A whole new meaning to the term 'hedge fund'

CAPITALISM IS CRAZY

‘Ruh oh, here we go’, you’re thinking. ‘She’s had a couple of beers and got political again. She’s ranting and raving and won’t listen to sense. Quick, let me navigate away from this page before the barrage of slurred conspiracy theories starts dissolving my hard-earned brain cells.

Ah ha! Well, think again my friend, for I can (reasonably) confidently confirm that I have only had ONE beer today, and this blog post is totally sane. Capitalism, on the other hand, is absolutely CRAZY. And I don’t mean this in an affectionate, ‘wouldn’t have you any other way’ kind of tone. Please don’t read this the way JD and Turk cheerily say ‘Hooch is crazy’ in Scrubs. I mean it. Forget about inhumane, this concept we’ve built our democracy around has become SUPER RIDICULOUS.

Let me explain what led me to this conclusion, and to add my two cents to a conversation which a lot of people would consider closed by David Hassellhoff on top of a wall in 1989.

I’m not an economist, but based on my limited understanding, I get the point of capitalism. I get that it’s important to affix value to products and services, to allow us to trade effectively in them. That’s a sound idea, really it is. But as society evolves and changes, so necessarily will its foundations, and capitalism has evolved into a CRAZY BITCH.

Any western export delivered by the Hoff is always 100% welcome, right?

Allow me to demonstrate with a very tangential story. I came across a report recently about the myriad benefits public parks provide to society. Great, right? It included a section about a government committee designed to make it much easier to convey the value of public parks, and drive more councils and businesses to invest their time and money in them. This committee was called the Natural Capital Committee, and I still can't understand how anyone writing about this committee manages to do so with a straight face, so ridiculous and comical is the purpose of this ACTUAL GOVERNMENT FUNDED INITIATIVE.

Since 2012, the Natural Capital Committee has been dedicated to showing the ‘true economic value of habitats and species by placing financial metrics on the 'free' goods and services provided by nature.’ This means there are people who are paid by government to translate things like the beauty of trees, the exhilaration of a good morning run, the pleasant chirping of birds and the rush of jumping off a swing into hard cash value. I mean, really. Apart from being far from a science, it’s also JUST SUPER DUMB. The report states, with the unbridled positivity of the guy who voices the JML infomercials, that metrics now exist “that allow the accurate calculation of the economic value of … storing carbon, [and] providing food and clean water”.

That’s a scary sentence, and not just because it uses the hellish mathematical buzzwords of ‘calculation’ and ‘economic’ in the same breath. That sentence tells me that I live in a world where it’s seen as necessary to affix monetary value to that nifty thing trees do where they create oxygen for life. A handful of intelligent individuals are required - sorry, PAID - to demonstrate the financial value of THE ABILITY TO FREAKING BREATHE. As if the value of LITERALLY STAYING ALIVE wasn’t self evident. It’s hysterical, ridiculous, and also more than mildly dystopian. The most dystopian thing about it is that the many many people whose hands this report has gone through, and who established this committee, can’t have seen it this way. This madness was to them, logical and sensible, and a good use of time and money.

Did they factor in the cost to the NHS when she breaks her ankle joyously jumping off that swing to their calculations? Is the creative thought and confidence she builds from playing outdoors worth more or less than the cost of a 6 week cast? Most importantly, WHO THE HELL SERIOUSLY WORKS THIS SHIT OUT?

The version of capitalism we have found ourselves in has morphed so much that the language of money is the only language governments, companies and the other bodies that run our society trade in. In order to persuade those in power of the value of anything, we have to do so in terms of hard cash. Whole government discourses run on this premise, without anyone questioning the super-flawed fundamentals on which the debate is set. It’s pre-agreed that the way to win a policy argument is through finance. ‘How much money can be saved by increasing access to mental health?’, politicians ask. Not ‘How many people will be healthier and safer?’, which is surely the primary aim of any mental health policy. The freedom and safety of financial markets has become, weirdly, far more sacrosanct than the freedom and safety of human beings.

Nothing, including the very air we breathe, it seems, is good or valuable unless it can be monetized. This principle, shown in this report at its most ridiculous of logical extensions, is the same principle that sees the disabled, the unemployed, refugees, low-earners and students so badly treated by western democracies. Our current version of capitalism isn't an all-access market, promoting healthy competition. It's an absolutely ludicrous joke.

