I have a job!

After a year of volunteering at Brent CAB and training to be an adviser, I have a full time paid job as an adviser!

It feels awesome. It's my first full time job and it has a decent salary so I feel like a real person finally :)

At the moment I'm doing lots of debt advice for our new project. Despite the cuts, our Project Manager was able to find new sources of funding so we could expand our staff team. One was this debt project Capitalise. 

It's a fast learning curve and quite tiring at the moment. Hopefully in a month though I'll have got the hang of everything.

I recently had a mini success story when I helped stop a disabled couple from being chased by their water company for a water debt. I helped them set up an affordable repayment plan and reduce their monthly bill by installing a water meter. The couple was very happy.

I Star in Brent Housing Video!

I contacted local video news company BNCTV several times recently about doing a feature on the bureau and soon they were asking for a film on rogue landlords, something I have released a lot of press about recently as we have seen lots of people coming to the bureau with problems with their landlord. The landlord is evicting them illegally or hasn't paid their deposit back when they moved out or hasn't done repairs or has threatened them with violence...the list goes on.

I asked one of my clients who had a particularly traumatic story to participate as well as our Housing Specialist at the bureau. I also say a few words about my client's case.

Hope you enjoy!

Success Story from Work

Thought you might be interested in my first success as a trainee at Brent CAB - a disability benefits appeal:

***Disability Benefits Success***

Adviser Becky recently helped a client successfully appeal against a decision to stop DLA for her twin sons.

Ms Honrado's two sons are 16 but because of their learning difficulties they only have the mental age of a nine year old. They also suffer from ADHD, which means they need almost constant supervision from their mother or a classroom assistant to avoid accidents.

Before their 16th birthday they had been receiving low rate care DLA, then Ms Honrado was sent a letter saying the benefit would be stopped, despite there being no change in her sons' circumstances.

Our Brent CAB adviser appealed the decision, sending medical reports from the twins' school and medical specialist. She argued that the twins' were actually entitled to more benefit as they needed supervision whilst walking and almost constant attentiom inside. As a result, the appeal was successful and the twins will now receive middle rate care and low rate mobility DLA!

Musicals and Plays

I am now 25! To celebrate I went to see Matilda the Musical, one of the best musicals I have ever seen. Fantastic catchy and moving songs, a fabulous plot and a great actress playing Matilda. In addition, the whole stage is covered in letters meaning you are distracted from your fellow theatre-goer's conversation as you are too busy reading the words hidden in the mass of letters.

Based on the book by Roald Dahl, the musical includes the fabulous tricks she plays on her father Mr Wormwood when he treats her badly. The spirit of rebellion is nicely encapsulated in the songs including "Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty" and "We are revolting children". Miss Trunchball, played by a man, steals the show with her hatred of children, obsession with Phys Ed and her cruel punishments including swinging a girl into the air by her pigtails and forcing a boy to eat a whole gigantic chocolate cake.

Matilda is a must see if you have ever been a child who was frustrated by grown ups. It's only the fact that it's sold out two months in advance that is stopping me going to see it next weekend again!

This month I have also seen Singing in the Rain, another lovely musical with real rain on stage during the classic song - so much rain that the people on the front rows were clad in cagoules and had to put their hoods up! Again this has lovely songs and an interesting plot. Similar to The Artist, it is about the transition from silent films into talkies and how the highly irritating voice of a silent actress is her downfall. Very funny, definitely worth seeing. They sell £25 day tickets which we bought and were able to sit in the fourth row of stalls!

I have seen Belt Up's Macbeth, a scary production set in an underground prison in Farringdon. We had to follow the actors in near darkness, the stage often lit only by candlelight, to watch the scenes of this dark play. The setting was perfect when you consider the key scenes - meeting the three witches at night on the heath, plotting murder, committing murder in the middle of the night, seeing an imaginary dagger. Being small I had to keep running around the audience to make sure I had a good view of the actors, but it was definitely worth it, especially when the actors are standing less than a metre away from you! Not for the faint hearted, but a truly unique experience perfectly capturing the morbid mad world of Macbeth.

Two days ago I took one of my pupils to see the farce Noises Off, which has fantastic five star reviews from all the broadsheets. While not quite as funny as I'd hoped, and with some very predictable slapstick and plot devices (director is secretly sleeping with all the female actors and stage hands), there were moments of utter hilarity where I could not help but laugh myself silly.

It is a play within a play which we get to see in rehearsal, from backstage and live in performance when the props are all wrong causing great pandemonium. Written by Michael Frayn, who also wrote the play Donkey's Years and the film Clockwise staring John Cleese. Frayn based the play on genuine experiences in the theatre, although it is hard to believe the absurd nature of most of what goes on!

I have no more plays lined up at the moment, and would welcome any suggestions!

Fantastic Busker - Flame Proof Moth

Today I was walking down Southbank from the Royal Festival Hall to the Tate Modern, then on the Millennium Bridge I was arrested by the sound of music. I stopped to see where it was coming from and was amazed to see a guy up to his knees in the river singing at a microphone, also in the river.

