Why is Rihanna allowing herself to even still be mentioned in the same breath as a man that punched her, kicked her, bit her, choked her and threatened to kill her, let alone record TWO songs with him?

Birthday Cake is, in traditional Rihanna style, very provocative. It is laden with innuendo and mixes a jarring, sinister sounding one word refrain with a cracking, clapping beat in the background. It could be likened to the sound of someone repetitively thumping something, or someone, say, if you were to so think about it in such a way. This, plus the lyrics ‘I know you want it in the worst way (the worst way)/Cant wait to blow my candles out,’ and ‘Do you remember how you did it/If you still wanna kiss it/Come on and get it,’ leaves little to the imagination when contextualised and anybody who knows anything about her attack is going to put two and two together and what you get makes for some very uncomfortable listening.

“‘It doesn’t matter that it’s a great pop song. Unless you’re an imbecile, it’ll be hard to wave your hands in the air in the clubs to ‘Birthday Cake,’” argues Lucy Jones, of the Telegraph. This cannot be overstated enough – especially when Brown kicks in with the line “‘Girl I wanna fuck you right now/Been a long time/I’ve been missing your body.’” This line, twinned with his disgustingly immature response to the merited outcry against the fact that he would be performing at this year’s Grammy’s (Brown took to Twitter after the show tweeting a series of things, culminating in “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate F— OFF”) makes my skin crawl so much I think I shed a layer.

It is very hard to not be exasperated with Rihanna for working with Brown on these songs, who clearly shows little to no remorse – or at the very least no humility at the fact that he took it upon himself to threaten to KILL one of the most influential female pop singers of the moment. However, whilst Rihanna has been elevated to superstar status, and is thus held on a pedestal as an assumed role model for victims of domestic abuse, we have to remember that she is after all, only human, just like the rest of us.

It takes a victim of domestic violence an average of 12 times to leave an abusive partner. If you listen to the vast majority of songs released – or at least the singles – post the attack, the content within them suggests that either she hasn’t fully processed what actually happened, or she at least is struggling to process it and the effect that it has had on her and this is how it manifests itself. Smash hit Love The Way You Lie, ft Eminem, who is not exactly known for being respectful to women, outlines an abusive relationship which she doesn’t really want to leave.

Similarly, We Found Love, the latest single from Rihanna includes the lyrics “It’s the way I’m feeling/I just can’t deny/But I’ve gotta let it go/We found love in a hopeless place.” No guesses for who that’s about, and it seems that despite what happened to Rihanna, the good in Brown is clearly still outweighing the bad.

Rihanna doesn’t owe anybody anything, there is no abuse survivor etiquette that women have to follow. Unfortunately, like  many other abuse survivors who give their partners another shot, Rihanna feels that Chris Brown deserves another chance, at least musically speaking. However, for me and I’m sure the majority of other people, Birthday Cake, and the other single Turn Up The Music, which is a bland, regulation club banger that Rihanna gives an effective life raft too in that without her vocals it would most surely sink, are not anything that I want to give space too in my life.

Birthday Cake (Remix) – Rihanna ft. Chris Brown

Eyeing up their huge pores with horror, squeezing spots in a frantic bid to eliminate them before Saturday night or pulling at their stomachs in their less then perfectly manicured hands, the reassurance has been dutifully doled out that although their thighs are less than slender and their stomach less than toned, someone, somewhere thinks they’re beautiful. For some reason. Any reason.

I don’t have to tell you that we live in an image obsessed culture where, for women especially, looking good is key. And sorry kids, but there will always be a culturally defined view of what is beautiful and what is not and most of you will not fit into the beautiful box. But whilst a lot of women are upset by this (and why shouldn’t they be when society continually sexualises us, trivialises us and demeans us for being ‘fat’/'ugly’/'plastic’) there is momentum building up online which seeks to challenge this mentality.

