I wrote this in November. It’s still relevant. Sadly.

We live in a civilised world where rape is still common place in some countries. As is child slavery, as is genocide.

We live in a world where people can’t get food or clean water to drink.

We live in a world where people regularly die from lack of food.

We live in a world where people can’t afford to have a basic standard of living.

We live in a world where children are leaving school unable to read.

We live in a world where some children don’t get to go to school at all.

We live in a world where Kim Kardashian can make $250,000 for each 24 hours she was married…..allegedly.

You know I don’t really care what the exact figure is – the fact that she is making more than a couple hundred bucks for such a thing is pretty gross.

I don’t blame her for making the most of this – I blame the world for caring so much for this.

When did it become acceptable for actors to earn such a ridiculous sum of money for prancing about pretending to be someone else?

Why are surgeons not the people that we hold in great esteem?

Why are footballers earning such ridiculous sums of money for running around kicking a leather ball? We’ve seen the headlines – many would be better off spending their money on better education.

Why on earth is this money not put into scholarships?

Why are football clubs not building sports centres? It would give the youth something to do and also help sort out a lot of the weight issues that we are struggling from.

When did it become such a fickle world that children are aspiring to be famous, you ask them what for and they shrug. Why are they not trying to do something good for their community? Or for the world?
When did we become so bogged down with ‘me, me, me’!

When did what surgery we were prepared to have become what was really the driving force.

Name me 10 celebrities that haven’t had work done!

When did it become OK for said celebrities to pretend they have written a book, made a perfume, designed some clothes, when really they are just nodding or shaking their heads and watching that cash roll in which for a lot of them is only happening because of something that their parents did to make that name carry some weight!

When did it become OK to say these people should be the role models, the big income earners and the people we all aspire to and look up to?

When did it become OK to mislead our youth so much?

I don’t know how said celebrities live with themselves to be honest – but the truth is they just pay people to keep the real world away from them.

People can no longer afford to go to University. Libraries are being shut so unless you have money you are not even being entitled to the right to read a book.

The country has been set up where cars are a necessity now the cost of running those cars is becoming so high that many can’t afford to run them, but the infrastructure is not there for people not to have a car.

Gas and electricity companies are recording record high profits whilst people are dying in their chairs because they cannot afford to put their heating on.

I look around me every day and I see people with no homes to go to, people that are drinking themselves to an early grave.

I see people working hard but then having it all taken from them when they need to pay for old age care, when they are put into grossly overcharged accommodation where it is pot luck as to whether they will actually look after you or not.

I see a country where those that don’t bother to work live in flats that those that work cannot afford. I see them get so much and so many that are working hard not getting their basic rights met.

Take London. An amazing city.

But there are some dark places here.

Rents are ridiculous. Landlords are not meeting their basic obligations because they don’t have to, because the government is being clueless and the demand for property is so high these rogue landlords are being left to screw over so many.

The prices of places to buy is laughable – then you see the condition they are in and wonder who is being stupid enough to invest in such things.

Where in the world do you find a small lounge, a tiny alcove kitchen, a bathroom so small it has no window and a tiny bedroom not big enough to have a full sized wardrobe in it going for the bargain rent of £1,000 per month?

Where is small shoe box of a flat that doesn’t even have a proper kitchen in it and has no outside space go for what is being called a steal at £300,000.

Most cannot afford this in their wildest dreams.

It will take them 25 years of scrimping and saving and borrowing from all sorts of people, working two jobs and using their inheritance to pay for this – and even then they might not have paid it all off in 25 years!

But Kim Kardashian was making that every 2 days or less depending on the exchange rate.

Wow – that is one fucked up set of morals we are trying to encourage this world to have.

I do not have a spending addiction…I’m helping the environement.

Times are hard for many right now.  Times have been hard for many for a long time, forever in fact.

There is enough wealth in the world for not one person to be homeless.  For not one person to be starving.

Yet…………………in America alone there are over 35 MILLION people that are poverty striken.

There are times I moan I am skint……but really it means I can’t buy whatever useless not really necessary purchase I just have to have or my life will be over…..until I find something else I just have to have.

The world is consumed by materialism.  How much do you earn? Where did you holiday last year? How big is your house? What is your postcode?  What label is your outfit from? And so on and so forth.

None of these things are defining us as people, but the world has led us to believe it does so a few fat cats can get very fat and rich in deed.  The world needs us to shop and feel envy…..apparently.

Personally I think I’d prefer to live in a world where every child has the chance to an education.  That no one has to die needlessly.  That no one has to worry about where their next meal is coming from.  This is probably why I’d never make a very good rich person.  I don’t think I could own lots of cars and houses and have millions sat in the bank whilst people are too poor to be able to eat a proper meal even once a day.

The world isn’t fair.  I know that.  It doesn’t mean I have to like it.

There are plenty of things each one of us could do to help and I hope that each one of us does something to help.

A friend of mine is putting a child from a third world country through school.  At my work a group of us fund a few children through school and provide medication for them.  I donate money to an elephant sanctuary, I sponsor a guide dog for the blind, I am in finalising volunteer work for a women’s advice centre, I donate to the rain forest and campaign for an alternative to palm oil and orangutan protection.  I recycle.  I use my own bags where possible at food stores.  I hand over my old clothes, books and music to the charity store.  And I am sure there are many more things I can do and will continue to try to help in whatever little way I can.

As a light relief…….due to my wage packet being stretched more and more by things like rent, bills, food, travel…….I still like to have new clothes…..so I can help my pocket, my wardrobe and also the environment as buying clothes from the charity store takes very little resources, as the clothese have already been made.

Today’s purchases set me back by £13.50, so that’s a £13.50 donation to charity, little effect to the environment and my spending bug has been itched! Not bad for a mornings work!