Money and capitalism were meant to aid the smooth running of society, but now society seems to be increasingly arranged to aid the smooth flow of money. I’m not crazy - THAT IS.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby ... And Seventeenth Century Theatre

Yes! My totally grabby scandalous title brought you in! Read on, friends as I share my tipsily written, soberly edited thoughts on a seventeenth century spy, tinder and feminism. 

I recently watched the dress run of The Rover, probably the sexiest show currently on at the RSC. (If you don’t think that’s much of a statement, go check out Lucifer in a white catsuit, red lipstick and stilettos in Doctor Faustus at the Barbican, then come back to me. Elizabethan theatre is RAUNCHY.) 

It was very enjoyable. Aphra Behn, who wrote it, was one of the UK’s first professional female playwrights, when she wasn’t being a spy. She’s kind of like a seventeenth century John le Carre, except she wrote about far more universal and exciting things than international espionage: sex and travel, mostly. The play’s about three wealthy sisters who escape their brother’s restrictive watch to experience some fun and romance before facing the highly unromantic futures that have been laid out for them, which involve being shipped off to convents or into unwanted marriages. They disguise themselves as gypsies and join carnival season for one night of freedom, where they become entangled with three English travellers, who find the carnival equally new, exciting and foreign. 

The Rover © RSC

The whole play stinks of patriarchy, like most things from 1677 do. Amid the party atmosphere of the carnival, there are seriously solemn moments: one of the sisters has to not just forgive but pretty much laugh off two men who attempted to rape her (on separate occasions! in one day! And one of them goes on to marry her sister!), and the sisters all have to do exactly what their brother and father tell them. 

While that’s all important though, what I really want to convey here is how SEXY the show is. There’s sexy men, and sexy women, and sexy men having sex with sexy women, and sexy women having sex with sexy men, and sexy women having sex with unsexy men and skirts fly off and hands wander and everyone is just so excited to SEE EACHOTHER. It’s lovely! 

The Rover © RSC

As I sat and watched the scandal unfold, it felt terribly unfair to me that nearly 350 years later, such electric, excitable sexual adventure still feels like such a distant and fantastical notion. There’s something desperately numbing about watching people dance and kiss and argue and get so intensely entangled in each other, in a story that only takes place over 24 hours or so, and then go home and turn to the 21st century’s equivalent matchmaking tool - not carnival, but tinder. Masks and music and dance have given way to swiping through photos and forcing conversation with boring strangers on an app. 

HOW CAN THIS HAVE HAPPENED? We’ve had lots of progress since 1677. Microwaves and shorts for women, to name but two examples. It is very much a good thing that I am not forced to marry anyone I don’t want to. This play makes it abundantly obvious that women in the seventeenth century found it just as unsavoury a prospect as we do today. It is good that women can now report rape as a crime, and men are punished - occasionally. AREN’T WE LUCKY. But all these marks of progress come with serious caveats. I may not have to marry anyone I don’t want to, but that’s not the case for many women and girls in the world. We might be able to report rape as a crime, but women still have to laugh off rape ‘jokes’ in many situations.  

Rather than joining a carnival and dancing round in masks, meeting people, taking in smells and sights and sounds and feeling physical attraction, we join Tinder or Grindr or Happn, and virtually bat off weirdos and consign ourselves to random onslaughts of dickpics. Technology has somehow allowed us to do away with physical connection, but keep the abuse and objectification. How can we have let this happen as a society? We’ve kept the sexual oppression, and LOST THE ACTUAL SEX?!?! 

© Vice

I don’t think I’m being over dramatic here. A study released last month showed that millenials (specifically young people aged 20-24), have less actual, in person, kissy touchy sex than previous generations. And I can believe it. I mean, how do you even connect with people these days? We don’t go outside! Even if we did, what would we do? Technology has splintered the media so much that there’s very little that EVERYONE connects over any more.There’s nowhere that EVERYONE IS. They’re not at carnivals, or speakeasies, or punk gigs or raves. They’re on the internet. (And while you CAN have sex over the internet, I’m going to stick my neck out here and say it’s not as fun.) And yet these extra miles and messages and apps between us all haven’t kept us any safer. Young women have a 30% chance of being sexually assaulted on university campuses. We’ve kept the dark, oppressive demons of centuries past and cast off the fun side. 