The Body Positive movement in the blogosphere includes many websites whose aim is to publish photos of girls who have all come to terms with their bodies and have found acceptance and happiness in who they are, just as they are. One of the most popular of these sites is Stop Hating Your Body, a tumblr blog which is fuelled by reader submissions, many of which are accompanied with heartfelt personal stories regarding the submitter’s struggles with eating disorders and/or other issues stemming from negative body image before they started to heal and accept themselves.

Each submission is ended with the phrase “Be brave! Join the body peace revolution!” and all of them garner at least a few dozen ‘likes’ or ‘reblogs’ from appreciative followers. However, whilst the fact that these women are looking in the mirror and liking what they see is of course a good thing and in no way should that be understated, the commentary attached to each submission still reflects that main ideal: in order to feel happy about yourself you have to be attractive. ’I have learned that sometimes, all you need is to look in the mirror and tell yourself straight up “You are beautiful, don’t let anyone change that.”’ – A submission on SHYB.

But why should being attractive be the be all and end all today? Why are these women looking in the mirror and thinking “Fuck it, this is now what I am going to consider attractive,” and not just “Fuck it”? Is it really all that important? Why is the first thing that people rush to compliment women on their looks? People never introduce their friends to others as “Sarah and her beautiful husband,” but it goes without saying that if a woman is even moderately easy on the eye it is immediately flagged up for others’ attention.

So it is clear to see why body image and weight are a source of contention for the majority of women today, but ladies, whether you’re starving yourself to look beautiful or reclaiming the word beautiful for your less than societally approved stretch marks, the fact of the matter is by focusing on it at all you’re still reinforcing the notion that to be worth something you have to be attractive. 

Would you not rather be appreciated for your wit or your humour or your intellect or the fact you’ve fundraised £3k for charity, than because you’re a fine piece of ass, regardless of whether that ass is a size 8 or a size 18?

I propose a new revolution, and it shall be known as the revolution of finding your self worth from somewhere inside yourself and not from in front of the mirror. So when some douchebag asks you why you cut your hair short when ‘you looked so pretty with long hair,’ you can reply with Because fuck you, that’s why.

Like a sinister Halloween party that you can’t – or don’t want to – leave, Tesfaye’s eerie lyrics mixed with the trippy synths and samples piques your interest. It’s not that there is a clear shift in The Weeknd’s style at all, in fact lyrics from the previous albums are recycled, signature high pitched, pained vocals still swoop up and down effortlessly but the continual mystery surrounding this guy and whether or not he can actually exist like this keeps you intrigued.

With Montreal and Outside making for more traditionally pop sounding songs, the turning point comes midway through the album in XO/The Host, where the tone changes and makes for far more uncomfortable listening. The lyrics are clearly indicative of group sex, clearly indicative of a vulnerable girl and yet leave the question of whether or not consent was given very much open indeed. (“There’s just something that I need/For you is to meet my boys/I got a lot of boys/And we can make you right.”)

This follows through into the disturbingly named Initiation where this hook is repeated over and over with Tesfaye almost snarling the words over and over. The track speeds up and slows down erratically in a menacing four minute reveal into a shady world, something far more deeply disturbing than you  (and the poor girl referenced in the song) realised you were letting yourself in for.

Yet whilst you’re left feeling simultaneously disturbed, engrossed and yet still overwhelmed by just how well this whole album is put together, the album closer and title track opens with sombre piano. Tesfaye’s frail voice is stripped bare to the point where it sounds like he is on the brink of tears. All previous brazen notions of male prowess and sexual superiority referred to in Outside (‘Forget what you know/And make yourself at home/Cos baby when I’m finished with you/You won’t want to go outside’) are forgotten and he pitches into a pride free plea for help. ‘Please don’t leave my little life/Don’t you leave my little life.’

The end of the trilogy reveals what you know must have been building up from the start. We have heard (and enjoyed) this guy detailing his debauchery and witnessed it spiralling from quite literally a being a house of balloons to the remaining echoes of silence left once the sun comes up: Tesfaye has ultimately destroyed himself trying to maintain this lifestyle of his. ‘It’s going to end how you expected/Girl you’re such a masochist/I used to do this for the thrill/Nothing’s gonna make me feel this thrill.’

