So Tori Amos tour tickets on Pre-sale today. (By the way, not a great time. Just before Christmas when the Barclaycard is already taking a beating. But okay, I'll allow it because I love her and I have to see her every time she is in London and I always make exceptions for her.)
So I try to get a stalls ticket. Usually they are around £48.00, but this time they are £52.50 face value but you actually pay £60.00. Where the fuck did the other £7.50 come from? So already I'm not happy but at least I'll be on the floor and I'll get a good view. But when I look on the Royal Albert Hall Seating Plan the Arena is the floor and the stalls are around the sides. Hmmmmm. They didn't even have Arena tickets available and if they did they'd probably be £70.00. Fuck!
So I continue and try to buy my first one in Row G and by the time I've gone through forgetting my password twelve times and reverting to having to sign up AGAIN to gigsandbloodytours, then I've timed out. And I can't complete the transaction. Mother Fuckers!
So I go straight back on to do the whole rigmarole again and they give me H in the stalls. Boo! Though in the grand scheme of things only marginally further away. I'll get over it.
This time I race through it all and just before you buy the ticket they slap on another £2.31 because heavens knows I haven't paid enough already. So £62.31 and I have my ticket, but I'm not particularly happy about it. (I'm sure I will be closer to the time when I remember I'm seeing a Goddess, again, possibly for the 12th or 13th time.) Right now I'm wondering if I'll ever be able to pay off my credit card bill or if this will sit undigested like a piece of sweetcorn, in the bowel of my statement, forever and a day.
£50.00 was expensive enough to watch a solo artist in a nice venue and that was when I had an £18,000 a year (albeit shittily paid job) salary. When you are freelance and earn shit all, the £62.31 is literally three mornings looking after 2 kids and a music class. And I'm not sure if it's worth it. Not that Tori isn't, she totally is, but if this is the way live music is going, it will be middle classes only. How the hell is anyone else supposed to enjoy decent live music without fuckin' bankrupting themselves.
I know I could have not bought a ticket and made a stand or something, but then come May, I would have been really disappointed. Though I'm sure they could have put the tickets on sale in the New Year or something. I might have got some money for Christmas. Ha ha. And I'm taking on a new school for music classes and if that takes off I could be rolling in it. (When I say rolling in it, I mean still way below the tax threshold. I ain't gonna be paying any tax this year. No way.)
Oh, it just makes me angry. Why should it cost so much? And why is there £10 worth of fees lumped on top of an already expensive ticket?
I remember when I used to be ecstatic when I'd bought a gig ticket. Now I just feel guilty, as though I can't actually warrant that large cost. Food and travel and rent take up most of my earnings and the rest go on presents for other people. When I do treat myself it's a book on offer on Amazon, or a bar of chocolate. Not three days worth of work.
I should go, the grumpiness will only increase until I curb it with some food. Then I have an afternoon of constructive writing to attempt. Though I guess, technically this counts towards that.
Urgh! Annoyed and guilty and mildly giddy at the same time. Not a fun collection of feelings and definitely time for slippers, my toes are chilly.
Signing off
Rants
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Evil Time Stealing Fairies; Clogged Up, Blogged Up and Writing.
Well hello there everyone. It's been a while hasn't it. Those pesky holidays do tend to get in the way of a good rant. Besides, unless things go terribly wrong on your holidays, with any luck there isn't anything to rant about.
But alas, I am back and ready to rant about anything and everything. I've missed it so much.
So we arrived back Monday morning after passing through three time zones on two separate flights. Those evil time fairies were at it again. On the way there they stole time, pinched a good eight hours from us. Buggers! And on the way back, even worse, they gave us time. They increased our day by eight hours, making it the longest day in the history of the world.
It wasn't helped by the fact that I had three classes to teach about 5 hours after we landed. And even though we landed early, (Thank you Turkish Airlines.) we still didn't make the earlier train due to the shuttle at Gatwick - from North to South Terminal - breaking down as we arrived. (Bastard shuttle train.)
Since then it has been a struggle to stay awake as the internal time fairies have been telling me it's time for bed at 4.30 in the afternoon, or making it perfectly clear that 8.00pm is the optimum time for bed. Argh! They have also been convincing me it's okay to wake up at 3.50am and not be able to go back to sleep. What the hell are you trying to do to me?
And even worse than all that is the fact that I hadn't moved a bowel in six days. I know what you're thinking.....Death by poo (Izzard sketch) but really I felt fine until the sixth day. Good old Senokot. But enough about my bowel movements or lack there of......