Watching this 1677 play in 2016, the poignant, relatable aspects are the violence, sinister control and revenge many of the men seek to affect on the women, while the lively sexual banter feels ludicrous and dated. IT SHOULD BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND. The crazily overt sexism should feel distant and antiquated, and the SEX, the CONNECTION and the CARNIVAL, should feel universal.

The Rover © RSC

Something better change

I feel sorry for the people who voted leave.

Not the ones cheering with union jack flags outside Westminster this morning, who are by now probably downing the final, tobacco-scented, backwashy dregs of their 14^th celebratory pint of ale. Not the floppy haired, fop-voiced, dark suited, faux-somber ones either. Not even the ones who are now trying to defend their half-hearted support for the remain campaign, and cling to their leadership of the Labour Party. I don’t feel sorry for those leave voters at all. But the 17.4 million others? The ones who did it to take back some semblance of power – not reinforce power they already had, at whatever cost? I feel very sorry for them. And I think those people are feeling a little sorry for remain voters now too. Cause there's only a few people celebrating. 

Jeremy Corbyn was not inspired by remain

The people who voted leave did not vote against freedom of movement, or more confusing trade deals, or a weakened economy. Based on the downright misleading messaging from the leave campaign, they voted for immigration to be curbed, reduced pressures and extra funding for the NHS, and less bureaucracy. Many in our country are feeling very desperate, and who can blame them for seeking hope – I mean, ‘Leave’ is a much more action-packed, exciting prospect than ‘remain’. Noone has ever shouted rousing chants of ‘Remain!’ from a picket line. It’s not a gift of a message. Action often feels better than inaction. It was obvious that people were sick of being told what was best for them by disconnected elites. The sad thing is, they will now probably have to sit and watch as Boris Johnson foppishly guide a slew of slugglish laws through parliament in order to implement this change, privatise more of the NHS, and continuously shout down any debate on immigration by refusing to admit that we can still do nothing about it.

I feel as though this is an emperor’s new clothes moment. Politicians can no longer blame the European Union for all the issues disenchanting the people of Britain with politics. They can try for a couple more years, but I hope the electorate don’t let them get away with it.

I am disappointed with the referendum result. Intrigued by the statistic that our economy was at its weakest since 1985, I asked some of the people in my office today what it was like in 1985. "Worse than this". was the broad conclusion. It was in the wake of the miners’ strikes, severe dismantling of the unions, and people were angry. Now that it’s here, I hope Brexit does help people regain power and combats the shocking inequality in this country. But I fear it won’t. What I really hope is that when it doesn’t, the people who demanded their voice be heard today keep speaking up, and direct it at the people who really deserve their scrutiny. Prime Minister Johnson, or Gove, or Corbyn, or Leadsom, should not be in for an easy ride. 

Resolutions

Welcome to 2016 everybody!

That’s how this post opened when I wrote it, back in January. Now that midsummer is approaching, it’s a bit of a weak opening. Doesn’t scream up-to-date and must-read. But, given that the post written below is about New Year’s resolutions, it is kind of fitting. Allow that ridiculous opening sentence of mine to place you, like any good author should, in a vivid, suitable context for what’s to follow. I present to you here my thinking from the tenth of January 2016:

I started the new year off not with a bang, but with violent fit of coughing and the feeling of vague mystification as I sat under a duvet with a lemsip, watching Brian Adams sing a rock version of Auld Lang Syne to the crowds of people gathered for the fireworks in London. (He was indoors, but they all could hear?!) But I hope you all had a good time.

Since then, my life has followed a strict regime of duvet-time, Netflix-binging and teddy hugging, overseen by a devilish triumvirate of stubborn cold symptoms, PMS and back to work blues. All of which has really dulled my enthusiasm for new years and new beginnings and all that.

My approach to resolutions has been swinging erratically from enthusiastic list-making, dreaming of all I can do in these next 12 months to make me a successful human, and the dull, angry conviction that resolutions are the faux empowering tool of a harsh capitalist system, fooling us all into becoming more subservient citizens after spending 2 useless weeks valuing friendships, family and food over economic productivity and diets.

Buddy the elf doesn't need resolutions or diets.