So is your overriding feeling one of disgust? Pity? Regardless of your feelings towards The Weeknd’s Tesfaye towards the end of the album, as the piano fades out and he finishes wailing one thing that is definitely not in dispute is this album’s ultimate brilliance, and with the trilogy rounding off a perfect cycle of events, we are left not knowing what’s going to happen next, and the mystery continues.

The mother sits upright, tense. She is a perfectionist – a slim, tall woman dressed in smart jeans and an expensive, crisp ironed shirt. Neutral colours. The painstakingly perfect hairstyle the son, who is no older than eight, wears is her doing; slicked across his head in the most rigid fashion, his hair stays firmly in place, side parting straight as if it had been styled with the help of a ruler. She looks about the restaurant, noting the amount of students in the place and looks decidedly pained.

They flick through the menus. The children are well behaved, quickly and quietly deciding what to order. The father, dressed more simply than his wife in a plain pullover and jeans stares at the page. His hair is considerably less coiffed then his son’s and his face suggests he has merely grown immune to his wife’s flustered sighs rather than the haphazard fluff atop his head being used as a symbol of defiance – a deliberate attempt at bucking the system. His eye follows the lines of text on the menu, glassing over, bleakly disinterested.

Their food arrives and they start to eat in silence. The little girl starts a conversation and the mother strokes her hair absent mindedly, mumbling agreement. She picks at her food, it is clearly not something she would normally opt for, but within the food court in the shopping mall it is the most tolerable affair – she won’t stand for fast food.

Her husband remains silent, utterly ambivalent about the entire meal. It could be that shopping is simply not his forte – fighting your way through the masses during the January sales is enough to turn anyone’s thoughts slightly more macabre, especially with two young children in tow – but it is more than that. His whole manner is that of resignation.

The children keep persisting with conversation, using their knives and forks to eat their chips rather than their fingers as so many others their age would – perfect manners to match their perfect presentation which reflects on what a perfectionist their mother and highlights so clearly how out of sync her husband is.

The children’s father carries on chewing. He is close to admitting defeat and accepting the fact that his wife is simply more than he is – more successful, more driven, more in control. Control. When was the last time he felt in control rather than emasculated? He calls the waiter over to the table and complains about his chips. He looks angry and condemns the sub par dish with more force than is necessary for a lukewarm portion of chips. The waiter apologises and duly returns with some new ones. At least he has some control over that.

They finish their meal, the impeccable children smile, they pay the bill and leave.

This is pretty handy really, seeing as this is just the thing that Lizzy Grant was going for when she, after several attempts at cultivating a career in music with marginal success under her given name, upped and revamped herself as. A performance artist if ever there was one, and if the amount of YouTube hits first single Video Games (over 23 and a half million, and counting) is anything to go by then it’s really working for her.

Or is it?

Online, a war of words is waging, equal in intensity on both sides, and one which there seems to be no common ground at all. Lizzy Grant, or rather her nom de plume Lana Del Rey, is a walking, talking, pouting controversy. “A horrible person that’s a poor example for women everywhere,” rants one commenter, whose (probably unfounded) anger is contrasted with the short and sweet, yet no less striking statement “best song ever” on the Video Games comment stream on YouTube.

The anger that Del Ray conjurs up stems from the notion that she is a fake, a fabrication, manufactured right down to her perfectly distracting pout, which (not that it matters, of course) is noticeably different to the mouth she sports in earlier promotional material for her 2010 shelved album.

Del Rey is the daughter of multimillionaire Rob Grant, who made his fortune online investing in domains. He has backed Del Rey’s career, paying for a team of marketers to spend five years researching and creating a persona that would sell well in today’s industry. He paid for all the marketing, even going so far as to pay to have the album put on iTunes for a short while, before it was removed for reasons unknown.

The marketing team came up with her stage name, and opted for her to remain a solo artist rather than a singer in a band. From Del Rey’s Wikipedia page: “I wanted to be a band but the label I was with and the team I had around me absolutely wanted me to be a solo artist. Lana Del Rey came from a series of managers and lawyers over the last 5 years who wanted a name that they thought better fit the sound of the music.”

