Down From London

'Brighton: the capital for people who can't handle London. Unless they move to Lewes, which is for people who can't handle Brighton' Oliver Bennett -The Independent.

A year ago this week we moved out of my mother's spare room and into a two up two down in Lewes. We had sold our furniture and were waiting for the call to board a plane to Melbourne, we signed a six month contract not expecting to see out the full term of the tenancy. After six months of sleeping on a borrowed futon we bought a bed, then a fold up table,gradually we accepted that the job would never come up and that I secretly didn't want it to. I had fallen for Lewes a little and realised that emigration was a dramatic cry for help, an escape route from negative equity and my loathing of Suburban Eastbourne. It's not Brighton or London I couldn't handle, it's the burbs. The terraced house we bought was no longer a home but a pact with the devil. The property ladder had become a circus act without a safety net and I was tired of clinging on for dear life.

Despite its middle class credentials: a castle,  twittens, patisseries, journos  and DFLs (down from Londons) , I love the place. I've met more than my fair share of eccentrics and bankrupts, people who have been around the block and have nothing to prove. After years of living in a cultural desert I am chuffed that Lewesians  have warmed to my bright ideas and money making schemes. They have supported me with genuine enthusiasm, putting their money where their mouth is and attending my events.  I have experienced genuine kindness and generosity in what has been one of the toughest years of my life. I often question why at this junction in my life I didn't move back home. Back to London were there are jobs aplenty, my favourite city in the world.

Last week we took the train back to London for Mr Porter's 40th. As the train pulled in past Battersea Power station I felt that warm feeling of coming home. The brown slopping river, the new flats with the coppery facade, the old blocks of social housing to the left. Down into the tube station with our one day travel cards we forged, no longer needing to go southbound. A day out in London simply for the fun of it .Although  London is my favorite city, despite the fact that I want my ashes scattered on the little beach on the Thames, I cant imagine moving back .

I will always love London but living there could often make you feel like a child with her nose pressed up against a toy shop window. You cannot beat the looming stone buildings, those urban cliffs of the London skyline,the diversity of people, the fact that my own personal history is inextricably linked with its streets, that its perpetual movement soothes me in a way country lanes and quiet afternoons in the suburbs do not. But unless I can live in a flat overlooking the South Bank, a move back would be a step back. My London reality would be waiting at a bus stops  with shopping bags and a pram.

 In reality, many of London's poor are being pushed out to the margins of the city. Rough , ugly places, the overspill caused by gentrification, the rise in house prices causing a form of social cleansing. I made the choice not to return because I knew id never be able to live in a desirable location. I'm too long in the tooth to prove I can hack it in a rough area. There are no prizes awarded for being hard and I like the fact that my son can walk barefoot in his lobster pendant, hate football and shouts 'Nib!' as a form of abuse. Being a Londoner I am impressed by cows in fields, country beer gardens and tractors passing my front room window. I never tire of the novelty factor.

Once the kids leave school I'll be free to run away with Mr Porter and have a mid life crisis in Copacabana, In the meantime Lewes is a fine place,  'to park your arse'. I can walk everywhere (albeit up cobbled streets), swim at the Pells Lido, learn to love real ale, write my stories, visit London, bring up kids, walk the downs, visit the seaside, and generally mooch about. I am a DFL (down from Londoner) via Brighton, Lewes and Eastbourne. I am staying the course, I may even replace my makeshift bedside table, constructed with a hardback book of nudes and several shoe boxes . Australia. Can you seriously imagine me wearing thongs?

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Michelle Porter is Looking for work in the writerly profession and donations of real furniture.

The other day someone I hadn't seen for a while asked what I'd been up to. I actually found myself responding 'this and that', my daily has no routine, im all over the place work wise.

I call myself a writer but I haven't written a word in over six weeks. I haven't blogged, scribbled or even picked up my ever evolving opus 'Not Moving to Eastbourne' . It is my passion but I simply could not find the time. If I loved it would I not live it? Write 500 words a day like Graham Greene did, follow the artists way and pen a few paragraphs each morning before breakfast? If writing is a discipline I'd be in line for the cane.