I think over half the people watching were curious as to whether he would electrocute himself! His songs were great, especially the one about his favourite pen, in which he laments that now he has to get pens from factories instead of geese and in which he says he will go on holiday to a pen factory and stay in a hotel. Another great song is one where he says he goes to his local shop to buy something, when he sees that there is only tins of peas and spaghetti left, and there's a huge queue for them. Why is there such a queue? The credit crunch is the culprit.

The highlight of his songs, were the bits between lyrics when he was just strumming his electric guitar and wiggling his hips like crazy, creating great ripples in the water around him. It was also exciting to see what happened whenever a wave drew near - would it reach his amp on shore...?

The busker had a great way of attracting money for his music. On the stony shore he had placed a cloth with his name Flame Proof Moth on top of different coloured circles, like a bulls eye. So people could throw money for the music or simply to see how good their aim was!

The musician himself, with his wetsuit over a shirt and a pair of cheeky sunglasses, cut an impressive quirky image. His folky, speech like singing, with the tone of a ballad and hilarious falsettos is very distinctive and unique.

London never ceases to amaze me with such unique events occurring when you least expect them. I hope to see Flame Proof Moth again soon.

Belt Up and The Boy James

Over the past few years I have been consistently impressed and surprised by the quirky compelling plays produced by the theatre troupe Belt Up, who normally perform at Southwark Playhouse, near London Bridge as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe. Audience participation is usually compulsory, at least to some extent.

Belt Up have performed The Trial in the vast disorientating space under the London Bridge underground in almost pitch black. Blind folded when you entered the space, one at a time, you were placed in the room away from whoever you had come with and forced to listen to eery music until everyone else had entered. I sneeked a peek under my blindfold, but there was little use as the room was so dark. We had to follow the lanterns that appeared between scenes to find our way in the dark to the next scene. The confusion and darkness of the space was perfect for a dramatisation of Kafka, whose common theme in his works is his protagonist's complete bewilderment about where he is, who has power and what the rules are.

They have performed a fantastically funny version of Moliere's Tartuffe with funny French men in berets, wonderful slapstick and use of props. The audience was seated on sofas and comfy chairs and I had a cuddly toy lion, larger than me, by my side. It was impossible to avoid getting involved in the play as the actors were remarkably persuasive about getting the audience up on stage at certain points.

In a couple of weeks I will see Belt Up perform Macbeth, not in Southwark Playhouse, but in an old prison! I expect it will be very dark...

Belt Up performed a wonderful dreamlike play a year ago which I remember particularly vividly as I unexpectedly had a key role in it. It was called The Boy James, based on the story of Peter Pan. This came recommended by Stephen Fry who tweeted about how much he had enjoyed it. This play was particularly special for me as I was the main audience member to participate in the play. I read a poem about flying at the beginning and a letter from an adult James to the boy James at the end. So I kind of started and ended the play inadvertently.

The play was partly so perfect because the actor playing the boy - based on Peter Pan perhaps - and the setting created a very childlike atmosphere. On the way into the space we could see pages of books hanging from the ceiling and greenery suggesting a wood with a safe haven inside, perhaps the lost boys den. Once inside the surprisingly small space, we sat on cushions on the floor and sofas behind. It was very cozy and intimate and there was barely any floor space for a stage. 


The only actor on stage was a boy in his pyjamas, who told us all to make friends with the people beside us and then asked if we'd made a new best friend. Then he asked who wanted to read a poem and picked me as my hand was up. The poem was about flying and was very reminiscent of the start of Peter Pan. Then he asked us who knew how to play It. He got a group of four to say two words each in turn to describe the rules. He made us play the game in a circle, then he told us to use the whole room and then he turned the game into Stuck in the Mud. The actor managed this all in a cute boyish voice in his pyjamas.

It is partly the unscripted feel of the play that made it powerful, you felt the main actor was genuinely interacting with the audience, wanting to play. Making the audience talk to each other and play games, and the intimate space where everyone was sitting cross legged on the 'front row' all around the 'stage' meant it was very gripping and hard to distance yourself. 

Next the boy told us to hide behind our coats or other clothing. We did this for a while making silly noises in a circle as the actor playing the adult James - presumably J M Barrie the author of Peter Pan - came in and left.

Then the boy talked about imaginary worlds and adventures and ran out of the space to enter via a cupboard. He gave one audience member a button and one some purple thread. He told the audience and a new character- a girl who appeared from the fireplace, and who he'd apparently met in the park - that we would go on an adventure with James next.

But when James came back he wanted to leave for good. He had contributed to the books and furniture and sheets from the ceilings and passwords but now he picked up his suitcase and tried to leave. He'd written a letter to the boy James explaining why he had to leave but the boy could not read. The boy kept jumping on the man's back to try and stop him leaving until the girl slammed the man James' head on the table so he passed out on the floor.

The girl - presumably based on Wendy - was violent, bossy and tried to kiss and seduce the boy James, showing him how to kiss and saying they had to take their clothes off, which made him curl into a foetal position and sob. She also wanted to play pirates and Tiger Lily. 

The man James recovered from being knocked out, hugged the boy James and left. The boy then asked if anyone could read him the letter. I had wanted to read the letter to the boy since he received it and been so sad that he could not read it. I was so involved in the action I had almost forgotten it was not real. So I got up and sat in the chair next to the boy on the floor and read the letter to him tenderly, emphasising the fact that the man James loved him dearly. Then the boy held my hand and told me to show people out. It was incredibly moving and he was clutching the letter and sobbing til the end. I ruffled his hair out of sympathy.

