I never thought I’d do the news about an article on Glamour magazine’s website, but I also thought this pose was exclusive to professional gymnasts, so if you’ve got proof UKIP’s not full of shit now would be a good time to let me know. (Please don’t let me try that outside of my Pilates class.)
Anyway.
Amanda Abbington is Living Below the Line
You guys know how during Comic Relief we sit there eating ice cream trying not to cry at all the little children living in sheds and trying to imagine what it’s like having virtually nothing to eat? Well, an organisation called Live Below the Line does a thing where people get sponsored to live, food-wise, on £1 a day for five days, so that we can start to imagine what it’s like to live in abject poverty. Amanda Abbington’s done it and has written about it on the Glamour website (beware the distracting scroll-y thing).
To balance out all the procrastinating I did reading about Hilary Duff’s marriage, here are some fun facts about poverty! All info is from my Politics course so I don’t have sources, although I’m sure my teachers would be flattered if you demanded that I asked them to provide sources.
- More people have access to a mobile phone than have access to a toilet
- It’s estimated that a country takes thirty years after a civil war to reach the level of prosperity that it held before the war
- People tend to disagree over exactly how many people are ‘in poverty’ because if the figure sounds too high to tackle, schemes to eradicate it won’t take off. That said, poverty is relative; there are rich people in central Africa and people who can’t afford to eat in the USA. In 2005 it was estimated that about 20% of the world’s population was in poverty
- Expanding on that: India’s effing huge general election is on at the moment and one quarter of the electorate is illiterate. Please note that India has a nuclear programme, a space programme and its own version of Hollywood
- There is actually enough resources for everyone to have access. Or there would be if richer people were willing to share…
Okay I’m now mildly depressed and quite guilty about the amount I eat. I might try the Below the Line thing when school’s finished – has anyone else ever done it or something similar? I mean, the last time I did anything remotely selfless and food-related was when I gave up biscuits for Lent back when a) biscuits didn’t make me puke and b) I thought taking part in Lent made me a cool atheist…
Those were the days, huh. They were also the days I could write a post without screwing with the colour scheme, so apologies if I made anyone’s eyes go funny!
Francesca's Thoughts 
It’s estimated that a country takes thirty years after a civil war to reach the level of prosperity that it held before the war.
That’s pretty sad ugh. A lot probably wouldn’t even live to see that time come. To have your whole life dominated by either war or the after-effects of it, I just ughhhhh, that’s terrible.
Don’t know how you deal with politics tbh. It’s all too much for me.
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I deal by writing (or raving!) about it so that hopefully somewhere along the line people might be a bit less shit to each other. But yeah, it’s an awful concept. Plus poverty almost always results in war which usually results in poverty so it’s a huge icky cycle of bullshit. 😦
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