down on skid row

I love half-price  musical theatre. Apart from the odd shitty seat (I missed half of Little Shop of Horrors. The top half. Never get the cheap seats at the New Ambassador’s Theatre) it always works out pretty well. They fill empty seats, you get your musical theatre fix.

I have two friends who’ve seen Les Mis literally hundreds of times, half price all the way.

mmm, swanky

Lastminute.com is giving £10 gourmet meals away to celebrate 10 years of… whatever it is they do when you book online.

You can also finegle a free birthday meal for two. Yes they do want proof. And you have to go all the fuck way to Battersea. Also it’s in a butcher shop-themed restaurant.

damn straight

So at least now we know the highest form of capitalism isn’t imperialism any more. It’s blind panic.

life changing

Asda and Morrisons are pulling the old 99p trick, except in a stingier way. A litre of petrol will now cost you 99.9p.

It’s an effective publicity stunt: que vaguely homoerotic pictures of burly truck driver types sticking nozzles into petrol holes.

above pic from lukeroberts’ flickr photostream

syphon here

So you know how your gas and lecky bills got obscenely high because oil went up to, like, a gazillion dollars (well, $150) a barrel? Well, now oil is only $70 a barrel and here PovertyPorn we’re still selling ourselves to pay for 1 hour of central heating in the morning (otherwise it’s too cold to get out of bed).

Why?

Because gas and electricity companies collectively thought  because of the whole ‘global economic termoil’ thing, thought we’d forget (it’s always a conspiracy).

But PovertyPorn never forgets. Neither do Consumer Focus, who are demanding gas and lecky companies remove their big, greasy hands from the smalls of our backs and step away from the barrel.

they want your cheques

An entire website dedicated to the art of living on buy-one-get-one free offers. Inspired.

How else would you find out that Tesco’ll sell you 2 Cadbury’s Halloween Ghost Biscuits for £1.39 (perfect if you need to stop trick-or-treating hoodies egging your front door) or that Co-op has giant packs of Kleenex on sale (infected yet?): 2 for £2.80. You can buy everything you never wanted. In bulk.

Go get your cheap on.

yeah, right

“I’M in debt too, I fucked up too, I keep the economy afloat, and bailing ME, and every taxpayer out is a safer bet than bailing out the banks.”

Although this campaign’s already failed (like ordinary taxpayers have lobbyists – or clout with politicians) it’s still a deeply comforting idea.

Glaswegian Anarchists make all the damn sense.

aww, shit

Well, no.

But you, British taxpayer, are now the proud owner of 37 billion-pounds-worth of bank. £37 billion! Frankly, you could have done better. But, now you own the banks, you can attempt to guarantee

• they start lending to businesses again, so you get paid, other business get paid and we won’t have to queue with wheelbarrow-fulls of worthless tenners just to do the weekly shop
• they start giving mortgages again, and, hopefully, stem slumping house prices and, eventually negative equity
• they stop making stupid, greedy decisions a la short selling and credit default swaps and stick to tried and tested safe investments
• it will rally the stock market and save your/ your parents’ pensions
• they put an end to those obscene bonus’ that had us all jealous and whatnot
• some of said greedy fuckers will be fired. Which may be a bad thing – they’re, seriously, the only people who know how all these dodgy financial instruments work. Also, my cousin works in the city, and I kind of liked the fact his mum kept boasting about his crackberry and disgustingly large bonus.

It could also…

• have no effect whatsoever on the economic downturn
• saddle you with an untold amount of financial junk, including your own buy-to-let mortgage, which (be honest) you had no intention of actually paying…
• screw us all
• screw us all
• screw us all

Oh happy day: you now own 60% of RBS and 41% of HBOS/Lloyds TSB.

The greasy smell of popcorn, the sticky floors, the sense that you’ve completely wasted hours of your life, hours you’ll never see again. The cinema is a tough habit to break: nothing makes a sucky summer blockbuster look better than complete darkness and a 20-foot screen.

PovertyPorn has frugal friends (you know who you are) who insist on getting a weekly film fix, in an incredibly cheap way.

Gemma never misses Orange Wednesdays at every Odeon in the country (except the tony ones; we’re looking at you Leicester Square). In exchange for an Orange users’ phone, you get bogof tickets. Get mugging, kids!

Taz has a Cineworld Unlimited card, and in an irritatingly impressive show of sense, firmly refuses to go to any other cinema. Ever. For £11.99 a month, you get to see any movie, at any time, at any Cineworld (except the tony ones; we’re looking at you Shaftesbury avenue).

When you’re feeling pretentious (and we often are) Curzon Cinemas (no hotdogs, plenty of subtitles) give you ticket discounts, free previews and a magazine (!) for £40 membership a year.

When your’re feeling skanky, £10 membership a year at the Prince Charles Cinema (red velvet, double seats in the back row, used to be a grindhouse) gets you daytime films for £1.50 and evening and weekend cinema for £3.50.

For £30 membership a year, faux indie Picturehouse Cinemas give you £2 off tickets, and a newsletter. Thanks.