Long Term Poor and think it is Just Them Getting Treated Like This.

And yet more in The Daily Mail and The Express blaming the unemployed for their own predicament, instead of those members of the banking community who have gambled our money away by betting on non-existent ghost-horses.

And The Times and The Telegraph will cross over to the other side of the road with a shudder, looking away and tucking their tenners into their socks until its all over, just in case a hungry beggar dips into their coat pockets!