I have never been so relieved to be in London again, all that fresh air and calm roads where people give way and respect each other (mostly), without beeping incessantly and taking whatever chance they can get. You may be thinking that right now I'm talking out of my ass but believe me when I say, London is a sea of tranquility compared to where we've just been. And the air smells and tastes so fresh and it's fucking freezing but then it is Winter in Britain. It's supposed to be chilly.
My schedule of kids and classes has also increased, starting this week, which hasn't helped matters as today is the only day I didn't have to teach or look after kids. Thank god I get one day off. The little boy I had yesterday made me so grumpy. "Go away. I don't want you to play." Well fine, but I can't leave you on your own so you're stuck with me. To be fair though, he refused to have a chocolate biscuit as well, so I can't take too much offense. Still didn't leave me in the best of moods.
Today has been a writing day, working on Chapters 20, 21 and 22 of the edit and it was kind of fun to go back and read things after a good 20 days away from it. I did however, write the first half of a new picture book idea whilst on holiday and I painstakingly wrote a detailed journal of every day of the holiday, which will eventually become travel blogs and survival guides. So I didn't completely shut off, as that's impossible anyway. But it feels good to really get back into it and hear that clicking of keys as my fingers navigate around the keyboard. Hello my friend. I'm back.
Lunch is calling. It's been calling since 11.08am (that's what happens when you get up at 5.00am) but I've been ignoring the call, pressing the red button in an attempt to banish afternoon hunger.
Soup or left over enchilada? Hmmmmm, the choices.
Have a great weekend. I will be visiting the wonder of my home town, seeing the parentals, hopefully my brother and his girlfriend and my wonderful friend Ch who I haven't seen since her wedding in September. I feel a chin wag coming on!
Rants
But alas, I am back and ready to rant about anything and everything. I've missed it so much.
So we arrived back Monday morning after passing through three time zones on two separate flights. Those evil time fairies were at it again. On the way there they stole time, pinched a good eight hours from us. Buggers! And on the way back, even worse, they gave us time. They increased our day by eight hours, making it the longest day in the history of the world.
It wasn't helped by the fact that I had three classes to teach about 5 hours after we landed. And even though we landed early, (Thank you Turkish Airlines.) we still didn't make the earlier train due to the shuttle at Gatwick - from North to South Terminal - breaking down as we arrived. (Bastard shuttle train.)
Since then it has been a struggle to stay awake as the internal time fairies have been telling me it's time for bed at 4.30 in the afternoon, or making it perfectly clear that 8.00pm is the optimum time for bed. Argh! They have also been convincing me it's okay to wake up at 3.50am and not be able to go back to sleep. What the hell are you trying to do to me?
And even worse than all that is the fact that I hadn't moved a bowel in six days. I know what you're thinking.....Death by poo (Izzard sketch) but really I felt fine until the sixth day. Good old Senokot. But enough about my bowel movements or lack there of......
I have never been so relieved to be in London again, all that fresh air and calm roads where people give way and respect each other (mostly), without beeping incessantly and taking whatever chance they can get. You may be thinking that right now I'm talking out of my ass but believe me when I say, London is a sea of tranquility compared to where we've just been. And the air smells and tastes so fresh and it's fucking freezing but then it is Winter in Britain. It's supposed to be chilly.
My schedule of kids and classes has also increased, starting this week, which hasn't helped matters as today is the only day I didn't have to teach or look after kids. Thank god I get one day off. The little boy I had yesterday made me so grumpy. "Go away. I don't want you to play." Well fine, but I can't leave you on your own so you're stuck with me. To be fair though, he refused to have a chocolate biscuit as well, so I can't take too much offense. Still didn't leave me in the best of moods.
Today has been a writing day, working on Chapters 20, 21 and 22 of the edit and it was kind of fun to go back and read things after a good 20 days away from it. I did however, write the first half of a new picture book idea whilst on holiday and I painstakingly wrote a detailed journal of every day of the holiday, which will eventually become travel blogs and survival guides. So I didn't completely shut off, as that's impossible anyway. But it feels good to really get back into it and hear that clicking of keys as my fingers navigate around the keyboard. Hello my friend. I'm back.
Lunch is calling. It's been calling since 11.08am (that's what happens when you get up at 5.00am) but I've been ignoring the call, pressing the red button in an attempt to banish afternoon hunger.
Soup or left over enchilada? Hmmmmm, the choices.
Have a great weekend. I will be visiting the wonder of my home town, seeing the parentals, hopefully my brother and his girlfriend and my wonderful friend Ch who I haven't seen since her wedding in September. I feel a chin wag coming on!
Rants
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