It seems that in this case, that although money can’t buy talent or fame, in a Veruca Salt style ‘Daddy will get that for you’ type way, it can buy you enough hype to get  a head start on your competitors. And in this case, that hype bought Del Rey an invitation to perform on Saturday Night Live (SNL), an American live sketch and comedy show.

Her performance on SNL sparked a backlash against her, with people calling it “the worst ever SNL performance,” and her critics arguing that this poor performance clearly highlights her lack of talent, leaving a general consensus of indignation that this girl could be performing to an audience this large, whilst more talented artists fly under the radar.

However, both Video Games and her new album Born To Die have received generally very good reviews, omitting her one dodgy performance on SNL it would be fair to say that she at least has potential. I first listened to Video Games and was bored by it. But then I wanted to listen to it again.

So the big question is: does it really matter that she didn’t start from the bottom and work her way up? Is Lana Del Rey sticking two fingers up to the music industry and other credible artists by effectively buying her way in? Or does the music speak for itself? Essentially, who cares?

Maybe time will tell, but we all know what happened to Veruca Salt. Let’s hope for Lizzy Grant’s sake, that Lana Del Rey doesn’t end up in the garbage shoot.

“Heather can’t be here because she doesn’t feel too well and the other guys are doing another interview, but I can talk to you now if you like?”

Her choice of outfit for the day seems to contradict her relaxed demeanour and tiny frame. She wears a little mesh black vest with possibly the tightest trousers on the planet, laced all the way down the front from thigh to ankle – perhaps to allow room for a little bit of blood flow – finished off with some well worn, no nonsense Doc Martins, softened only by the charcoal grey hoody.

On the other hand, the somewhat intimidating outfit choice for the day makes perfect sense as the lead singer of The Jezabels, with her asymmetric haircut and sharp features, along with the really intense vocals demonstrated on latest release Prisoner, and recent Guardian reviews describing Hayley as a “simmering volcano.”

“Oh, well I don’t know what people say about me. I assume that nobody is ever going to say anything negative to me so it’s hard. You get the occasional bad review but that’s good I think, kind of like coming second in a band competition.” (The Jezabels came second in The Sydney Uni Band Competition when they first formed.) “A lot of people say we won it. It’s quite funny.”

Later,  whilst playing a sold out show at London’s 1850 capacity club Heaven, the atmosphere in the crowd is amicable and relaxed, yet the excitement when the band comes onstage is genuine. It is almost touching that so many people would pitch up to watch an unsigned band from the other side of the world play.

“We’re just happy that we can tour internationally. This is pretty incredible and doesn’t always happen to Australian bands. Well, it doesn’t always happen to any band really, but if you start out in London or New York then you might not always need to tour so much as you’re already in the epicentre of everything, whereas we do, so it’s really good that there’s been some interest at all.”

It seems the no frills honesty and consistent plugging away since 2007 – the release of the 3 EPs before Prisoner was mainly a financial decision as they lacked the funds to produce an album – has garnered the band a truly emotionally invested following. The fans greet the astutely DIY affair which included setting up their own equipment onstage and opting out of fancy extras like a backdrop for their show – and indeed a record label – with indifference.

It all just adds to the gritty intensity of what it is this band does, and what this band does is deliver high energy, high pitched, guitar driven indie pop rock, which is hard to pin down into one specific genre. The band describe themselves as ‘intensindie.’

“There’s not really any bands that influence us directly as a band – there’s not many bands or artists that we all like. We get a lot of weird comparisons to bands we’ve never heard of, which is interesting. It’s hard because I would never say that we were influenced by a band but there were a couple of comparisons that we liked, like The Arcade Fire and The National. But those were the only two that we could all appreciate as a band.

It makes writing songs hard as we all have really different tastes; really disparate tastes as well, but I think we’ve come to an understanding. It was harder at first, like it was different forces struggling against each other but now we know which of our individual roles play well together.”

