By Petah | Published:
November 10, 2008
I love how every bit of bad news at the moment can be blamed on the credit crunch. Its as though in response to any piece of bad news you can just shrug and shake your head and say “its the credit crunch” as if that explains everything.
I could turn to someone and say my dog died yesterday, not that I even have a dog and wouldn’t be surprised if the response was that very same sad shake of the head and they would just say “credit crunch”.
But then I think about it, and redundancies aside, people of my age should not really be noticing much of a real financial difference except that things are a bit more expensive. Very few of my friends are yet in the sorry position of having a morgage and/or children and aside from the fact that I can’t seem to get a full time job, the rest of them are still gainfully employed. Even despite their lack of misfortune there seems to be this gloomy cloud that hangs over everything.
Why is this the case? Could the media and the internet be to blame for the exinction of fun? I think that last time there was a recession – I was quite a bit younger and not inclined to worry about such things, but this time around there seems to be so much news and such constant updates: people’s homes being reposessed, ad revenue declines, companies going bankrupt, banks going bust that it’s hard to go out and spend money or be outrageous and have fun while maintaining a good conscience. I was reading a B2B magazine this morning and virtually every story had a small paragraph about how that particular niche was coping (or not) in ‘this tough financial climate’.
But the thing is, the relatively affluent mid-twenty demographic are probably less affected by the recession as they have fewer financial and personal commitments. If consumer spending is part of the problem, why not try to convince those guys that it’s still ok to go to Oxford Street and blow a couple of hundred quid on the latest pair of jeans or trainers. The present alternative scares them into thinking that the sky is falling and the apocalypse is on its way, and will result in more people losing their jobs.
By Petah | Published:
October 30, 2008
Lauren and Roberto arrived at 2am this morning. I’m still so excited that they’re here. I walked down to the bus stop at about 1:30am and got stuck chatting to a crack head who was telling me that she had just come from visiting her mother with her boyfriend who had just disappeared into a lane way with their/his rottweiler. She didn’t seem at all concerned by the fact that he was no longer there.
On a side note I’d love to write about dirty Dalston with same breathless excitement as Essentially Emilydoes about the Upper East Side, but I dare say the goings on of London’s belligerent, cracked out and otherwise broken underclass (and the creatives slumming it) might not make for such uplifting reading. OMG James wakes to find homeless vagrant with no teeth sleeping on his window ledge, craazy!! Man begs Petah for money outside Sandy manor (and its a relatively dark side street!!) LOL. ROFLZ etc. That’s not really that funny is it?
Thankfully Lauren’s cab pulled up before the lady’s dubious boyfriend returned and we were whisked away to the safety of my house. I haven’t seen Lauren since I was in Australia in February and its funny because it feels as though no time has passed. Although I do feel a little bit sorry for Roberto as we were half delirious with tiredness, talking a mile a minute to catch up on the last eight months. I guess the moral of all of this is that I’m very glad that a very old friend is here at the moment and that it’s not fun to make fun of the down and out.
Tonight I’m off to Seventeen Gallery to see some art at Dave Hoyland’s gallery and some drinks at Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes.
I’d love to write about Dalston in the same way
By Petah | Published:
October 30, 2008
I cannot believe that my post about Cory Kennedy from ages and ages ago is still one of the ones getting the most search engine hits. I wrote one story about her for a class at Central Saint Martins about two years ago! I thought it girls were only famous for 15 minutes?
Seriously, Cory Kennedy?
By Petah | Published:
October 29, 2008
In my present incarnation as a somewhere between vagrant and general bon viveur I made the most of Monday explored explore Ridley Road Market. Up until now the revolting stench of the day’s selling, the rotting meat and vegetable detrius that I accustomed to smelling on my evening walk home had naturally put me off shopping there.
However, during daylight hours, the market smells fairly innofensive, and was one of the cheapest and liveliest grocery shopping experiences I’ve ever had. I got something like six peppers for a pound and half a kilo of steak for £2.50, which is close to half the price of what I would have paid in Sainsburys, and of course the added benefit of helping local businesses.
It’s certainly no farmers market with imported cheeses and organically reared cows with a butcher who can remembers the cow’s name. Instead what you get is a taste of the best of london - cockney fruit and veg, Halal meat and Caribbean spices, all mixed in with some counterfeit designer denim.