Instead of writing I have been making money. Until something pays it is a luxury pastime, a hobby at best, the vicious circle being the fact that fiction needs a lot of work before it makes any money if ever at all. Re writing, drafting , chopping, editing down to the bone before fleshing it out again. In the meantime money must be made and the writing suffers. And so I had no option but to lay down my pen and pull my petticoat back on. I didn't get on my bike to seek work in a neighbouring town, I laced up my boots, hired a hall and resumed my classes in the art of the cancaneuse. High kicking (jippy hip doing well considering), making people whoop and smile and earning more than I would if I took a job offering minimum wage. And then there's the stall. If its not nailed down I sell it. Every Tuesday I drag my case and wicker busts up the hill to the market and create The Wild Pearl, a stall selling vintage inspired items. They all sound very glitzy my part time jobs, but all that glitters is not gold.

I miss the quiet part of me. The part that does not need to be performed, the part that lives in my heart and on the tip of my thoughts. The part I can express without making my body ache. This last few months has been an expression of me through the physical, needs be when the devil has raided your purse, but I need a little of the quiet me too, the Michelle who writes.

I have not written, but the writer in me has been listening and watching; getting out there and living. I have met people who are not literary, people of all ages and from all walks of life. If I was paid as a full time writer would I miss this, would I end writing about a writer, my stories would begin to eat themselves. I haven't written for six weeks but in a way I have been living as a writer, not by writing but by listening, by observation.

Last week I met a man of 82 who was selling at the same market as me. He had hands like shovels and a twinkle in his eye. Over five hours we bantered and discussed our takings. By the time we packed up I knew that his father had not survived the injuries he suffered during WW2, despite their moving to Lewes so that he could recuperate. His first wife had died of cancer at 52, he told me that he had broken down and didn't even care if his house burned down around him. A poignant moment was shared before we had a giggle at some saucy postcards.We concluded that life is as simple as pulling yourself back up or choosing to throw the towel in. I wouldn't have heard that story at home alone behind a desk. He wouldnt have short changed me either, but at 82 I'll give him that.

So yes, I still call myself a writer. In between showing my knickers and haggling over vintage brooches. To write about life is to live it first. This is living as a writer. That and justifying your procrastination in such an effective manner.

Michelle Porter is wondering wether or not to call her short story collection

A) Not Moving to Eastbourne

B) vintage Tales : because everything old has a story

All of the stories are Unexpected tales about people over 70

Unfunny Gag-the silence of the female comedian

Why aren't women funny? Are you joking! I'm not even going to answer that question, women are frigging hilarious. Women have always had me in stitches and I'm even funny apparently, unintentional on my part , a bit funny rather than ha ha. The question we need to ask is why people assume they are not.

People think women are unfunny because there are so few female stand up comedians. This is the logic of a sexist society, the same logic that concludes women are not top chefs because they can't cook, 'if you can't stand the heat don't come into the kitchen ladies'

'if you can't enter the pissing contest, don't come anywhere near the comedy panel show'

Funny women on T.V are being gagged and it's not a joke. There is a fear that women may crack jokes about periods, body issues, and god forbid CHILDREN! What, like Michael McIntyre? People love it he's hilarious. Mothers and fathers weep into their wine together. Even if they do joke about 'women's,' topics, women do make up half the population, there is a market for crying out loud. Silencing people's humour gives the message that we only want to laugh AT them not with them, that we do not want to hear about their experiences. Laughing together is based on empathy and it bonds people.

No, women are not underrepresented on panel shows and prime time stand up comedy because they are unfunny, but because the most interesting, prestigious, and well paid jobs in this country still go to men. Directors of films, companies and countries. Kerching. Cue cynical canned laughter.