Afterwards in the bar an elderly couple said me reading the letter was the best bit of the play. They wanted to know if I had been planted in the audience! Another couple also said I was very good. I thought it would be nice to get a copy of the letter I had read as it had made me quite tearful so I snuck back near the dreamlike theatre space. I asked a staff memeber if I could have a copy of the letter and he took me to the changing room and asked. The actor that played the boy James looked surprised but had a pile of the letters and gave me one. He was in a vest and the pyjama trousers but he looked much older and cockier. It threw me out of the make believe world in which I had believed this man in his 20s was an incredibly vulnerable boy. But it was lovely to get a copy of the letter. Here is an extract from it:

To the boy James,

I have to leave you.

It's not that I don't love you, I do. And I know you love me.

I hold a million memories so near and dear. Some lit by the brightest of sunlight on sunny afternoons; others hidden in pockets of moonlight, sneaking past the post-curfew gazes of midnight.

...

To the fond memory of all our times at each other's side,

James

Recent Cultural Experiences in London

Last month, I saw a cacophany of fantastic different cultural events in London, including plays, comedy, pantomime and film. It is amazing how culturally rich the capital is.

I saw the wonderful film The Artist, a black and white silent movie with an amazingly talented dog, that marks the change from silent films to the 'talkies'. A star of the silent movies, and a fantastic performer, the main character refuses to jump onto the talking bandwagon. However, he is dismayed to see his fame diminishing in favour of a new talking star, ironically a young hopeful actress he had recently helped get noticed by filmmakers. The film is full of humour, extremely engaging, often very moving and makes me wonder why the genre of silent movies is not more popular.

I saw a queer pantomime, Cinderella, featuring evil stepmother Baroness Thatcher with her sons Boris and David, a gay princess and a polyamorous Cinderella. Simply put together and one night only, the play had an amateur feel. However, the jokes and songs were fresh, with some hilarious political satire, and it was a very enjoyable experience - especially as I knew the actress playing Buttons.

I saw the Ladykillers with the fantastic Peter Capaldi from The Thick of It. This was hilarious and very well put together. It was doubly interesting for me as the playwright, Graham Linehan (who cowrote the fantastic sitcom Father Ted), lives on my road! The comedy, adapted from the 1955 film, revolves around a old lady living in a topsy turvy house with only a sick parrot for company and who often contacts the police with stories about aliens and her newsagent being a Nazi, and a gang of criminals who masquerade as musicians who come and live with her. She is delighted to have musicians in the house and wants them to play for her friends, who have found her boring of late. They however, want to rob a bank and trick the old lady into unsuspectedly helping them. Finally, the old lady finds out and the criminals determine to murder her. Chaos and hilarity ensues. Even from our seats right at the back of the theatre, the comedy and wit was sensational, with a great mix of slapstick, fantastic character actors and bizarre scenarios.

I saw the comedian Adam Riches at Soho Theatre and was very glad I was not too near the front as this show was all about audience participation - he asked two audience members to kiss and snogged one audience member himself - and avoiding being hit by large props members of the audience were asked to wave around. It was highly entertaining whilst often extremely difficult to watch because of the embarrassing topics or scenarios. Adam Riches played a variety of completely different parts, a lazy man in a wheelchair who used a catheter because he could, a squash player, and he was accompanied by two helpers who were seemingly willing to do anything he said including being covered in water. He is great at talking to the audience and responding to them as well as getting people to do things you would think they would be too embarrassed to do. All in all a fantastically funny, laugh out loud covering your eyes and entirely fresh show. Sit at the far back if you want to avoid being forced to be part of the show!

I saw the political documentary Tory Boy about a filmmakers stint at running for MP in the North up against a Labour MP in a safe seat, despite the Labour MP's appalling record for the local area. The film showed how many northerners will vote Labour despite knowing that the candidate is terrible, just because they always have. It exposed how it was impossible for constituents to contact or get a response from their MP. It also depicted the grim reality of campaigning for 6 months in an unwinnable seat, the election tactics, the highs and the lows. Supplementing the filming of events, all filmed live, was some fun animation, some of which explained certain political ideas. Whilst I dislike the character of the filmmaker, this is a very engaging film which gives many insights into the world of local campaigning.

I also saw The Muppets, a fantastic feelgood film that I throughly recommend, the musical Mamma Mia, a lovely light comedy with a great female lead, the political play 3 Days in May, which details a critical point during WW2 when Churchill had to make an important decision about the UK's role in the war, and the wonderful French animation, Monster in Paris, a delightful comic story set in Paris.

All in all, a great month to live in London.

You must watch these TV shows

A friend alerted me to the recent children's three part drama The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, which as the name suggests is Dickensian in nature. It is set in Victorian times with a star cast of famous comedians and is a great comedy about a poor family who sell curiousities, who are conned by an evil man into going into business with him. Bent on destroying the family, the evil man proceeds to send the son to boarding school where he is beaten daily, the daughter is given a horrible governess who is only interested in her posture and will not let her see her parents and he then exposes the secret past of the mother, Mrs Secret-Past. The drama is fabulous because of the all the detail in the scripting, with fabulous one liners and satire on everything from the financial sector to the French to Cockney. I was devastated to discover there were only three episodes as this is a truly unique children's drama. The series finished at the beginning of March.

