So I’m sat at my grandparents going through my accounts from the past few years realising that I earn minus money and will probably be homeless in two months, which you know, is a nice thought coming towards Christmas. Not that I’m trying to inspire sympathy. Oh no, I can’t stand when people give me the ‘I never go out and have no new shoes’ spiel (my response will always be ‘so? Go wear one of your 50,000 old pairs and stop hanging out at the Macbeth every night if you want any sympathy.’) EVERYONE IS FUCKING SKINT. That seems to be the general consensus, but it’s not true ‘this water gives me dysentery’ poverty, it’s an ‘I can’t afford nice things’ poverty which is the fallout from being told that credit cards are a lie. It’s why looters steal trainers instead of food (excluding, obviously, the happy viral guy with the bargain bag of rice whose picture did the rounds - erm, yeah?).

I feel like I belong to this rung of society that the government won’t acknowledge exists, almost an ‘educated poor’ (in want of something catchier), people who are smart, well brought up, perhaps even successful (in creative fields, aka, fields with no money), people who did what they were told, did well at school, went to university, and then came out to, well, nothing basically. No jobs, no acknowledgment, no nuffink mate. You chose the wrong subject when you were an amoeba, YOU LOSE.

I’ve found myself in a rut where I work (3 or 4 jobs!) so I’m not eligible to claim benefits (I’ve never been able to claim benefits) but because I am self-employed and freelance, I am poorer than the average person on them. Yet when I try to find a more stable, long-term career I find that I’m ‘over-qualified’ for the average minimum-wage job but under-experienced for the kind of job I would be good at, with most employers unwilling to give me a chance (especially seeing as I have a 6-year stint as a glamour model on my CV it would seem - CLEVER ME.)

Which leads to me traipsing around ASDA in a particularly unsavoury part of Luton, where I can’t help but look at people and think ‘how did you - and I’m looking at you middle-aged lady behind the counter whose beard glints with spittle like lights on a Christmas fairy - how did YOU get a job and not me?’ which is an incredibly self-indulgent way of thinking that I need to stop right now. But hey, I’m being honest. If the teachers at school had told me that in the job market I’d be placing second best to Paquin the special needs boy, well, I would have high-fived Paquin and been a bit put out, but at least I would have been prepared, you know? Instead I was filled with loads of lies that ‘the future was mine’ and ‘university was magic’ and whatever else propaganda bullshit schools feed you so they can get to the top of the league tables. Which looking back, is all they were doing - filling a quota: ‘X amount of our students went to Y university *phew sigh whiff* thank fuck they’re gone.’

Ignored ignored ignored. And uncatered for. And in an entirely unflattering position where I am somewhat half in a public gaze where people expect me to be well off or successful, when in reality my only regular income over the past 5 years (Front) amounts to a paltry £6K a year (more than benefits, but not enough to live off). Obviously other work has come and gone, but it’s only now (as the toothache that I can’t afford to treat beats and throbs inside my head) that the insecurity of my career is really sinking in and do you know how I feel? Let down. Let down by my agents, let down by my employers, but most of all: let down by myself. I’m a bright girl, how the hell did I let myself get dragged down into this mess? Faced with a Christmas where I can’t afford presents or even the rent on my own home. Where my 79-year-old granddad is having to trawl through my accounts with such pure anxiety that it is making him ill as he realises how much fuck all one person can collect. Because that’s what the past 6 or 7 years have amounted to: a big pile of fuck all. And debt. Oh, don’t even get me started on the debt.

Maybe this is my Jerry Maguire moment. That moment where everyone smiles and claps and pretends to agree with you then secretly looks at ways they can fuck you off and expire your contract. Well do you know what? Maybe I’d be happier doing something else. I don’t want to be famous. Judging by the state of ‘celebrity’ these days it’s not something any person with a modicum of morality should aspire to. It is a prize awarded to the most evil and the most desperate. Lady Gaga is testament to that. Hell, I could give you a million examples. I don’t want to be one of those people, I’ve interviewed a lot of them and most of the celebrities I’ve met are demented. Fame corrupts. Money corrupts. One look into Justin Bieber’s sick, cold eyes will tell you that. I feel like shaking the brainless morons and saying ‘what happened to being a nice person? Hey?’ What happened to living within your means and having a nice life? To not wanting to CONSUME so much STUFF that you don’t need? To having a life with stability, where you’re able to get a job that matches your abilities and where you’re not priced out of the housing market by overzealous bankers and extortionate interest rates? At the moment it feels like I’m reaching for Hera’s apples. For someone with such modest dreams, it’s mad that I don’t ever feel like I’m going to achieve them.