Onstage, Hayley is decked out in trademark black attire. She stands stock still on stage, eyes closed, and as the first few bars of album opener Prisoner wash over the audience with that eerie gothic vibe you begin to think that perhaps this woman, with her completely self absorbed stance and apparent oblivion to those around her, is launching an earnest solo campaign to bring emo back.

This edgy, brooding vibe is almost sabotaged by guitarist Sam Lockward’s obvious glee at being onstage, his excitement genuinely tangible due to a huge smile on his face that doesn’t waver throughout their whole set. And the obvious rehearsal of The Jezabels’ indulgently dramatic performance confirms what the fans already knew. This band, despite there being no bells or explosions in the sky throughout their set, are good at what they do.

The show is well rehearsed, with Hayley reaching all the high pitched notes with complete and utter ease whilst simultaneously lunging erratically from side to side – which didn’t necessarily fit in with the vibe of the show – topped off with periodically pitching forward until she nearly hits the floor during the high notes, of which there are many.

“I guess the big sound evolved. To say it was intentional is weird, intentional is a weird word. You have a desire to do something but you’re not conscious of it until it starts happening and people go ‘Well, did you mean to do that?’ I’ve always liked singers that were quite dramatic. People like Freddie Mercury and Cindi Lauper; that type of thing.

“I’m not a fan of the ‘trying to be cute’ subtle thing that lots of singers do. It’s got its place but it’s just not for me,” Hayley grins. It doesn’t seem like the fans are unduly bothered by the lack of cute either, with melodramatic single Mace Spray and crowd pleasers Dark Storm and Easy To Love creating huge reactions in the audience to the extent where it almost feels as if this decent sized venue is too small at points.

The show is not perfect, and sometimes it seems as if the obvious high points serve just to show up the weaker ones and the mysterious, gothic intense vibe they’ve clearly worked so hard to build up loses credibility somewhat due to the amateur-esque feel of the whole thing.

But after all they are only human, and during the show you, along with all the other fans, do end up genuinely hoping they will catch a break, and as Hayley dramatically throws the microphone on the floor at the end of the set and strides offstage, you almost didn’t want her to trip over it right at the last minute.

I’d had the recommendations on where to visit, where to eat, what to do, but what I really gathered from others’ excitable chatter about their time in the city was the sense that this place genuinely isn’t going to be like anything else I had seen before, and that no amount of wild hand gesticulations emphasising heights was going to be able to paint a picture in my mind.

I was right. As soon as we had made it out of the airport and had dropped our bags off at the hostel we made our jet lagged way to Times Square, and the sheer brightness of everything literally hits you in the face as soon as you round the corner. All of the (enormous) buildings are covered in adverts but, for the first time in my life at least, you actually want to look at these adverts.

The effort that had gone into creating some of the displays was more than anything I had ever seen in the UK before, and anything that London has to offer by way of huge brightly lit moving LCD advertisement screens seemed quaint in comparison. And by quaint, I mean virtually non existent.

By the time we got there it was gone midnight and the place was still packed and all the shops open. Forever 21, an American clothes retailer similar to H&M was trading from eight AM to three AM every single day. I cannot fathom why anyone would go shopping for a new pair of jeans at two in the morning, but I guess that’s what they mean when they say ‘The City That Never Sleeps.’

After steeling myself for a horrible wake up call after being awake for a whole 24 hours, I actually felt pretty refreshed after my pitiful 5 hours of kip and ready to face the first day of hardcore sightseeing. But first, we had bagged places in the audience of The Jeremy Kyle Show in America which was quite a novelty.

Image credit: Stacey Tonks

Much as it was a good insight into the world of working in television and the idea that I may be shown on television in January watching what is possibly renowned for being the Most Naff Programme On TV was amusing to all of us there, it felt quite voyeuristic at times and genuinely uncomfortable watching other people’s real life issues playing out right in front of you for supposed entertainment value.

After Jeremy Kyle, myself and five of the other girls on the tip had been lucky enough to secure a trip to meet Margi Conklin, the editor of Page Six Magazine which was in the News Corporation building. This was a highlight of the trip for me, she was not only lovely but extremely helpful and made the idea that we may actually end up working for a magazine seem possible, and not a hopeless dream for an ideal world which doesn’t actually exist.