As someone who has done lots of law work experience, I was intrigued to hear of the new comedy Suits about high flying lawyers. It is far better than I expected. It presents very interesting cases including some pro bono cases, especially interesting to me because of my work as an adviser at Citizens Advice. I imagine this is partly because a client facing eviction is more dramatic than a merger between two businesses. The witty banter and the intellectual stimulation of trying to work out how the lawyers will handle the specific cases, as well as the personal life and struggles of the main character Mike (who you instantly sympathise with as he has no law qualifications and is winging the whole thing!), make this one of the most engaging and definitely the most intelligent TV sitcom I have seen. As it is American it is hard for me to know what strategy the lawyers can take as the law and legal system there is very different, but it is all the more interesting for it as I can compare the two systems. Slickly filmed, with fantastic opening music and excellent characters, this is a must watch. It is aired on Dave every Tuesday evening and you can watch it on UKTV catch up for the following week.

The Pitmen Painters

I went to see a fantastic play on Friday called The Pitmen Painters at the Duchess Theatre. Written by Lee Hall, of Billy Elliot fame and a Geordie, it was set again in the North of England, this time in Ashington. The play told the remarkable true story of the Ashington Group, miners with very basic education, who having studied Geology now wanted to learn art appreciation.

To their teacher's astonishment, none of them had seen any art at all, whether in real life or in a library. Indeed, few miners had ventured beyond their home town. They were unimpressed with their tutor's slideshow of famous paintings, demanding to know what the paintings meant and how they could work it out each time.

Their tutor had the novel idea of getting the miners themselves to paint, so that they could understand better the nature of art by commenting on each other's paintings. And so began the creation of a body of art never seen before - art based on the town of Ashington and the mines. Art that had been unschooled in form and style, that sought instinctively to represent a life and a point of view.

The play also has some poignant political messages - it not only casts a gentle satire on the Pitmen Painter and union leader miner obsessed with regulations - but also marks some of the political and cultural changes from before WW2 to the 1990s. It heralds the introduction of a free national health service and the nationalisation of the mines. It then marks the closure of the mines under Thatcher and the removal of the clause from the Labour Party which demanded ownership of the means of production. At a time when many are seeking a left alternative to the social crisis this country is facing, the play makes the interesting point that the present Labour Party is very different to the Labour Party that brought in Clement Atlee's wonderful NHS and welfare system.

The joy of the play is in the vernacular humour, in the wonderful paintings and in the teaching of art appreciation. I, along with the miners, learnt about how one can analyse art, how the 'meaning' of art lies in the relationship between the viewer and the painting and may not be known to the painter himself, how often the meaning may lie in what is not painted as well as what is.

I thoroughly recommend the play as an opportunity to learn about art and an opportunity to experience the lifestyle of a now non-existent group, yet one which was common to England not so long ago, the life of miners in the North of England. Their's was a world which felt immensely alienated from middle class society and middle class artists, despite one art collector's attempts to destroy the barriers between them. The result is a unique type of art and a very moving, engaging and authentic play.

Citizens Advice Bureau

I've been training to become an adviser at my local Citizens Advice Bureau since June now, my job in Parliament having ended in May, and the change is refreshing.

I learnt a lot from Parliament, and I don't think there was much more for me to learn after my one and a half years there, but one thing I did learn was that changing national policy is not easy or even possible usually. At least from the vantage point of a Parliamentary Aide, or even a backbench MP. At a local level, its easy to get frustrated if many people have the same problem, a problem you can solve for them individually with time and resources, but which would not even exist if the national policy was written better. However, get into Parliament, try lobbying and it's slow work: seldom rewarding, lots of positive words but very little action.

At Citizens Advice, I can give tangible help to up to 10 people a day, all from my local area, on issues ranging from employers not paying their employees, bailiffs knocking on client's doors, people being sold shoddy products, clients with large debts, to families about to be evicted from their homes.

At the same time I can make a note of the issues and tell the national charity Citizens Advice who are respected by the Government and occasionally listened to - that's why landlords are now legally obliged to hold deposits in tenancy protection schemes. I can also write to our local MPs and the press about the issues on behalf of the bureau with real tangible evidence. I expect it makes little difference, but better to do the two in tandem on the off chance that it might occasionally pay off.

I am learning a lot, which for me is an essential quality for a job, and I currently need to read up on how Citizens Advice handles debt issues. I have given advice at a mental health centre as well as at the bureau and hope to be able to give advice at local children's centres soon. I love working with local people in the real world, and if I ever decide I want to go back to the stage of local or national politics, this will have been an invaluable experience.

Freud's 'The Interpretation of Dreams'

"I can never decide whether my dreams are the result of my thoughts, or my thoughts the result of my dreams."  D. H. Lawrence

"Within each one of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from how we see ourselves."  Carl Jung

It is commonplace to see someone asleep on the tube. But few people wake up their fellow travellers to check they haven't missed their stop. This might be a good thing, for dreaming is a good way to order your mind, cluttered from a hard day's work. Indeed, it is recommended to sleep directly after revising something you need to know off by heart, as you are more likely to remember it. We all know the phrase, "Sleep on it, it'll all become clearer in the morning."