Enough of our absence. I want to celebrate the moments women have made me wet myself, spit out drinks, made me hoot and laugh in the street when I remembered their jokes/comments. Women who make me feel a little happier. Here are some of my top comedy moments entitled laughing my tits off:

1. Margot in ' The Good Life' trying to play pass the balloon between the legs

2. Alison Steadman as Beverley in 'Abigal's Party'. I could watch that on a loop I never tire of it. The voice, the shoulders. the observation.

3. Not a fan of Corrie but Deidre Barlow and her mother!!!! When she died, Deidre pronounced in her camp manner ' she should never have gone to Portugal, it was madness!'

4. Lisa Lynn -Daugher of Evesham -(not famous) One fine sunny day in Eastbourne sipping cold lager in the Wish Tower Cafe, Lisa looked over and pronounced 'I can't wait to be old, you can throw your fashion sense to the wind' I looked round to see a couple of elderly women in bum bags, brightly coloured ankle swingers and huge sunglasses. I laughed so hard beer came down my nose.

5. Sue Perkins-I would marry her if I was a lesbian, not already married and famous. Too complicated, but the sentiment is there. Sharp, funny, and inoffensive-you don't have to bully people to make other people laugh. And she's posh! Having a GSOH is a turn on for both sexes.

6. Jennifer White (Little sister when 6) Opened the door to my husband wearing bike leathers and a helmet. She slammed the door drolly stating 'we didn't order a pizza.'

7.Jo Brand and all the women she enabled to drop those expected, feminine manners. Women can now be crass, rude and gross. Dull women at school gates take note, let's rant and moan it's a riot and it breaks down barriers.

8. Louise Almeida (The other sister) All round ginger loon. The only person who can make me belly laugh even when the chips are down. From humming the theme tune to 'Hawaii Five O' as the priest came into the church, to her impersonations of Beverly 'you have very beautiful lips'. It's true that those who grow up together laugh best together.

9. Caitlin Moran- When 'How to be a Woman' came out, Lewes was awash with women laying in the sunshine snorting, shoulders shaking as they read her book. I have a horrible habit of trying to stifle a laugh when walking along the street, it comes out as an unattractive demented cough. I still find her funny even though she wont RT me on Twitter. I should unfollow that would show her. Ok. Ok. That was cringey.

10. Me!! You have to laugh at yourself in this life or you'd go mad. I Once walked into a cinema and when asked 'How many tickets would you like?' I responded '50 Please' The man looked bemused, I thought I was on the bus. (That was a while back, 50p from Preston Park to Hove!) There is a fair chance I had a hangover.

So yes, women are a laugh a minute, a hoot, great comedy actors, social commentators, wry, witty loons. We are all becoming bored with the macho bullying style of humour. There is nothing entertaining in seeing the way some panel shows treat the token woman guest. In my mind humour should not be a contact sport, it shouldn't be sparring but a way of connecting and making us feel better when our spirits are low. Women, your country needs you, male dominance in comedy, it's time to stand down (ummm, not sure that works.)

Growing up with Kate Moss

As the nations favourite waif turns 38, I'm taking a pause to think about my body. Whatever I think of the most succesful model of all time, she's always been there for me to compare to. I can barely remember a time she wasn't around.

I first saw Kate Moss on the front cover of The Face magazine. I was about sixteen and unimpressed, she was young and skinny, so what. I was 6.5 stone wet through and was fed up with being mistaken for a child, being ID'd for cigarettes, being overlooked and patronised in adult conversation. I was 4ft 11 and I hated it, I wanted to look like a 'real' woman, tattoed with boobs and long legs, one that couldn't be mistaken for a child. In those days they didn't sell size 8 let alone a 6, fortunately for me grunge was all the rage, ill fitting was par for the course. No I didn't want to be Kate Moss, I wanted to be like the goths I saw at The Harp club New Cross (Now the Venue) the immaculately groomed uber Goths who worked in Kensington Market (No longer trading.) This story is dating me by the sentence.