When the Head of Department invited us all to share our resolutions at the team meeting this week, I shared nothing but a weird, anguished animal-noise, before monotonously telling my wide-eyed colleagues that “my new year’s resolution is … ugh … to, er, make one …” Which was pants. But I was put on the spot, and something about the meeting room and the spreadsheets and the jam-packed agenda told me that “I HAVE NO RESOLUTION BECAUSE I’M NOT CONFORMING TO YOUR EXPLOITATIVE CAPITALIST IDEOLOGY” would not have been an acceptable response.

Cosy and warming as angry defiance can be, I also don’t think it’s a feeling I’ll look back on and cherish. It’s only useful if you do something about it. Otherwise you’re just a moody girl freaking everyone out by making inhuman noises in business meetings. And while I’m happy to be that girl, I would also like to be proud of myself in 2016. So, in short, the blog’s coming back.

2015 was a really good year for me, but because I was so busy, this blog got neglected, something I said I wouldn’t do. Now that I’m lucky enough to be working normal 8 hour days, am no longer commuting into London, and am just beginning to miss the brain-stretching reading and research of uni, there’s no excuse not to go back to it.

I haven’t got official plans, or themes, or timetables, but it’s always been a bit of a miscellany. Humans hold many contradictions, so some random, unpredictable content, splatted straight out from my brain will, I’m hoping, still be entertaining, and of value. I’ve started a new notebook for the new year, and it’s already filling up.  So, see you back here soon!

Ha! Soon! That must have been the Lemsip talking. Six months later, and I am feeling a little flat about my lack of consistency with this resolution. One might say I have completely failed, but the way I see it, I still have six months left to come good on it. So, I say again, see you back here soon! What is it they say about people who do exactly the same thing and expect a different result? 

I never discovered David Bowie

I’m not going to write a eulogy to David Bowie, because frankly, who am I to write it. I was born twenty-three years after Space Oddity came out, a decade after Let’s Dance, and I didn’t even manage to get tickets for the epic exhibition at the V&A.

Still from the V & A's David Bowie Is exhibition, 2013

I don’t know what it’s like to ‘discover’ Bowie. I’ve loved many people’s excitable memories of it being shared today. It sounds like an exceedingly special experience. As someone who wasn’t there anywhere near the beginning, Bowie’s vast catalogue of eye-opening music, magical style and multiple exotic personas has, in my life, always just been there. A fact, like gravity. His genius was unquestionable and self-evident, always.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know all the words to Ziggy Stardust, imitating his pronunciation of ‘spiders’ and ‘mi-i-i-ind’ along with my air guitar, delighting in the drama and glamour.

I’ve never not wanted to swim like the dolphins can swim.

I’ve always know that a hot tramp is the most desirable, decadent thing anyone could ever be.

Ziggy played guitar ...

The worlds he created in his music aren’t just marvellous through the eyes of a child. They’ve continued to enchant and romance me as I’ve grown up, and hearing of his death today was oddly unnerving. Like losing a safety blanket. Thankfully, just his music was a simple fact of life for me 20 years after its release, so it will be for years to come. I don’t believe the magic will ever fade. Let's put on our red shoes and dance the blues...

The beautiful music of David Bowie. Rest in peace. 

'Passion'

At work the other day, I got talking to a man called Harold Bishop*. Harold Bishop* is writing a book. It’s about the belief systems on which the world operates. It’s his life’s work. Harold Bishop* has been writing this book for over two years. It contains realities which need to be spoken. Harold Bishop* wants to open people’s eyes.

A good village barmaid must, in the interests of hospitality, often fight back sarcasm. A good village barmaid hones this skill when working in a rural pub on days like Maggie Thatcher’s birthday, Maggie Thatcher’s funeral, and the day Maggie Thatcher died. As I listen and learn about Harold Bishop*’s book, I continue to empty the glass-washer with pursed lips. ‘Good on you dude, writing a book’ I muster, about 5 minutes later. ‘I could never do that.’ ‘Oh, but you have to do it’ Harold Bishop* replies, eyes sparkling ‘when it’s your passion, you know?’

I do not know. And my insides flinch at the sincerity and fervour with which the word ‘passion’ is uttered. ‘Don’t think I’ve got one of them!’ I say, raising my eyebrows and shaking my head.