Historically dreams have been viewed in a number of ways. To the Ancient Greeks, dreams were often said to be prophetic or warnings of what was to come. The Romantics viewed dreams as a symbolic ‘analysis’ of the world, for example the German poet Novalis believed dreams produced images of sensual reflection. Some people believe dreams are influenced by what you eat before you go to bed. Like Freud, Aristotle believed dreams could be interpreted psychologically.

Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung) is his most successful work and in it we find many of the key concepts we link to Freud such as the role of the unconscious and the Oedipus complex.

That the dream is basically a wish-fulfilment is the fundamental basis of his theory. The obvious examples quoted are those of children’s dreams, where they dream of an unfulfilled daytime wish being fulfilled in their dreams. For example, Freud’s daughter tells her father, the day after spending what she felt was too short a trip on the Aussee lake, at the age of three, that she dreamt last night of sailing on the sea.

The key to understanding dreams, according to Freud, is in understanding that they are almost all wish fulfilments, the wishes of which are frequently repressed wishes, buried in the subconscious. Moreover the wishes expressed in dreams are often disguised, so that it is not at all evident what they are. This is because according to Freud, we censor our thoughts so that they do not disturb us. Thus, dreams are an unstable compromise between desire and prohibition; in dreams we can fulfil wishes which would be unacceptable in waking life.

Freud claims that far from being illogical and meaningless dreams are actually significant events and that the unintelligible features of dreams, logical impossibilities and bizarre happenings result from an unstable compromise between desire and prohibition within us. Thus, at face value dreams can be highly misleading, but on closer study reveal more about our unconscious mind. Freud concedes that there are some unintelligible aspects in dreams, caused by the dreaming mind's tendency to overgeneralise and its indifference to self contradiction.

Freud goes further in attributing a real purpose to dreams: that of the guardian of sleep: the function of dreaming is to stop the speaker waking. Thus, we often ignore outside noises or incorporate them into our dreams so that we can continue sleeping. He quotes the most common dreams of this type: any variation of the dream where you dream of going to the toilet or not being able to go to the toilet, which is dreamt in order to stop us waking when we need the toilet, and dreams where we dream of getting up and getting ready so we gain a few extra minutes of sleep comfortable in the fake knowledge that we are doing what we need to. One of Freud’s patients was told whilst he was in bed that he needed to go to the hospital, whereupon he promptly dreamed he was there, thinking if I am already there I do not need to get up and go.

Freud speaks of the great difference between the latent content and manifest content of dreams. The latent content comprises one or more incidents or thoughts from the 'dream day', the twelve hours before the dream and significant events having occurred in both the recent and more distant past, possibly including those from distant childhood. Freud states that these events may or may not already be distorted in the memory.

The manifest content is described as a compression and condensation of the latent dream thoughts. Freud notes that displacement of the latent content often occurs in the manifest content, which can consist of displacement of anything including people, time and place. He asserts that this displacement is often the result of repression or censorship of certain unconscious thoughts in the dreamwork.


Writers and other artists have tried to convincingly represent the dream throughout time, some like Hesse and Kafka create whole dream landscapes for their characters. Freud thought his theories about dreams could and should be applied to literature, which as he quotes from Schiller in his work, is a 'creative madness' and hence stems, at least in part, from the unconscious. Indeed, he ascribes the Oedipus complex to Shakespeare claiming the real reason Hamlet could not kill his uncle was that his uncle had done what he himself desired to do, killed his father and married his mother.

Freud is famous for positing the idea of dream censorship, particularly censorship of sexual thoughts. However, one must consider that his evidence was based on a number of very similar clients: bourgeois men and women, who had been brought up in the sexually repressed environment of the late 19th and early 20th century. One patient of Freud’s, finding masturbation unacceptable, tried to 'cure' himself of it by sleeping with women. This seems ludicrous nowadays. At least in the Western world, people are much more open about sexuality. Whilst much of what Freud wrote was ground breaking and incredibly thought provoking, the real flaw with Freud's theories lay in his narrow client  base, the study of which perhaps inevitably led to his fixation on sex.

Burns' Night

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June:

O my Luve's like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!

And fare-thee-weel, a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!

When I studied this poem at school, I was struck by the flowery language and how kitschig/tacky it sounded. I didn't realise until second reading that it was also totally vacuous. How can Burns claim to be so madly in love with the girl for three verses, and then say he's popping off for a while, promising to come back. He's clearly already thinking ahead to looking for new love somewhere else! So his beloved must wait for him to return, content with a poem committing the lover to a ludicrous unbelievable love. I bet he never came back.

I personally think love is a bit silly: everyone feels it in the heat of the moment, the passion, the excitement, the intrigue. But given a new partner a few nights later, one can go through exactly the same rigmarole of emotions. People are in love with love, they miss love and they need love, but the person is immaterial. That's why it's best and safest to love as many people as possible. Then, if one disappoints you, you have plenty of back ups. This is my favourite song about love, it's by The Monkees and has my favourite love lyric - 'don't say you love me say you like me':

I wanna be free,
Like the bluebirds flying by me
Like the waves out on the blue sea.
If your love has to tie me, dont try me,
Say good-bye.

