I've bigger fish to fry

I've weakened to the point of despair over the minefield it has become. It came to me last week when I was standing yet again in one more reception of one more company waiting for one more interview. Those utterly joyous looks of integrated multi faceted families of interfaith, interracial, infernally happy couples in their mid thirties with air brushed hair, non-existent pores and 2 snot free, perfectly behaved children, one of whom is conveniently disabled but still Jon Bonnetish enough in appearance that you ignore the ever so inconspicuous wheelchair and for a fleeting moment believe in, nay, are comforted by, this reflection of an ever-changing world. I have succumbed on occasion and nearly convinced myself that the not so clever trickery of blase ad agency (in it's efforts to meet the all singing, all dancing demands of their government or charity client) portrays this tripe to the face of the public as a means of eluding to a positive and proactive message about all that ails society and/or our failing navigation through it. But for some reason my engagement with anything remotely that contrived was short-lived and I and my cynical self rapidly and inevitably resort to the ever "bubbling below the surface" contempt I have at the government et al's assumption that John Q Public is a mindless, pliable sub-urbanite, who if fed enough of this will in fact create a world of perpetuated confirmed non-conformity. I feel compelled, albeit slightly reticent to, voice an opinion.


Recently, as many of you know, I gave up a comfortable, albeit decently (and I use that term reluctantly) paid job. I was too comfortable with the daily discomfort it caused me, and resigned to being one of the many working professional, asset rich, yet cash poor slobs this country breeds by the thousands. Complacent with the unrelenting forced interaction with the head quarters for the truly incompetent, I found myself wondering if my work experience in the UK should be limited to: 1) my experience for six months with a group of occupational psychologists when I first arrived in the UK, (who in my own personal fantasy world were all committed to an insane asylum when I quit and tortured through unrelenting personality profiling) or 2) my three year experience with a not for profit organisation who blatantly operates more commercially then Coke ever could, and who wantonly did to it's employees the very opposite of what it preaches in its campaign of leadership and solidarity as the sole purpose of civil society through corporate social responsibility. In fact, oddly, my 2nd employer was not unlike my 1st employer, those psychotic psychologists who psychoanalysed themselves and their employees to death, so too has the purpose been beaten out of my leadership. A pattern emerges, I fear, and yes, of course, I will freely admit, I left because I realised I can be the only freak on my ship. All other freaks, get off or get your own.


But I digress. I gave four months notice to my employer back in October having come to the screeching personal realisation while on holiday and answering the third phone call from work about some inane issue, that I hate working for people who believe that because they pay you, they own you, and therefore have the almighty right to abuse you willy nilly. It never ceases to amaze me how some employers can muster up the balls to treat you like you are insignificant on one hand and at the same time leave you feeling like yours and their very existence is reliant upon your ability to mount the insurmountable workload they create. Uncannily, stinking like a means to justify their position, imposing upon us the shit one has to to do, half of which is utterly useless and unnecessary and without a doubt exists only to take up time and space in the capitalistic, wanton waste of most organisations these days regardless of what it is they do, or which public master they serve. But being the tireless, bloated, self righteous corporataphobe that I am, I thought I would seek to be more independent in the work that I do and set up my own company as a way of demonstrating to those very organisations that if one worked in partnership with others in a way that authentically seeks to reach the goals of an organisation without damaging those who work for it, or those that it serves, well then I was the person to help make that happen. So for months I spent time thinking and planning what this organisation would look like, how I would do it and what in fact I wished to accomplish by doing it. I thought of those I would ask to be part of my organisation as associates and started to nurture a few organisations who I was convinced would be good clients. However, like every self propelled prophecy, just when the cards got printed, and the letterhead designed, my first proposal written, my husband who is as fed up as I am and went freelance last year, got shafted by his client to the tune of £7000 right off the back of being shafted by his last contract for nearly £15000 and I am back resorting to looking for another job.