The firm, negative response I gave to Harold Bishop*’s talk of ‘passion’ is the same default reaction I have to people to who ask me what I want to do with my life. And I suppose it’s a similar question, as ‘passion’ is often connected with career. ‘Nope, no plan!’ I chirp back at them, wide eyed and contrary, daring them to plonk me in the feckless bin capitalism has created in our minds for people who aren’t driven entrepreneurs. ‘Go on, JUDGE ME’ my following comment of ‘I’ll probably still be serving you pints when I’m 30!’ implicitly says. It’s not that I don’t have thoughts on what I’d like to do after uni, it’s just that I don’t appreciate the world’s insistence that I NEED them. The pressure to find a suitable career path gets very strong towards the end of undergraduate study, and my intense contrariness exceeds even my own bounds of understanding, so I refuse to give people the satisfaction of thinking they can characterize me by my upcoming graduation and my ‘plans for the future’; the gaping hole about to be punched into my existence. I like to think that my final statement of ‘I might just save up a bit of money and then fuck off somewhere’ really hammers this point home.

I normally see ‘passion’ as a by-word for ‘bullshit’. But as I turn away from Harold Bishop* and begin polishing wine-glasses, I find myself staring into my distorted reflection, wondering about this nebulous concept. Trying to think of something, anything, that I really really like. That I need to do. Are some people different from me? Do they actually have ‘passions’? Am I missing something?

On the way to work, I’d jokily complained to my mum’s boyfriend about my inability to really feel the pressure and put in the hours in this final stretch of my degree. The conversation drifted to the topic of work and concentration, and he was stunned to hear that I have never pulled an all-nighter during my study, or in any other area of my life (drinking excluded). Apparently he frequently doesn’t sleep while working on projects. ‘Don’t you ever get so into something that you just can’t stop?’ He asks. ‘No, I’m a well-adjusted human being’ are words to the effect of my response. But later in the night the conversation comes back to me, and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a level of commitment or interest that I’m lacking. The next day I asked my mum if she’d ever pulled an all-nighter during her degree, and she said she did it all the time. She too, was surprised I never have.

Sorry, I’m just a well-organized and balanced human! I feel should be the conclusion of this post. But a little bit of me is suddenly finding it slightly scary that I might never have a ‘life’s purpose’ (pompous as it may sound) or something to be characterized by as a person. ‘Oh, Harold Bishop*’ folk will say in years to come. ‘Decent bloke. He wrote a book, you know … nah, it was pish. But good on him, I say’. I’ve always been aware that I’m just about the least obsessive person I know. But this new realization that all the people around me have things they do, things they will get lost in, things that are necessary to their existence, makes me wonder whether I shouldn’t too... Is it enough to just mosey along, taking life as it comes with the hope of being generally useful and not making the world worse? Or should I try harder to find a ‘thing’ that I really love, that my sanity bids I do? Are people with ‘passions’ not all bullshitting? Should I stop putting that word in inverted commas?

*denotes name has been changed

I'm turning to the dark side and adding a gimmicky edge to this blog. I thought for each piece I write, I might pick to a song to go with it. You now get and insight into my brain, and some interesting music. I will try and make all my selections a either fun or different, and I promise that if you like similar music to me then you'll enjoy it. So to go with this, I've chosen Kate Bush, Sat in Your Lap. The official two fingers up to passion and drive! I can't recommend that you watch enough, it's one of the trippiest, dramatic-est 80s-est, bestest music videos of all time. She wears a cape AND rollerskates. She is also my hero. 

My only worry is that I have now used this song, and it is probably pertinent to just about everything I have and will write, ever. Hope you enjoy, and let me know if you think this is a worthwhile thing to add to each blog post!

Optimism

Right, so I’m just going to try something here. Get ready, cause you may be about to experience something you have never encountered on this blog before: ABSOLUTE, UNADULTERATED, UPBEAT ENTHUSIASM.

Wheyyyyy.

Don’t worry if that bowled you over, I’ll be back to my usual cynical self soon. An open love letter to Radiohead and a piece called ‘Pissing with the Door Open’ are just a couple of posts in the Siobhan’s Notebook pipeline. But first, I want to tell you all about my new role as a Youth Ambassador for ONE.org. For now, I’m putting on my serious, persuasive, saving-the-world hat (which interestingly fits nicely around my feminist hat – the two make a great ensemble!), and am temporarily striking the words ‘pants’ ‘poo’ and ‘fanny’ from my vocabulary. (Don't stop reading though!)

ONE are an international campaign charity working to influence policy on agriculture, health, business transparency and a variety of other causes relevant to developing countries. All their work is directed at achieving ONE goal: eradicating extreme poverty.