I wanna be free,
Dont say you love me say you like me,
But when I need you beside me,
Stay close enough to guide me, confide in me,
Oh-oh-oh

I wanna hold your hand,
Walk along the sand
Laughing in the sun,
Always having fun
Doing all those things
Without any strings
To tie me down.

I wanna be free,
Like the warm September wind, babe,
Say you'll always be my friend, babe.
We can make it to the end, babe,

Again, babe, I gotta say:
I wanna be free
I wanna be free
I wanna be free

EMA, WikiLeaks and the SDP

Today was depressing. I don't agree with the EMA cuts, unless the reforms mean that students end up with a better deal for poor students, but I resent it when Labour MPs use EMA to score political points in a completely unrelated speech. At the Afro Caribbean Trade and Commerce Launch, the Labour MP for Bristol East, did just that. Policies should not be used to score political points, it destroys any trust we might have in what politicians say they believe. I'm not saying only Labour does it, but there is a time and place - in the Chamber, not at a non partisan event.

Also I realised that although I value open politics and as little secrecy as possible: the Government should not keep things from the public, as Shirley Williams pointed out in her talk on Memoirs: Egoistical or Educational, we are in a Catch 22 situation. If all communication between Government Ministers had to be available for all to peruse at will, and Bush and Blair had to publish their correspondence to find out whether Blair said he would do whatever Bush did as far as Iraq was concerned, that would be a fantastic way for the public to receive justice for their actions. But, in the future, politicians would be far more cautious so that statements like those we suspect made between Bush and Blair would either not be made at all, which would be great in theory, although it might lead to poorer relations between Britain and other countries. Or politicians will begin to communicate in some nontraceable way: a private room with no tape recorder perhaps. Yes, it will be harder for politicians to cover their words up, and WikiLeaks will hopefully still be able to expose some hidden conversations, but a lot will be driven further into secrecy.

I wonder how Shirley feels having left the Labour Party, where she was in the Cabinet with Tony Benn under Wilson and Callaghan, to merge her SDP with the Liberals and form the Liberal Democrat Party in 1988, to watching her baby form a Coalition with the Conservatives. Sure, she is being pragmatic if she supports the Coalition. I too am of the conclusion that it is better to have a Tory government containing Lib Dems who are beavering away to put Lib Dem policies into practice and soften and amend Tory policies, than a Tory led government, which would undoubtedly be more right wing. But it must be a million miles away from what she originally anticipated thirty years ago, as one of the Labour "Gang of Four" rebels in 1981.

Club der Kulturen

Last night was great for many reasons. We danced to the Beatles, German pop song "Mein Herz tanzt" and awesome songs that I have on Just Dance on my Wii at home. Then we played Twister and I won! And then I played the piano, which had been in the room all night and I hadn't noticed.

Playing the piano was amazing. I haven't played for maybe a year and I talked to a guy who can't read music but can improvise really well- I want to do that too and he showed me that improvising is based on the left hand doing an arpeggio chord sequence, similar to the guitar, like CAFG, and playing an awesome tune with the right hand. I had two problems: coordinating the different fingerwork of both hands and thinking of an awesome tune. Everything I played sounded melancholy. It was sad when I remember how I used to think of awesome songs I used to think out and play. Indeed I wrote down some songs in a pink sheet music book, but I haven't seen it for maybe eight years. I should try and find it again.

I still remember the song my first proper boyfriend sang and played on the piano for me in the school music rooms. It made me cry. I wish I had the music and all the words so I could play it. The melody, first verse and chorus are still with me and I'll never forget them.

So in summary: Becky is made happy by crazy dancing, playing Twister and pianos. It was also incredibly lovely to sleep overnight in the student club which *made* my time in Chemnitz. Almost all my Chemnitz friends worked or work there, or at least went to one of the many evenings there: English Club, French Club, etc. I am even directly responsible for one of them joining, who now leads the club. And I can belong to this ever changing family like community twice a year when I visit. The sofas were very comfy, the brunch was awesome: we had a Moroccan chef with us and I managed to persuade them to play the German Cluedo (Clu-Eh-do) with me.

I went Go Karting this evening which I was terrified about but was actually amazing, even if I did come last. Alhough it was a bit sad that when we had a race, the German guy who was winning all evening stopped driving when someone overtook him. He couldn't cope with not winning I guess.

Tomorrow I look forward to lunch (Mittagessen) in the Mensa (student cafeteria), a lecture demonstrating Christmas science experiments and ballet in the evening. I hope I wake up in time...

Pass auf euch auf!

In Chemnitz

Scheiße, it's annoying using a German keyboard. At home I can switch between English and German, but here there's just German. And I still don't know how to find the @ sign so I have to keep copying and pasting it, which "geht mir auf den Keks/geht mir auf den Geist" i.e. is also annoying. German is weird - 'It gets on my biscuits' means its annoying!

