Wildewire

So: Prince Harry and his wife have stepped down from duties as members of the British Royal Family, vowed to repay tax-payer's money spent on the house the Queen gave them, to spend most of their time in Canada and to be financially independant. This is in response to the unfettered, unrelenting racist jibes Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has received from the moment the British press got wind that someone nearish to the British throne was courting a 'dusky beauty'. It was sort of polite, if totally clueless at the start: references to Meghan's "exotic DNA" and Princes Michael of Kent wearing a bejewelled 'blackamoor' broach when she met Harry's fiancee. It has got progressively worse; Harry broke with protocol and told the press he wouldn't stand for it, so they stepped up the snide comments and attacks. I became increasingly annoyed. The usual arguments about "The Royals" weren't even dusted off- just rolled out in that particu...

There didn't seem to be much to celebrate! This feeling seems to intensify each year!! But, being STILL broke and out of work, achieving the age of 59, whilst an achievement of sorts, didn't warrant particular effort. I thought for a moment there might have been a reminder on Facebook, but there wasn't which was fine. Luckily, my friend came round with supplies- and a jumper he claimed was too big for him. He didn't know it was my birthday so it became a de facto pressie! Apart from the fact that I'm one lodger short at the moment and therefore my income has almost halved, life is settled into a fairly stressless if unexciting routine. The lodger is only here for half the week so I get lots of glorious time to myself. A big part of my day is looking and applying for jobs. I really don't understand what I'm doing wrong so that I'm not being shortlisted. Is it my age? -My reputation? -My sexuality? Should I pretend to be something I'm not just to...

I am a bloody good director of theatre, my work is better than much I have seen! My sadness has been that I finished my training at a particularly difficult time for the Creative Sector in UK: the mid-1980s belonged to the Thatcher government who thought that art and culture wasn't something that the state needed to be supporting so it cut grants and support and opportunities for work suddenly disappeared as encumbent directors hung onto their jobs for dear life. I also made soppy, community-minded decisions about my early work rather than going all out for developing a "reputation" while I was young. Without a 'financially comfortable' family to fall back on I relied on my general management skills to make a living as close to "The Arts" as I could. But each contract took me further away from where I wanted to be. I'd been working for the Black Theatre Forum after raising the money to relocate The Actors Centre to its current location which includ...

I'm struggling with the fact that I am STILL looking for work 17 months after I resigned from my last job! I couldn't have remained in the job; my pay was just enough to stop me sliding into more debt but not to address the 7 months of no income I'd had after being made redundant when I couldn't pay my mortgage. I thought the poor pay was down to working for a local authority until they made the mistake of sharing a list of salaries and I realised I'd been being shafted from day one!... After finding out, every day I worked there was painful. I've applied for at least two jobs per week last year but have secured only 4 interviews. Whilst I'm sort of used to it now, this has been a shock to my system: I'm not used to struggling this hard to find work. In the past; I've been able to raise money to deliver creative community development initiatives, but we closed the community interest company last year so that's not open to me anymore. Why do...

I enjoy spending Christmas to New Year on my own. Friends don't believe me and have in the past tried to kidnap me to "save" me from the terror of solitude. Except that I actually do appreciate it as a reflective time. I'm wary of the family tensions that seem to bubble up at this tme of year. I alway say- and I think it is true; that if I looked after young children I would make the whole period into a succession of treats... But I don't, so I don't. As a non-meat eater and someone who dislikes feeling stuffed with food; Christmas has been a problem for me for a long time, once I realised I COULD opt out of it, I did. Of course; being poor hasn't helped LOL. It would be nice for my period on the work wilderness to end! I shut down my life as much as I could when I was made redundant a couple of years ago, the job I left last year only paid me enough to stop the debts I'd incurred getting bigger but my lifestyle didn't change that much. Austeri...

Well... That was shit! Thank goodness that decade is over. There's NO indication that my future will be better, but looking back on my life since 2010 is depressing. The Selfservatives announced "Austerity" in 2010 which was implemented from the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2011 which adversely impacted the Voluntary Sector where my work is based. The organisation I'd developed from an irrelevant monthly 3 hour chat between minority ethnic elders into a dynamic agency supporting creative professionals from minority ethnic communities to secure work in the region's cultural venues had its funding cut and I was made redundant. It was run by people who were out of touch with what the organisation was actually for and who'd ignored my warnings about what I thought the government would do in response to the global banking crisis... But I did get an apology from them when I was proved right. At the end of the decade I've closed the 'CIC' I starte...