Now, before the violin strings break, I actually really don't mind. I am optimistic that the right thing is just around the corner and I will find where I am supposed to be next. It is the one thing that I always believe is karmic and cosmic. You are where you are in life because you are meant to be there. This from a card carrying atheist/freethinker I know, but it has just always, always surprised me how true it rings. Which is how I found myself in that reception for a regulating body for a particular group of service providers interviewing for a 18 month contract holding a brochure that portrayed to me the very epitome of political correctness I first starting ranting about at the beginning of this particular post. After sitting for two hours in this persons office listening to public speak and nonsensical justification for spending more public money on yet another restructuring (hence the need for a project manager) I politely shook her hand and walked out of her office thinking on one hand I need this poorly paying job that is 1 1/2 hours drive from home there and 1 1/2 hours back and on the other thinking I just waved my foot back over fire and was waiting to firmly have my ass plunked back down on the frying pan. I realise it's a numbers game, truly I do, and in order to get something one has to consistently be attempting anything that will make it work. The odds are stacked against all of us, and yet if played enough can work in our favour. It's the sheer contradiction that seems to make it all come together somehow, which is why I think it works.

It's a funny thing that. So this weekend, not only am I scrabbling and grasping at posts on all the job sites that I think I might be able to do, I've been following up on all the potential contractual opportunities that have been lurking under the surface of my discussions with people, I've also prepared a case for our lawyer to sue the clients from my husbands business who haven't paid him, (I'm North American and it is my given right to sue those who seek to screw me) I am also hoping that my business idea will get just the smallest leg up and this contract that I would like to do will miraculously get put under my nose. It is after all, a numbers game. For now at least my ranting about my quest for citizenship will have to wait. I've bigger fish to fry.

Come all ye children

Well then, if it isn't the biggest brotherist of all citizenship antics yet. Just when you're poised to jump the hoop, the hoop gets bigger, is moved or set up at the Tate for all to witness you tripping over.

What does Britishness mean? Let me ask you this, is there anyone left on the planet that is not aware of the British Isles, the United Kingdom, England, Wales, and or Scotland? Is there an inch of the planet that hasn't been conquered, colonised or pulverized by one and the same at some time in it's history or haven't been subjected to British media, British music, British language, British law or British beef?

Lets measure up the effort at determining Britishness and our worthiness of it, shall we?

According to Lord.... wait, please stop me right there...Lord? I still have trouble understanding how in this day and age when peerages were handed out like gift tokens at Christmas, would anyone still want to refer to themselves as Lord. Aahh, yes. He's British. Well Lord Whatisname wants to give us a another day off in the calendar to celebrate Britishness. Is this really an accurate reflection of what the British public want? A national holiday during which we will wave the original red, white and blue for a day, or is it just another excuse to take a day off and rack up more points on the Binge Drinking scale as a means of propping up the failing economy a la our darling, Darling?

His Goldshipness also wants to give us council tax discounts for volunteer work, changes to current categories of citizenship, language "loans" for new immigrants to learn English, a type of community service to enhance "citizen education" and special ceremonies for school-leavers.

I'm all for tax breaks, improved language skills, (...er... for everyone...) and days off but I draw the line at publicly humiliating rights of passage for teenagers... Hang on! On the other hand that might become the new national sport a la a perverse reversed Clockwork Orange. Another fine example of British Cinema I might add.

But all that aside this is my favourite.

Foreigners who cannot take British nationality because their home nations
do not permit dual citizenship should become "associate citizens" of the UK,
and certain types of residual citizenship would be abolished.

I say again...WTF? What is residual citizenship? Is it the fading connection to where you once belonged prior to becoming British; the erosion of prior personal identity in exchange for what amounts to born again virginity of nationalist British pride? Oh yes and I laughed the laugh of a man with big testicles when I read the "associate citizens" idea. I mean I'm not one for always having my cake and eating it too...I said not always...but come on, either one can become a citizen of Britain and still maintain some degree of pride in their birthplace or never become a full citizen at all? Has this country finally succumbed to the homogenised thinking that it once imposed on others?

In all honesty, I am frightened. I continue to see half hearted attempts at uniting what is rapidly becoming a fractured country, and as a foreigner , I am worried. Worried for the thousands of people that sit in the proverbial purgatory of waiting, worrying, and wondering if in fact they will ever be citizens of this country. If they will ever get over having to pay for the privilege of being bled dry of of every pence that lines their pockets with soaring cost of living increases, interest rates and taxes. A country that on one hand bends to the whim of white Anglo-Saxon scaremongering, in the name of political correctness and fundamentalist groups in the name of "respect" while on the same hand denies life and sight saving medications to it's own elders, claiming it costs too much. A country that holds our... my... future security hostage for 1000 quid all in the name of citizenship.