If that sounds like a far off dream, a pie in the sky, a ridiculous flight of fancy, then I have some good news for you. It’s totally doable. IN OUR LIFETIMES.

‘SHUT THE FRONT DOOR’ I hear your cry!

‘Shan’t!’ I gleefully respond, ‘It’s all completely true. Get ready for some truth bombs, imma BLOW YOUR MIND.’

In my short and privileged lifespan, the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide has been cut in half. If we can keep up the amazing progress already being made, keep investing in nutrition programmes, infrastructure and smart aid for the world’s poorest nations, extreme poverty could be virtually eradicated by 2030. 

Think of the immensity of that statement. No families having to survive on under $1.25 a day. No more people working long days to earn less than a pound. No babies born into extreme poverty. Before I’m 40.  

The job of ONEs Youth Ambassadors is to urge the EU to play its part in making this amazing goal a reality. The EU as a whole is the world’s biggest donor of aid, and we want to remind all the newly elected MEPs of the vital role they are playing in global development. We want as many candidates as possible to sign our #ONEVOTE2014 pledge, encouraging them to do their bit to support the world’s poorest countries in their 5 year term. It involves protecting aid budgets and working to increase business transparency and fight phantom firms, which divert much needed money away from developing countries as well as the UK.

3 London MEP candidates signing our pledge on launch day!

I can’t remember when I first became aware of ONE. The earliest marker in my memory is starting uni 4 years ago, and having to explain to every new person who added me on facebook exactly why my profile photo was of an angry, fist shaking baby.

I really got engaged with what ONE are doing two years later, when I attended the ONEshot Student Conference. It was very exciting. I even wrote a guest-blog about it. 

I don’t study international relations. I often saw development as a drastically complex mire, something I would never deign to know about or influence opinion on. The conference, full of passionate aid workers and SOAS students, did not alleviate this anxiety, this feeling of fraudulence. But ONE throwaway comment on the way the UK allocates its aid budget really stuck with me, and changed my outlook. A ONEshot speaker pointed out to us that the UKs aid expenditure in Helmand Province was disproportionately high, and that the reason for it was simple politics: Every time David Cameron made visits to UK troops, he needed to be bringer of good news. So with every Ministerial trip to Helmand, the aid allocation increased.

Aid is a big word, fraught with various meanings and connotations. And it is complex, so much more complex than I will ever understand. But the image of David Cameron reshuffling aid money to fit his upcoming speeches made me realize that although progress in development is influenced by a vast number of complicated issues, that doesn’t mean UK policy always is. Development policy appeared to me at that moment to be just as much at the whim of party politics as pasty tax. And I suddenly felt much more confident getting involved, and felt like I had a right to my opinion. Politicians need to be kept on track. 

With this in mind, I know words like ‘development’ and ‘poverty’ can seem vast and intimidating. But if you feel like this is keeping you out of the debate, or have the impression that this means you can’t make a difference, I urge you to get interested, and get involved. The issues surrounding poverty levels in developing countries and how they can be alleviated is a topic of great interest to me, and I’m learning more all the time. But sometimes getting started is as simple as agreeing with the notion that no one should have to live in poverty.

I’ve listed five things you can do right now to get involved and have your say, regardless of how qualified you feel to say it:

1) Sign and share the ONEVote2014 petition to get fighting extreme poverty on the agenda at this year’s EU elections: http://act.one.org/sign/one_vote_2014

2) Or this petition, telling European Leaders to fight phantom firms: http://act.one.org/sign/crack_down_on_phantom_firms/

3) Join the ONE Campaign. Remember, they want your voice, not your money: http://www.one.org/international/take-action/dashboard/

4) Share this, and various other Youth Ambassador Blogs. Don’t forget to hashtag! #ONEVOTE2014: http://thechangegame.wordpress.com/

http://www.sasaeniapaul.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/discordant-tunes-of-poverty-and.html

http://danalanclark.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/why-i-became-a-youth-ambassador-part-one-of-three/

5) Write your own! Get involved, get tweeting, get writing, get sharing. The more noise we make, the more important our leaders will realise it is to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

So that’s my enthusiastic, optimistic blog post. I hope you found it as reasonable and rational as usual. As Alain de Botton said, ‘Cynics are just idealists with awkwardly high standards’. Well this time, I really feel my standards are achievable. And here’s my crazed optimistic grin to prove it. I’m taking this to the top.