After this, we were given free rein to do whatever we fancied, so we opted to go to Grand Central Station and explore the Christmas Markets there, which of course were lovely, especially hidden within the gorgeous archways of the station itself.

For dinner we went to a typical American style diner (had to be done!) and naturally ordered enormous burgers which came complete with half a gherkin, which I declined to eat.

Up at the crack of dawn again the next day, or at least eight AM, for a visit to Ground Zero. You can look around the Ground Zero site for free by yourself, but I would definitely recommend paying for the tour, which costs $15. The tour guide who showed us around had actually been inside the North Tower as it started to collapse, so he was able to give a really detailed and invested background and depth to the story that you could not have got by simply looking around the grounds yourself. This is definitely an emotional trip but worth it to find out a bit more about an important part of history.

After the tour we went and got a traditional huge slice of pizza from a greasy spoon looking cafe, and made our way to Soho for some more sightseeing.  Unlike London’s upmarket, trendy Soho which I – perhaps naively – was expecting, Soho Manhattan Style was a bit shabby and after having to reroute ourselves to avoid a large scale fight we made our way back to the subway, as we were due to take a trip on the Staten Island ferry. On the ferry we got to see a really beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline at night. And it was completely free!

The view from the top of the Empire State Building

Visiting the Empire State Building is most definitely THE highlight of the trip for me, and most definitely recommended. ($20 to go up 87 floors of the Empire State building.)

The view from the top was like nothing I could possibly describe, skyscrapers as far as you can see, and despite the fact that the Empire State Building isn’t the tallest building by far, it was still a literally incredible view, although probably not so cracking if you have vertigo.

It was also the quietest place in New York we had been so far, and it was somewhat surreal after the unrelenting hustle and bustle.

On our last day we hit the shops to see what New York retail was like. Whilst there are a lot of shops in NY that you can find on your average British high street, of course the scale of these stores is immense. The flagship store for American department store Macy’s is in Herald Square, which is apparently the largest store in the world. This is very believable, with its nine enormous floors, every one of them decorated differently.

Before leaving the City, we went for some traditional ice skating fun in the beautiful Central Park, which cost $20 for two hours and you get to enjoy the scenic location in the centre of New York City, as well as the huge ice rink there, before collapsing onto the coach after four of the most intense, bewildering and tiring, but ultimately memorable days of my life.

“Are you going out again?” was the recurring cry from some of my friends. “How can you afford all this?”

But with a summer job and my “free extra money stream” aka my overdraft, I just didn’t have to think about money. At least not until I unceremoniously got booted out of my job due to a shaky economy (all started by frivolities somewhat akin to mine, albeit on a larger scale), at which point my wages stopped coming in, and “the free extra money stream” became “necessary funds available in order to be able to survive.”

And desperately trying to fund a lifestyle you cannot maintain on a non renewable money source meant that sooner rather than later my bank account hit Absolute Zero.

So here is my documentation of me surviving a week on literally nothing at all.

Monday:

Woke up, stole my housemate’s milk in order to make a cup of tea. Read the letter from the bank asking me to pay some money into my account or be damned to an eternity of extra charges as I had gone over the agreed limit. As I had but 36 pence in coppers in my purse, I despondently accepted my fate as a newly initiated member of the student proletariat.

I had been lucky enough earlier on in the year to bag myself a place on the New York trip my course at University was running for us, and as it was but a mere two weeks away I kind of really needed to find some money to be able to afford to go on any of the trips and indeed to uh, eat whilst I am there.

So, whilst holding on my the last shreds of my integrity and also my fancy BlackBerry, I called my long suffering mother up to ask for a loan. Unsurprisingly, I was shot down immediately at the very first mention of it. Currently brain storming ways of attaining money that doesn’t involve eBay, (can’t afford insertion fees) or doing an honest trade (apparently nobody will have me).