Just watched KiddieContest - a child's version of X Factor. Pretty cool actually. The kids sing German words to American (Ami) and English songs. I loved the song about not being able to survive without her mobile phone (Handy) and the winner who sang about pocket money (Taschengeld) being hard to come by in the recession (Wirtschaftskrise), but again necessary to pay for his phone and taking girls to the cinema (Kino). Not sure if it would be really sad to buy the CD of the KiddyContest. It's still rare to hear German pop music with German lyics so it would be quite nice.

It was a bit sad I guess that all the songs involved Youtube and Handys. Is the spirit of childhood disappearing to technology? Although the song I want to stay young/small (Ich will klein sein) was quite moving. It was also annoying that after the programme lots of toys and games were advertised. Do kids spend all their time on Playstations now? More annoying - do girls really want to buy Barbie on a horse and a fake baby advertised by a woman with a horrible shrieky voice. Surely they would prefer a mini remote control car that can drive over everything including someone's arm and that can sneakily be hidden in your pocket? I hope my brother doesn't see that advert...he doesn't need to hide yet more stuff!

Chemnitz is nice, the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) is beautiful and the snow covering everything magical, although my feet are constantly soaking, its hard to avoid it when the snow is half a meter deep and no one is cleaning it up. My boots don't go up to my knees unfortunately.

Went to see my first ever opera yesterday: "La Boheme" by Puccini in Chemnitz's Operhaus. It was much better than I thought, like a play or musical, just in Italian and you had to keep raising your head to read the subtitles. I don't know if it had a serious message and it lagged towards the end, but I always like seeing people that live in artistic communes, there was a painter, writer, philosopher etc. Although it was a shame that the artistic types were all men, and the only two women were obviously love interests. I've never heard of a female artist with a male muse.

Today I went Christmas shopping and was very excited to see an Adventkalendar which had neither a picture nor chocolate behind its big square doors, but instead a book for each day of Advent. This is truly awesome, but it's too big and expensive to take home with me I think. I wonder if they exist in London? Now I'm going to Club of Cultures or Club der Kulturen - CdK for a baking and pyjama private party. I am loath to leave the warm flat to soak my feet yet again, but it should be very fun.

Pass auf euch auf! (Take care!)

Student Protest Number Two

I've decided to start writing again, having left it so long. And today was rather out of the ordinary. As you will have gathered it's the second student protest and we got to see it at first hand in Parliament - out of the window at lunch time in Bellamys. Opinions in Parliament on the Lib Dem side are fairly anti protest - which is understandable given the situation Lib Dem staff have found themselves in - having to defend the policy of their MP to their constituents. However, I feel that protests are often a good way to stir up an interest in politics in young people.

The country gave the Conservatives a majority of sorts (if 40% can be seen as a majority) and they need to accept the consequences of their actions. If young people can be incentivised to challenge Government policy and campaign for better political parties that can only be a good thing - far better than never reading the paper and remaining oblivious.

However, the police were atrociously behaved today. They kettled the protesters into a small space on Whitehall, rather than letting them pass. The protesters had to stand in two separated groups in a claustrophobic space with no idea what was going on, no one could even leave to go to the toilet. And they wonder why the protesters tried to break police lines. The police thought it prudent to viciously hit those protesters trying to leave with their batons - seemingly breaking the arm of one of their colleagues. Also suspicious was the police van left in the middle of the road with the protesters - why was it there - it seemed to be a good ruse on the part of the police to encourage the more juvenile protesters to attack it and thus render another protest irresponsible: it's a perfect recipe for damage if you leave several thousand protesters prevented from marching by being caged in an enclosed area surrounded by violent police officers. After a few hours what would you do if the only object of interest is a dormant police van? This is not a justification of smashing a vehicle, merely a valid point - if you provoke people enough they will retaliate eventually.

Also today I met a constituent who wanted to talk to Stephen about Palestine, having recently been. She was shocked by the deprivation and danger of the West Bank that the Palestinian people live in, having been on a very peaceful protest against the Israeli military in the West Bank with fellow protesters aged 50 and upwards. Faced with a handful of middle aged people marching, Israeli soldiers attacked them with tear gas and stun weapons. Compare that to the police in Westminster today and the difference is appalling. Yet whilst everyone in the UK will have heard about the London and regional based protests by tomorrow, very few will understand the conditions Palestinians in the West Bank live in on a daily basis. It surprised me how affected the constituent had been by her visit to Palestine - on a detour from her holiday in Israel. Before she had assumed if the states were not at war, life must be fine. Having seen the reality she is determined to do all she can to campaign against the unfairness of Israeli building projects and the lack of water available to the Palestinians. I imagined everyone knew the facts already but just didn't care about the Palestinians - it is sad that one must physically go there to fully comprehend why we need to take action so desperately.

On a different note I went to French class today in Brent, where we discussed the protest, EMA cuts, the royal wedding and how to combat climate change. I often view it as a kind of focus group to gauge popular opinion, unlike the focus group of one woman in the episode of the Thick of It. It struck me that out of the eight of us, only half of us spoke English as a first language. It seems that there is a correlation between already speaking two or more languages and wanting to learn a new one. This is understandable but sad. Cameron has decided immigrants to the UK need to have perfect English, but he should 'first remove the log from his own eye' and ensure all Government Ministers and preferably all British citizens can speak two or more languages, if he does not want to be seen as hypocritical.