So my first body issue was not about weight, it was height. I hated being short, Petite, even my clothes size is patronising. Acceptence of my height eventally came via an unlikely source, the polar opposite to teenage angst and goth, Kylie Minogue. Here was someone of 5ft that would become one of the world's sexiest women. She is the poster girl for short women and she is my guiltiest musical pleasure. At forty I would even go as far as to say that I like being short, you've got more room in the bath and you can sqeeze into vintage shoes.

Since our early teenage years most women over 35 have grown up with Kate Moss. We have been bombarded with images of her skinny jeans and chiselled features for so long we've forgotten there's an alternative. Until recently, until the campaign for the appreciation of 'real' women. Burlesque buxom beauties took to the stage, the retro curves of Christina Hendricks hit the newstands, bigger women now had positive representation, curves were back in Vogue. Christina looks fanbloodytastic, but I have a problem with the notion of 'real' women. For one, curves look incredible but when most people put on a few pounds the only curves in evidence are convex they grow a gut not an hourglass shape to die for. And what is a 'real' woman. Cut me at 7.11 stone and I still bleed, I squeezed two kids past these 31inch hips. I am all woman believe me. The problem is not unreal women but the persistant representation of beauty coming in tall, thin and young packages. We don't need to pit curves against cheekbones, we just need a bit of variety.

Most women have body issues and i've had my fair share, I have bored my husband and family rigid with my obsessive moaning about my stomach. I've started to wonder how I stop my daughter inheriting this body obsession that has plagued the last few generations of British women. I can't think of anyone I know who is confident in the body they have been given to wear and i'm seriously at a loss as to how to stop her falling for the same vanity trap. I can tell her she is beautiful and that this is irrelevant because she is capable and intellegent, but this doesn't cut much ice when it comes from your mother.

At forty I follow the progress of Kate Moss as you would a girl you went to school with. I no longer think 'she's skinny, so what?' I wonder how the hell they airbrush the fag and booze damage from the corners of her eyes and mouth, how she kept that stomach so flat after having a child. By the time my baby Pearl is sixteen, there will be some other model setting the body beautiful trend. Whether she considers herself beautiful may depend on whether she matches this girls colour, height, look or shape. I hope however that we have moved on by then, that our daughters have learned from our pathetic navel gazing. Alternatively Kate Moss may still doing the rounds, radicalising how we see the older woman, fag hanging out of her mouth on the front cover of Vogue.

Happy Birthday Kate Moss, you're persistant I'll give you that!

Relative Poverty

It is estimated that 2.5 million British children are currently living in poverty. This week channel four 4thought TV are running a serious of short films looking at children's experiences of poverty. As I listened to the first child I thought of my own childhood and what I would have considered poverty to be in 1978.

My first home was a rented flat with no bathroom or inside toilet. No phone, washing machine or central heating, This was the seventies and despite pampas grass and leopard print bedspreads, mod cons were still not accessible to all. Unscrupulous landlords peddled shoddy accommodation, splitting houses without proper conversion and renting them as flats. When the front ceiling fell in we waited weeks for it to be repaired, watching television together in my parents bedroom. If you had asked us if we were living in poverty we would have been shocked, my parents would have been offended.

We ate good homemade food , chicken cobbler, whitebait, stuffed marrows, fish and chips from Andy's, the occasional giant Chinese spring roll. As a child I was well turned out, to be honest I knocked spots off even the most wealthy judge's daughter in Dulwich Village. I went to to the pictures, on holidays , received treats, toys and pocket money. No, poverty was other people, people who were starving, Sometimes we would take an evening walk into Dulwich Village and look at all the big houses as a form of after dinner entertainment. Window shopping, we didn't expect to live like that, in the seventies you knew your place. I am possibly one of the last generation to remember a time before general home ownership and mass consumerism. Posh people lived differently, it was accepted.

