Skint

Emma
I want better for Tai
I want just a normal life
Just where I can get up in the morning
Get Tai off to school or whatever
Get about my housework
Do you know what I mean?

Do things with Tai at the weekend
Save up for holidays
Do you know what I mean?

I want it to be where eventually
I’m off the methadone and everything
Maybe even go back to college
Do a counsellors course
I’ll get a little office job or summat

Just normal
Do you know what I mean?

Gail
My partner died
He was thirty-seven years old when he died
To see him come off heroin
get his life sorted out
and then to go on drink
and then to die
through drink
it’s hard
It’s really hard

Life throws some things at you sometimes,
don’t it?
And you’ve just got to get on with it
You’ve got to be strong
And if you’re not strong,
and you’re weak
you fall apart,
don’t you?

Skye
Yeah, but it’s because I can
because I can do it
and I wanna do it
I can
so I don’t give a fuck
Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what, yeah?
that’s sticking up for your mates that
She’d booted her in the stomach
and winded her
so I just went over
I was just like
Boom

Dropped her
Banged her
Fucked her up
Stamped on her head
and everything

Tracey
Since I’ve lost me kids
I don’t care anymore
What else have I go to lose
apart from my head?
I regret the prostitution
and not fighting a bit harder
for me kids
but you can’t turn the clock back,
can you?
If you could,
we’d all have perfect lives,
wouldn’t we?



Taken from episode 4 of the Channel 4 series Skint. Submitted by Lisa Oliver.

A day without deference

Let the nation’s doormen do their jobs without smiling
Let waiters at suburban restaurants leave their flair at home
Let the janitors at Princeton mop no vomit from the dormitory stairwells
Let retail greeters of every description call in sick
Let the first-class passengers board at someone else’s leisure
Let the nation’s limo drivers require their passengers to open their own damn doors
Let the production interns at CNBC send the on-air “talent” to fetch the coffee
And, for just one day, let the talent ask their interviewees hard questions



From the essay Servile Disobedience by Thomas Frank, February 2011. Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.