New Job

So finally, for the first time in my life...a proper job! I beat 240 people to get an interview with 7 others hoping to be offered the job of researcher for a cool Lib Dem MP, and I got the job of assistant researcher! Gone are the days of internhood, lazing around, being stressed about the big future out there...I went to an all party group on Wellbeing Economics today and it made me release how lucky I am - I have been offered a job from 10am - 5.30pm, hours I adore, I get to work in Parliament and learn more about the mad world of politics, and I might even be making enough money to think about moving out soon...

Who'd have guessed I'd be a role model?

Panthea greeted me today with her usual enthusiasm, 'I'm tired, I've got a headache, I need to go shopping...I'm reallly ill...' Half way through the lesson, after I'd persuaded her to do some ratio worksheets, she started questioning me about my job and whether I worked part time. Within minutes she had decided she would get an A in Maths and become a tutor too - 'If I work in the evenings I can spend the day going shopping'. She worked out the exact hour intervals when she would work and even informed me that she would earn more than me because she would 'work Fridays too'.

Before she could be persuaded to work again she sketched the shoe she apparently wanted to buy - complete with spikes, 5 wheels, a water bottle holder at the back and various doughnut carriers at the front, the shoe would make doughnuts. She is remarkably inventive, if a little crazy, and it almost seems a shame to teach her maths instead of English, which she loves. However, she cant be a Maths tutor if she doesn't learn, so hopefully she will be more keen on Friday.

Drama Queen

My pupil said to me today in the statistics lesson, 'I bet you're going to go home and tell your friends and family how crazy I am'. I replied, 'I've already written a blog about how mad you are and there are lots of subscribers....'

It got me thinking though, she is rather entertaining, and its fascinating how self aware she is, that she is analysing her behaviour with me and projecting my possible moves in the future.

She succeeded in distracting me from statistics for ten whole minutes of our hour lesson today by telling me about her boyfriend woes. She has recently broken up with her boyfriend because he kissed one of her friends. I wanted to know why she was still friends with this girl. Panthea was surprisingly pragmatic, 'Well I did the same thing to one of my friends, so I guess its just bad karma..'

Apparently the reason she couldn't concentrate on the lesson was because she was constantly thinking about him. Hmmmm

Another funny thing, my phone beeped a couple of times during the lesson and Panthea wanted to know if it was my boyfriend. When I said no she said, 'Oh is that because education is the most important thing in your life', she looked dead serious but laughed when my deadpan response 'Of course, what is more important than education?' came back at her.

She was, however, upset that she couldn't go a party on tonight because of my tuition - she was missing out on 'four hours' of dancing apparently. When I suggested people might be bored and just talking she said 'Talking's even worse!'. Panthea wanted to be at the party because her ex boyfriend would be there with another of his exes. When I suggested this was rather counter intuitive she said, 'I want to make her jealous, its my duty'. So its her duty to make herself upset? Should I feel guilty I wonder...

Well instead of the party she was off to watch a romantic comedy at the 02 centre with another friend, who happened to be best friend's with the friend who kissed Panthea's ex...and had a picture of her and the ex on her phone...Some people just want to be miserable

No more Mr Nice Guy

Mad panic, lesson in an hour, I print sheet after sheet of poems and story extracts and reading comprehensions and grammar exercises. I realise I have almost used up all the materials on BBC Bitesize as well as all my paper and ink and start to get into a frenzy. Do I REALLY have enough material to keep a lesson of two hours going? Can I honestly say I have prepared enough to earn my much needed £25?

When I arrive however it turns out the agenda has been set. The concerned pregnant mother wants her children to drastically improve their punctuation and grammar. So it’s away with compliments and free open discussions and on with a drastic critique of every word, sentence and paragraph written in their last homework I commissioned, as well as every phrase they utter. In the two hour lesson we went through a mere three pieces of homework.

Instead of a nice tick and a few useful comments for improvement, I initiated formative assessment in one devastating swoop. Far from making a few tentative suggestions for future essays, I massacred the work of my two lovely pupils, effectively making them rewrite it in its entirety.

They endured me with my cruellest persona yet: NO you are not allowed to use good as an adjective – it does not MEAN anything! Why are you repeating yourself? Did you really think that sentence was interesting or meaningful? Do NOT write ‘I think that’ write ‘It IS the case that’, Your younger brother does not write like that! REPETITION. That word is pointless, as is the sentence, in fact cross out the entire paragraph! What could you have written instead? Is that sentence logical? Really?!

It was rather a lot of fun and required absolutely no preparation, it even had the added bonus of making me feel I was genuinely teaching them something useful. Indeed, this style of lesson radically reduces lesson planning to as little as a minute – I decide what insane amount of homework I will give them for discussion next week. At the moment I seem to have a backlog of undissected homework, so I guess I can sit back and relax.

My fear is simply that too much criticism demotivates and demoralizes. I’m also dubious about the usefulness of the pupils writing down verbatim all the improvements I suggest. They need to think for themselves and be encouraged to do so. At the end of the day, though, I must do what I am told by the mother and wage payer. Who knows, maybe the kids will improve at a crazy rate. No more Mr Nice Guy.