Pongo!

You find me today poor but happy, yes that’s right I am in that blissful state one gets when almost out of money but with a full larder and plenty of booze.  In short, I am comfortably stocked even though my wallet is empty.

It’s at times like these I sit me down and think about how lucky I actually am. There are people in this country who are living on the streets or below the poverty line. We may not see them in everyday life but they are still there. Gordon Brown can huff and puff all he likes about child poverty but it’s not going away. One wrong turn into a council estate and the evidence of its existence is still wholly apparent.

Many years ago after leaving school, I began work as a TV* repairman. The job entailed my going to people’s houses and repairing their televisions, yes siree it was as simple as that. 

On one occasion on entering a house, I gagged at the stench.  The door had been opened by a small child who was probably only about 8 years old and naked. She was covered in spaghetti sauce and bruises. She showed me into a small living room where a brace of Jabba the Huts sat shovelling spaghetti shapes and pie into their red bloated corpse faces. They were staring into the corner of the room where sat a massive television set, which at the time would have cost them several hundred pounds. However, their children sat naked at their feet living off meagre amounts of food handed down to them. They reminded me of my dogs begging for a morsel. 

This was indeed poverty, but not financial, this was fuckwit poverty. These people only lived for television and the whole world could go to hell. They sat and watched with their unwashed festering forms seeping into their stinking couch. Cigarette in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other they laughed and jiggled at the idiotic images which flashed in front of their eyes. While their children foraged in the bins for food.

A week later, the kids were taken into care and I received another call to their house. Apparently, ITV had stopped working.