No, we felt sorry for people who were uncared for, the scruffy girl whose mother walked about done up to the nines, kids who looked like they hadn't had a wash for a while. I learned to fear emotional poverty from an early age and it still knots my stomach to hear of children with no human kindness in their lives. I have met people who have risen from poverty to wealth who are still searching for that lost experience of early family life. Family is still vital in determining a child's experience of poverty on both emotional and material levels. A child living with a single parent on benefits without family will suffer far more than a mother who is helped financially by their extended family.This by no means suggests that single parents cannot provide a loving and secure home, its just tougher for them, especially for those without a supportive network. Help with clothes and extras make a big difference when money is tight. When the state is failing to provide, those without extended families suffer the most.

My parents were determined people. My mother walked to the phone box and hassled the housing until we were rehoused. We eventually ended up living in one of the more salubrious parts of West Dulwich until I left home for university. In 2012 most families will not have this option. Social housing is thin on the ground and high rents and rising fuel costs are driving people to cut back on social activities, clothes and food. Further Education will be out of my son's reach. We may have phones, washing machines and computers coming out of our ears, but once these goods are worn out we are left with less than the the children of the seventies. For all of our progress we are relatively poorer today, if hope is gold we are reduced to counting coppers.

The question of poverty and how it is defined still remains a hot potato. Does it matter how we lived in the past, that we don't know we are born today. Relative poverty is not about who has the latest Wii or comparing ourselves to Victorian England. It's about deciding how we want our children to live today. Properly fed, warm, clothed, educated to the best of their ability, socially engaged, treated and loved.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4thoughttv

Photo of me enjoying a 1970s holiday

Would you employ this old mother?

I may be little. I may be a woman, but I never imagined I'd ever feel like the little woman, a homemaker with no income aside from £130 per month child benefit. It feels ridiculous buying your partner a Christmas present out of his own wages, but unless I entertain gentleman callers in a negligee , the options are sparce. How did it come to this? I'd always sworn I'd have an independent career and income for the sake of my sanity, for my dignity and self esteem. I may never have believed it would ever happen to me , but now my heel is stuck between the rails and a train destined for unemployable is heading full speed in my direction. I can see it coming, I know what it is, it's not creeping up on me, it's about to plough me down.

I stopped working after my second child. You cannot fit a conventional job around a shift worker who never works the same days each week. Wages minus tax, child care and travel = not enough to do an admin job that pays below average wage. After a few years of trudging to work with toddlers for a pittance , I decided to jack it in and stay at home and write. Despite some published non fiction, I am becoming less and less productive. For a completer finisher, working from home is a challenge. I can't even write a Trip Advisor review without being interrupted by a shitty nappy or the tragedy of a broken toy, expressed by a five year old melting down in operatic style. I crave deep thought, being lost in a task, being paid for doing something because someone values my contribution. I want to feel like an adult again, and not some aimless soul hanging around the school gates, praying that someone might just invite me out for a coffee. Five years of 'the wheels on the bus' and I'm about to swear in public in front of infants. Baby groups are great for babies but I'm a woman with needs, and I need a job.

So 2012 will see me dusting off the old C.V. I've lost a heel pulling it free from that rail, my confidence is bruised, my self esteem workwise is at an all time low. There's a recession on, who wants to employ this old mother. How can two years at home teach you any skills anyone paying money could use in an employee? Here are a few of the skills developed out on the floor of domesticity.

Ability to focus on budgets and decision making whilst being interrogated and abused - shopping with son who can pester every three seconds until your head explodes.

Jobbing Head Chef. Master chef has nothing on me. I can cook with a toddler clinging to my leg as another child uses the mini parsnips as Minotaur horns to headbutt mŷ arse.

Tardiness is not an option. Can rise early after little sleep.

Can work without a lunch break and view toilet visits as a luxury.

Can tolerate physical and mental abuse as part of the daily routine.

Despite being 5ft I can restrain the violent and carry heavy loads. Need a packhorse or punchbag, I'm your woman. Ummm, time to think again.

