Woe is me.

Is it me or does the phrase ‘the misery of the human condition’ make everyone cringe? Last week I walked into an art gallery where that phrase was plastered over the wall to explain the ‘theory’ behind a series of photographs of old people dancing on a promenade. Please forgive me for failing to see the misery in something so touching as old couples boogying.

The real bone this makes me want to pick at is why we feel the need to justify everything in art through the eyes of archaic philosophies. Cannot something just be beautiful? Do we really need to have an obscure message behind every camera lens.

I once asked my flamboyant English teacher why we only studied depressing books – ‘Death of a Salesman’, ‘Of Mice and Men’ and so on. Without missing a beat he responded “Happiness writes white, dear girl” and minced off.  There is no doubt some truth in the phrase especially when writing a play or novel in which plot and narrative structure demand misery to make us cry so that we feel elated when we allowed to laugh.

Poets are probably the worst for making misery a highbrow artistic activity, Wendy Cope wrote a wonderful poem expostulating about how comic poems must enter different competitions from ‘real’ poems and of course be rewarded with smaller prizes. If you have to be miserable to be in the arts then in seems strange that we all congregate here aspiring to get into the industry. There is nothing elegant about suffering and mental hospitals with barred windows and the stench of disinfectant.

Beautiful doesn’t have to be tragic and entertainment doesn’t have to be crass. While Vincent Van Gogh and Glee make excellent examples of tragic beauty and crass entertainment respectively there is also a whole world of examples to fight the other side of the argument. The old British sitcoms Yes Minister and The Good Life, the William Tell overture, Queen’s entire back catalogue or whimsical graffiti. 

A beautifully Yorkshire favourite of mine near Hallam Uni.

It’s all a question of balance. While it seems to be true that the best of each genre is often focussed on painful truths there will be so many examples where this has gone wrong leaving the artist with something pretentious and trite that they hastily zip to the recycle bin.

Misery of the human condition? Pah! We get enough of that on the news. Here’s a brief from me – I challenge you to make me laugh.

Being Proud not Jealous.

In my situation while I watch the successes of friends whom I have supported or family it is very difficult not to get a tinge of the green eyed monster. In fact I regularly become such a monstrosity - though hopefully only in private. I have lost touch with several friends because they are busy having the lives they planned and I find it too painful to watch what I feel I also deserved, perhaps deserved more than them sometimes too.

Today reading my little sister's travel blog I didn't feel jealous, I just felt proud. Granted I'd rather her dancing outfit for the bar where she worked had a little more to it but although pictures of koala bears and palm beaches flood her Facebook account my overwhelming feeling is of pride that she is so brave as to go and explore the world.

I want to exorcise that green-eyed monster. I don't like the person it makes me. Maybe this is how - I should remember to be proud of the part I took in making those other lives fit an let the happiness of others be my reward. Unfortunately I am not Mother Theresa so this will be easier said than done but hopefully this little stream of thought might help me remember.

Entering the debate

Well, Mr Chenko and Emily have both had their say and I think it's time for me to get on my high horse and ride into the debate on benefits. I have a few thoughts on: the working for free scheme; the disparity between disabled people's support and that of those lucky enough to have their health; and my view on minimum wage. But before I do, let me provide you with a little context...

I have been unemployed and on benefits for 4 years now. I am disabled, though not in anyway that is immediately obvious and my day to day life is a struggle. I never intended to go on disability benefits but when I phoned up to apply for JSA I was told I couldn't because I was not looking for full time employment. And so I have got on this incapacity benefit - the name of which makes me cringe - and I have spent 4 years trying to build myself up through part time education, medication, lifestyle changes and voluntary work. So now you know whose talking, what have I got to say?

Well firstly, I am fed up with the government targeting disabled people for their cuts when it is their policies and practise that allow employers to ask for disclosure, which allows them to discriminate. While most disabled people would probably struggle to work full time (especially with fatigue related disease) it is unfair not to give them the chance. Once on incapacity benefits for 6 months approximately 90% of claimants will be on it for life. It's not a cushy deal - living in naff rented accommodation, unable to afford to have children, being looked down on and having people believe you are ripping them off because your disability is hidden and they are ignorant.

I want to work! I want the identity and self-esteem, not to mention the wage and activity that employment brings. The Daily Mail and government are happy to label us as scroungers but the truth is with employers preferring people who are 'easier' to employ and the Jobcentre not giving us contact or guidance unless we really chase it (8 numbers, £2.60 and 68 minutes to get through to the Disability Employment Adviser's office - and she wasn't there and failed to return my call!). People on the old benefit like I am are not entitled to any fee remission at college if we want to learn new skills, unlike those on JSA or who have moved to the cut down benefit and the dodgy dealing 'back to work' schemes refuse to believe we have any skills in the first place.

On one Remploy course we had a day's lecture on personal hygiene - because apparently disabled is a synonym for 'stinky' - and the course leader made the woman next to me cry. Is it any wonder we lose our confidence in our ability to work? What's more us 'stinkies' are also apparently also 'thickies' - I was offered a beginners' literacy course more than once (my first degree is English Literature). It turns out they were pushing these courses because the companies get a fee for every person they get 'into training' - regardless of whether it is appropriate. In the end I gave up and started looking for part time work on my own.

After help from my university careers' service my CV is pretty pimped out and my own experiences of being on society's bottom rung inspired me to do an MA in Community Work. Looking around for entry level part time community jobs I found the Future Jobs Fund - perfect! It was designed especially to give bright jobseekers part time paid work experience in areas of the third sector. I thought I was falling on my feet.

Then my knees buckled - or to be more precise I was knee-capped. I was not eligible to apply and why?
Because I was on Incapacity Benefit rather than Jobseeker's Allowance. In other words, those opportunities were for the 'abled only. Two of my best friends were employed through the scheme and are still working, one has moved on to a job in marketing and one is still at the company, who have kept him on while he does an MSc. It's hard not to be bitter. Luckily they are awesome people so I don't begrudge them their successes.

So if I can't go to college or get onto job schemes for graduates and I can't do the low skilled work that is on offer through people like the Shaw Trust (I'm not being snooty, factory work caused my original nervous break down and I have been told more than once that I'm 'over-qualified') then what are my options?

For now I volunteer and study all I can online for free, but I'd really appreciate it if I could earn my living by doing something other than giving the Daily Mail someone to pick on.

To be continued...

Titus pie!

USLES is doing another double bill this term and as Mr Producer(Matt) and I were bored we decided to hatch one of our more elaborate dreams of professionalism into reality - grown up looking posters! USLES has always used illustrations, which can get confusing as people think all we are is pantomime or that our stuff is aimed at children, which it rarely is unless changed for them to take the ruder bits out. Drawing made a lot of sense when we had a professional illustrator on the cast though but now she has moved on.

We had 2 hatchling plans but could only put the one for 'Titus' in to practise. Titus by Tim Norwood is an improvement on Shakespeare's 'Titus Andronicus', which was an improvement on something Greek. In it 2 of the Queen's sons get cooked into a pie, which is fed back to her. So we made....

TITUS PIE!

So, crap from my kitchen became a piece of photography - only problem is the president has vetoed using it because it won't photocopy in black and white. Hopefully one of our pencil wielders will do another version that can be done in black and white for flyers.