Brasil, oh Brasil

This: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5042418.stm, sent to me by my boyfriend, has made me think a lot. Therefore I am posting it here.

Things have been nothing short of tumultuous lately. It's almost getting old. I think I am getting senile due to having a rather strange sleep pattern, although I thankfully haven't woken up in the night for the past 2-3 days. I really need to drink all the water I'm going to drink by 8pm from now on... Satkirat and I have had some 'issues,' not so much with each other as with ourselves. Call it a huge great Venn diagram of insecurity; we can both be exceedingly hyper/over-sensitive at times, and this is effectively the perfect time for blow-ups. TOM has paid me a visit (all of you should know what that means by now!) so the Deranged Psycho Bitch tendency is... somewhat more accessible than it would be normally.

I have been working a fair bit - three days a week, four last week, and I haven't been paid for probably about 9 or 10 days. That means I'm owed at least £357. That's no small amount, and I have been spending stupidly recently. Stupidly is the keyword here. I bought something like 11 tops from Uniqlo for £77 (pretty much). Hello, fucking idiocy! The worst thing is that I didn't think at all when I was doing it. There was no rebellion, no need, and no realisation that "hey, I bought about five or so tops already...!" I just bought them because my brain had become fried from being out all the time, and all day, and probably because I had nothing better to do. Boredom really is a killer. When I got to the till and they calculated the sub-total, I was like "Shit!" Then I figured it was too late to back out, so I went ahead and bought them all. I am going to go and return about 6 or 7 of them tomorrow. They're brand new after all.

Before this, I had spent £28.50 on 19 pairs of knickers from Primark, which I most deffo could not return. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson. I am totally gutted now, but I am going to make a scene in Uniqlo if they refuse to accept back their BRAND NEW TOPS. My bf was right; I just went from spending hardly anything to spending too much, and it fills me with fear. I was more than a little horrified at how my self-control evaporated in the presence of boredom.

It caused unpleasant situations, and showed me that I need to fill my time with other things. Things like reading The Watchmen, watching Chungking Express, and listening to Gilles Peterson's sessions in Brazil online (I heard some of the last show on the radio...). I quite like Brazilian music, although I've mostly just heard baile funk and bossa nova. Bossa nova might be 'middle-class music' but it makes you so happy! Anyone who doesn't believe me should just listen to Aguas de Marco by João Gilberto (it may feature Stan Getz, I think it does). He sounds so merry, like a giant bunch of fresh cherries :-D. Bebel Gilberto (yes, she's a relation, she's his daughter!) generally makes you feel that the world is beautiful and calm.

Speaking of happy music, I cannot help it - I like Lily Allen. She does look ever so slightly (endearingly, say I!) porcine on her Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic
Still, she makes music that is a bit snarky and makes you smile. She's Keith Allen's daughter (the man behind dumbass football-based hit Vindaloo), but don't hold that against her. She is summer! She also looks a teeny weeny bit like one of the winners of Strictly Dance Fever. That show is starting to depress me, because it showcases the worst thing about the mentality of the British viewing public. We love the underdog, oh yeah, we fucking LOVE the underdog. In all fairness, the gap between the two final couples was narrower than it's ever been, but logically considering what the prize is, I feel that history repeated itself one time too many.

Every goddamn series, the couple who are better suited to win don't win. This has happened on Strictly Come Dancing as well (although that's nowhere near as fun, especially because it's basically a vehicle for slebs to fawn all over each other). The couple who were consistently good, Darren and Lana, weren't quite as good on the night of the final, and lost. Never mind that they actually tried to take a risk. Darrien and Hollie - who ARE excellent dancers - performed their perfect-scoring milonga again, and then played shamelessly to their strengths (Hollie's a street-dancer...) during the freestyle. They won. They deserved to win, but the other couple actually deserved the prize itself more.

You see how bizarre it is? It's just yet another dialectical situation; does the ability to perform better on the most stressful night of the competition make you better suited to be a professional dancer? Or does being a consistently versatile and excellent performer count? Perhaps Darren and Lana are actually thus better off doing the professional-dancer-competition-celebrity route then, because they can take that many strings to their bow? Who knows? One thing I do know is that I prefer this kind of moral dilemma to several others. Even if it does involve swimming-costume-leotards, kneepads and dangerous dresses...