Tuesday:

Woke up, stole my housemate’s milk in order to make a cup of tea. Walked to the shops to buy some chocolate. Walked back again. Obviously. Went round to my friend’s house and threw myself a pity party. Scored some free dinner and the offer of some money in New York if I really couldn’t scrape any together. Learned that my friends are generous and kind and that I, self professed feminist and equal rights supporter, sociology student and assumed Good Person, am in fact a degenerate consumerist wastrel, under the thumb of The Man and the Capitalist machine.

Wednesday:

Woke up, stole my housemate’s milk in order to make a cup of tea. Decided never to buy myself milk ever again, as I clearly have a free stream available to me whenever I fancy right under my nose, even if it is skimmed. Watery milk is better than no milk. Researched Occupy Wall Street. I am the 99 percent.

I trudged round to my equally skint girlfriend’s house and we shared an Asda SmartPrice pizza. When I came home I cancelled my Gym membership. I only went three times and with all the food and alcohol I haven’t been consuming this week I’ll probably loose more weight then I ever would during my embarrassing attempts at working out anyway.

Currently sitting in my bed with my hat, two jumpers and gloves on marvelling at the fact I can actually see my breath in my room. Cannot turn the heating on. It’s hard typing with gloves on.

Thursday:

Woke up, stole my housemate’s milk in order to make a cup of tea. He decided to come in right as I had the bottle in my hand. Hid it in the oven until he left, I don’t think he saw me. I am not good with confrontation and I refuse to be known in the house as The One That Nicks Everyone’s Stuff, even though I am. Pride is leaking from me like water through the hole in the ceiling of the bathroom.

Went and researched Jobseekers Allowance. Wept internally.

Friday:

Woke up, stole my housemate’s milk in order to make a cup of tea. Later on I received a call from my frail pensioner grandmother who was enquiring as to whether or not I had enough money to survive on in New York. Gratefully accepted £100 NY food fund from frail, pensioner grandparent. Yes, I am a terrible person, but I’m family right? Right?!

Mentally went through my People I Need To Get Christmas Presents For list in my head and crossed off the people that I don’t *really* like. You can call me Scrooge.

Saturday:

I bit the bullet today and assertively informed my dad that he would HAVE to lend me some money for New York or I would simply die. He begrudgingly agreed and therefore I am feeling better today about the whole financial situation. Concentrating on being excited about the trip is much more fun!

Scored some more free dinner and realised that all of the silly little things that I would have bought throughout the course of this week really are unnecessary.  Vowed to genuinely pay more attention to my spending habits and not to waste so much money on silly things that don’t matter and to concentrate more on the things that do.

Sunday:

Woke up, stole my housemate’s milk in order to make a cup of tea. Received £70 phone bill and immediately cancelled the direct debit. Will I really miss the ability to read emails from Look Magazine on my BlackBerry as soon as they come in? The answer is most probably no.

I wish I could say that at the end of the week my finances were sorted and I could go out clubbing again and have a good old time, but things don’t work that way in reality, so my Week Without is actually a Month Without and I am counting down the days until my loan comes in on January 6th with baited breath.

I’ll let you know if I survive the month!

He played over 300 gigs in 2009 alone, built up a fanbase of gushing girls completely from scratch and has since collected a solid legion of admirers.

So what is the appeal? Whilst I am sure that this affable looking ginger bloke hailing from Suffolk is a lovely chap, Plus, for all its simple charm, falls flat. The marketing of the album and indeed the sales figures suggests that we’d be in for 47:57 minutes of indie kid chirpy bliss, whilst the end result is more a collection of the same three chords rehashed ten times in arrangements so similar it’s as if he’s daring you to comment and some lyrics so amateur I caught myself singing along and embarrassed myself.

It seems that despite his vehement rejection of the mainstream (Sheeran self released his first two albums and got his big break playing open mic nights until he was spotted by Jamie Foxx) he has managed to churn out some painfully generic pop fluff.

