It's been a busy and fairly tough financial start to the new year. I didn't really have time to write last month. Since leaving Uni I've been spending a lot of time looking for part-time work and trying to get things ready for my new production company and as always, everything is many times more difficult and time consuming when you have no dosh. But I'm almost ready to start my new life. Sort of. Well, new career anyway. It's taken 50 years, but I now have some sort of focus on what I intend to do professionally. And I'm fortunate in that so far some very successful people in the industry seem to think I am going to do okay. One or two have even tipped me as a 'rising star'. Heh!
But the reality at the moment is that the difficult financial situation has meant I have discovered southern dole offices, too. Posher than Kings Heath, Birmingham, although my London 'office' is a newer building! I get the impression that there's a bit more care and help available than last time I had to sign on. In the early 1990's I think we were just dole scum. Now the Labour Govt seems to really want to help. Things are much better now. There are still rules, but in the past you were either on the dole or not. It was unhelpfully black or white. You felt a bit like a hopeless scrounger. Now, although it's actually tougher to get help initially and they ask more questions, they've even accepted that I have to spend time to prepare for a new business and they have been offering help and referrals. I get annoyed by people who seem to think benefits are some sort of easy way out. Try living on £65 per week. It stops you starving, sure, but its not really going to give anyone a lifestyle after bills are paid. There are always those that will abuse any system, but I think social benefits, like the arts, are a mark of a civilised society and I for one feel better for being part of that. Plus, with the eye-watering amounts of tax I paid in the 1980's, I would need many centuries of claiming £65 per week to break even! I suppose the key word about National Insurance is that it's, well... insurance.
There are some benefits to being very poor again. I cycle to sign on, which is as it should be, and actually gives me some exercise. And it has forced me to find cheaper stuff in London. Not an easy task in leafy Chiswick. I go to my exclusive show biz club and drink tap water (served in posh jugs with ice and lemon), use the free wi-fi and finish with a coffee. A whole days work for £2.95. Then down the road in Turnham Green, if you get fed up of home made food, you can eat a massive plate of Chicken and Black Bean Noodles and a mug of Chinese tea for under a fiver. Now that's living!
That's living! All this for under a fiver in Chiswick.