Too much time at home and you forget what you can do and what you have achieved. So here goes, a potted history of my money making exploits so far. Supervisor in a private bank, compliance bod, cancan dancer, cancan teacher, Office manager , PA, library mistress, author, blogger. Most bizarre acts performed for money include scouring the North Laines for a diamanté necklace for a chocolate dog and showing my frilly knickers on a windy pier . I have written a book in two months whilst breast feeding a newborn baby, written a collection of short stories after hours when the kids are asleep upstairs, sold burlesque vintage on a stall in the middle of winter, six months pregnant, jolly in red lipstick and an ill fitting coat. After the sale of some hot pink nipple tassels I wondered why I was making life so hard for myself for such little return. I bet Jordan doesn't have to do this I sighed, too busy in the warm writing or dictating atrocious books.

So why am I not earning a living writing? Why do I continue to fanny about with random jobs and money making schemes. Because unless there is money on the table you cannot justify a baby sitter, you may as well ask people to cover whilst you take a daytime jaunt to the pub. I want to write for my supper , pen prose for a bigger house, buy my husband a Christmas present that has not been paid for from the proceeds of refuelling an aircraft or changing its tyres in a gale force wind.

Caring for kids is the toughest job I have ever done, and however rewarding it simply doesn't pay. I asked my son what my role was and he answered cooking and washing up. He doesn't remember me doing anything else. I want to inspire my children , lead by example , let Pearl see that women can earn a living as well as breed and nurture. I am an educated, flexible, resilient and creative woman looking for some work. Until that money is slapped onto the table ill keep on penning of an evening, my short story collection WILL be ready to download by the spring. In the meantime I am not averse to selling the odd nipple tassel in the snow. You never know, I may meet a literary agent, failing that my next lead character , no encounter is a wasted experience in the life of a writer.

So I may be little and I'm definitely a woman. The train destined for unemployable my be hurtling towards me but I am slipping off my heels and letting it pass. I'm not the little woman but a fighter , a writer refusing to drop the dream. Because upon closer inspection that train's destination is not unemployable but zero self confidence. Only I can stop that train flattening me in my tracks. I'm getting in the driver seat and beeping my horn. This mother is ready for action next stop literary acclaim, get your tickets ready this will no longer be a free ride. Toot, toot!

The imagery for the heel stuck in the rails was inspired by an afternoon trip to the post office as part of my office duties. I got a heel stuck in a pavement grill and had to be rescued by a woman who hands were clad in gold sovereigns. I later realised that I only had to slip off my shoe to escape. Nothing is wasted if you file it away.

Michelle Porter is looking for work....

Let the 99% wear Westwood.

Photo captures authors best bits from Bexhill Charity shops collection 2010

"Of course, they will say, 'What is she doing, she's selling a designer collection, how can she be against consumption?' Well, you have to consume things, of course, you have to live, you have to eat. And I'm not saying don't go to the discotheque, they can do that. I'm just saying go less, do other things." She sighs. "It's so much to tackle."

Vivianne Westwood

I love Vivianne Westwood. For her tangerine tresses, her gentle Derbyshire accent and my corset collection,all inspired by her cleavage uplifting designs. She is majestic, ethereal , putting two fingers up to a society that worships at the altar of youth, at seventy she is still radical, still cool. She creates fantasy and beauty, garments and looks that I have copied but never owned. She was still creative after conception and I doff my feathered cap to her simply for that. But when she talks politics I am bemused, either she doesn't explain herself very well or she is as confused as I am.

Politically , I can't relate to a lot of what's going on around me at the moment. It is as though words and deeds are strangers to each other. Questions and answers are no longer bedfellows. The world is full of soundbites statements and blame. Celebrities preaching to the masses from their podiums of hypocrisy like latter day Marie Antionettes. I cant even bear listening to politicians. Everyone is pointing the finger at someone else.