Twinning a guitar with caramel metrosexual vocals, you may liken Sheeran to Damien Rice, or perhaps a nod to indie darling Ben Gibbard who penned the cult hit I Will Follow You Into The Dark. But where Gibbard and Rice manage to untangle the mess of feelings that being in love leaves you with in such crystal clear simple prose it’s almost smug, (No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white/Just our hands clasped so tight/Waiting for the hint of a spark – I Will Follow You Into The Dark) Ed Sheeran opts for a different approach and seduces his lady by letting her know that he “knows you likes Shrek/ because we watched it 12 times.”

I can’t help but feel that if I had a boyfriend who name dropped a green cartoon ogre in a love song dedicated to me I would have to call it quits.

Similarly, in U.N.I, a woebegone tale about the perils Pound a Pint at the SU and miles between your significant other leaves you facing, the main hook is ‘You ‘n’ I ended over U.N.I,’ which is, as far as puns go, average to poor at best.

There are a few gems within the album; if you manage to stay awake until the end, Give Me Love is a lovely little track perfectly encapsulating that panicked, alcohol fuelled stupor you feel when you’re not entirely sure if the most recent asshole you’ve set your sights on is willing to stick around or not and if they don’t, then you probably will die.

If the album had closed on these wild proclamations of ‘Love me!’ then perhaps the feeling of mild exhilaration would have lingered and salvaged the general overtone of the album, but instead it rolls into a cover of traditional Irish folk song The Parting Glass and as such the feelings are dashed and you are left feeling slightly confused, as if there is somewhere else you’re supposed to be but you haven’t quite got there yet, which is according to this collection of songs, much like Ed Sheeran.

I am sitting across the room from Pete Wilson, who from first impressions seems an amicable bloke, giving off a calm, relaxed vibe which juxtaposes with his description of his band, Icebreaker.

Icebreaker boasts an 11 member ensemble and an eclectic range of instruments. This includes no less than three saxophones, two keyboards, two flutes, an electric violin, a guitar, an electric cello and of course a bass which Pete plays. The band was formed in May 1989 and have been touring periodically ever since.

“The most famous venue we have played is probably the Carnegie Hall in New York,” muses Pete. “We’ve played loads of places, we played at Bestival last year but generally speaking our music is too weird for festivals. It offends most people in the crowds… I think it scares people on drugs.”

Pete started playing bass as a teen. “I wanted to join a band, as all teenage boys do. My friend got a guitar so I got a bass. We formed a progressive rock band called Wenlock Edge, which is the title of a poem by A E Housman. I don’t know why we called it that; I suppose it was just because we were just poncey grammar school boys.”

However it seems that this poncey grammar school band cemented Pete’s future as a musician. “I remember our first gig well; we rehearsed and rehearsed for two weeks, so we were really tight and really good. I remember the stage had a curtain, and when the curtain came up and the audience went wild it was the biggest high I’ve ever felt. I’d never felt anything like that before, it was unbelievable.

“Then our music teacher said it was the best thing they’d ever heard at school. That meant quite a lot.”

Pete has since played bass for a number of top musicians, the most famous being Paul McCartney, whom he stressed was “an extremely nice guy. Perversely so.” Other musicians he has played for include Rufus Wainwright and Sophie Ellis Bexter. “I never met her though, except once when I bumped into her in Sainsbury’s. I told her I was playing bass for her album but she didn’t seem impressed.”

Despite Sophie Ellis Bexter’s ambivalence towards Pete and his talents, Icebreaker does have some other famous fans. “Chris Martin came to see us, and once David Bowie said some very nice things about us in Q Magazine.”

This humble quietness paired with the fact that his favourite band is slow rock trio Low is again a seeming contrast to what you would expect, what with the Wikipedia page for Icebreaker emphasising that this music is “seriously loud.”

When questioned as to whether or not he misses being a full time musician, he pauses thoughtfully before admitting “I miss it some days. But I can teach now as well as do gigs. It means I can take the good shows and not the shit ones – the teaching is a security. Being a freelance musician is scary as hell,” before finishing off with a sentence that makes perfect sense.

“You need a balance. Balance is good. It’s all about the balance.”