I will not be deterred however, all his Lordships and teenager bashing aside, I will continue to study to take the test, try and raise that £1000 and purge my Canadianism so that I too can go to the Tate Modern to jump that proverbial hoop.

Too much caffeine will make you do something like this

Blogging. WTF?

I, in all honesty, truly thought, (if thought is what you can call what I actually gave it) that blogging was for B-list celebrities and soccer mums. Sure, I read the occasional blog written by a guardian journalist about some environmental disaster or crisis of conscience, when I cheat and read the guardian online instead of buying the Saturday edition like every other self respecting urbanite come intellect. Truth?! I'm lazy and cheap and only splurge on a real newspaper when I can afford to buy my groceries at Waitrose every week. But for people like me, your average Jo-lene, your overworked, overtired, undersexed, overwrought, under impressed self, a blog is for the self righteous and missionised hip and tech savvy 20 somethings. Just one of the 40 million delusions I allow to exist in my life, to justify why I can't do something.

I don't actually think real people read these things.

Please. It is the place where feeble minded wanna be intellects write for the sake of spilling their proverbial guts about something he/she/we all pretend we want to care about or hope the readers, all 6 of them if your lucky, feel some degree of empathy toward, what usually amounts to long winded rantings about nothing and everything. Fuck it, gotta be cheaper than therapy.


Blog. I met up with my American friend, at Coffee Republic on Friday for a quick cuppa. Coffee Republic , the pretenders anti-Starbucks "cafe", a la Plymouth. Which oddly is right next door to...yes, Starbucks. Our second in town. Moving up? Doubt it!

We are both aliens in England and hence the need for me to write a blog about what it's like to be a North American in England, wanting to escape the stigma of immigrantism. Her American self and me, my Canadian self, both want to expose the ridiculous hoops we will have to jump through to achieve that elusive right of passage into Britishness...citizenship. Hence the name of this blog "British Citizenship". Oh, yes, I'm sure this blog will morph into something unlike it's original intention, and probably will do so within weeks, but first I want to see how much money I can raise so that I can in fact become a citizen before my Canadian passport runs out and I , along with my friend who is in the same boat, have to figure out how they, the British/American/Canadian governments, collectively or individually move our "Leave to Remain" sticker from one passport to another. I say this only because that bloody sticker cost well over a £1000 and the citizenship application process looks like it will cost about the same.

I'm postponing applying for my citizenship for two reasons. One, it means that I have to go through the process and pulling my metaphorical trousers down for the British government so they can scrutinise my very existence for the last four years, a repeat I might add of what I went through then and once more since, just to prove I am neither a dreaded, dare I say the word, terrorist, communist, post modernist or any other kind of ist that could threaten their precious and worth preserving way of life. Back the f*** up a minute. There are no delusions here.

Now, I am as grateful as the next immigrant to be here. I chose to be here, and bloody well pay a gawdamned fortune for that privilege. I'm over educated by British standards, I am employable unlike many of the overeducated British and contribute a great deal to the society in which I live and work. I consciously choose to work in environments where what I do, for whom I do it, does no harm to any individual, group or the environment. I support all that is fairtrade, organic, local, traceable and sustainable and not once have I ever even thought of slagging off this Fair Isle. But for once I'd like the Home Office to take it's hand out of my, ...er..., pocket and change the financially punitive nature of citizenship and the request for such.

Most days now I can't be assed. It's a cliché, a pointless exercise in futility to actually care about what the government of this country or any other for that matter wants from its already bedraggled citizens and immigrants alike. It's all so bourgeois.

The second reason is, I just don't have £1000 to spare. Between my 1/4 million pound mortgage, groceries from Waitrose, Riverford and the Farmers Market, between supporting the local Wildlife Trust, the local Credit Union and Amnesty, the 2 cars, 2 old vet bill riddled dogs, and 2 underpaid jobs, I don't have 2 pence to rub together come the end of the month. So I ask myself, how in the name of all that is sacred am I supposed to conscionably fork over £1000 to the British government for the luxury of not having to figure out how to get my bloody "Leave to Remain" sticker...remember that...to what would be my very own British passport.

So. Blogging. Will it achieve the unachievable, the unconscionable, the ist and ism of my very existence. All I'm hoping is someone will read it and well throw me a few bob to pay for the sheer entertainment value my blog provides. Of course it all goes to the "Make Dawn a British Citizen" fund.

G'nite...y'all.