Take fashion for example. The root of global warming and human expolitation is often attributed to a consumer demand for fashion novelty and cheap clothes. Blame the poor for shopping at Primark they cry from their window seat in first class as they looki down on their third home twinkling down below. Vivianne Westwood believes that we should buy less but better, choose well and save up for quality garments . So do I , but when a designer skirt costs my wardrobe budget for the year , we are living on different planets. I need boots, socks, knickers , jumpers... you get the yarn i'm spinning.

We are led to believe that buying quality is buying ethically, the research I have done says otherwise. The high street stores are cut from the same cloth , price buys brand not ethical guarantees. Designers are no better and some sources rate famous politically outspoken designers as shamefully poorly on ethical and environmental standards. Agencies that support and champion textiles workers suggest that the answer is not to boycott large companies but to lobby them for better working conditions and environmental practices. Setting up small independent outlets does nothing to address the welfare of thousands of textile workers around the world. I'm confused, Vivienne is right ,it's so much to tackle.

When it comes down to it ,we are all hypocrites. Most people do not purposely or directly harm those less fortunate, but we are all mixed up together,in a system that does. Westwood flies to China, but she doesn't use a washing machine. I have shopped in Primark but have never driven a car and haven't done a long haul flight for years. We all do our bit to save and destroy our planet and society. Very few of us are innocent , so perhaps its time to stop pointing the finger at' each other and towards workable solutions. Preaching doesn't win many converts these days. I love drama, fine speeches and spectacle as a form of protest, but I also like realism, I also want to listen to the unsung heros who understand the system and work to change it from within. People who do not tar the general population as television drugged zombies too stupid to see the truth. The truth is in their pay packets or lack of it. I think we understand what's going on, we just don't know what to do about it.

I'm not a Marxist or an ist of any kind, but we can still learn a lot from good old Karl. In my opinion the solutions to the material ills of the world lie in the simple slogan 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs)' That we should contribute what we are physically and materially able to, that we should not take more than we need. Vivianne uses her celebrity and artistry to highlight the cause, this is her ability. What the hell am I going to do? If I was Viv i'd set up a company that is ethical from root to tip. That supplies the goods people need and can afford . I can get my fashion fix from charity shops and car boot sales but when the children desperately need a vital item in a specific size at the right price, the high street meets the demand. Unfortunately I don't have the money or expertise to set this up but in the meantime I can clean up my own act a little by doing the following.

1. Use a cobbler . It may cost £7 but it's still cheaper than new shoes.

2. Research the ethical practices of companies I use and let them know if I think they stink. I can send letters and emails from my humble abode.

3. Fly the charity shop flag-(unless they are 5ft and live in Lewes-keep away from my patch!)

4. Save up my £4 a week smoking money and save up for some shoes by Melissa. This may be regularly plundered to pay the gas.

5. Get a milkman. Those plastic bottles mounting up are my biggest shame.This may be more expensive. I may have to plunder the shoe fund yet again.

"I think all we can hope for is public opinion, that's the only thing that will save us.' Vivienne Westwood at OLSE.

If the occupy protests, green movements and anti capitalists want public opinion on their side they need to credit the working class with some intellegence. Need to respect their experiences and why they make the choices they make. A lot of people are new to political thought and protest and the occupations are radical, they take a while to get your head around. Just because many people can't see how it will work does not mean that they are bigots. I desperatley hope that the message will not be lost by medium of expression. 99% of us are angry at the same people about the same thing. I might nip over to Brighton and talk to people occupying there, change is afoot and we all need our voices in the mix.

If Vivianne turns up I shall tell her about my idea you never know, anything is possible in these times. I could be dressing my children in Red capes made from recycled sacks embossed with the golden orb of the queen of fashion. Now wouldn't that be fabulous!

http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/campaigns/item/980

http://www.melissaaustralia.com.au/

For ethical shoes -Vegan, ethical and sexy-Yes Please Father Christmas

For great small businesses who exploit only themselves take a peek at

http://www.sweetheartknits.co.uk/ Employing women in the comfort of their own homes