Time Minus Money Equals Boredom

It's a sad moment when you realise that your parents have a much better social life than you. Unfortunately, this mortifying realisation struck me only a few days ago as I stood in a bar with my mum and dad, watching a band that they had taken me along to out of pity.

There are many things I could blame for my current social stagnation. The economy is an easy one to start with. Everyone else seems to be blaming everything on the economic downturn, credit crunch, double-dipped recession or whatever they're calling it nowadays, so I feel perfectly at liberty to do so too. Even cafes and sandwich bars blamed it for having to sell cheap food for a couple of years. A damaged economy means less jobs which directly creates an enormous lack of personal finances which then means I have zero money to spend on filling up the light-years of time I suddenly find myself with.

I was thinking about that equation - the 'time equals money' one - in the shower the other day and I decided that the person who made it up didn't really factor in all the possibilities. What if you have no money and lots of time that you can't turn into money because of an impaired economy? It could read 'time minus money equals boredom' or something along those lines. But the people with money AND time - lottery winners and such other lucky people - have got it made: time plus money equals endless possibilities. But inevitably, the first equation keeps butting back in and essentially every normal person needs the time to make the money and then have no time to make the most of it...

Anyway, I'm veering off the track here - the other reason that I'm stuck at home most evenings playing scrabble and working my way through the Friends box-set is the sheer expense of living in London. A reasonably small round of drinks can easily mount up to £50 here, they charge you to use public toilets - particularly at the major train stations when you're desperate to go after a 5 hour journey and the Wetherspoon's menu adds an average of £2.00 per item on to what they charge elsewhere in the country. I can't afford clubbing, I can't afford restaurants, I can hardly afford to keep up with the travel costs, even with every Londoner's essential accessory, the Oyster Card.

Although I’m very fond of my shiny blue gate-opener, I’m also slightly wary of it. The marketing was great when the Oyster first came out - everyone remembers that advert with the over-excited guy whizzing around London and using the word 'oyster' as much as possible. The high-tech beeping sound they make also caused a brief thrill on first use. But price-wise they eat up your money like acid on metal. If you travel enough in a day, it stops charging you: there's a cut-off point of £5 or something which sounds very reasonable for a full 24 hours of unlimited tube and bus rides. But the trick is that there are two cut-off points- one for peak time and one for off-peak time. The peak price is slightly more extortionate - around £7.50. This would all be very good and well but on some days I am convinced that the card starts afresh with the new time slot, so I end up never reaching my cut-off point and spending over a tenner.

So to sum up: economic crisis plus unbearable expense of London (and oyster cards) equals social stasis inferior to parents. That evening at the pub with the parentals also gave me an idea. I was seized with the anger and injustice of the fact that people like me – living in one of the liveliest cities in the world - just don't have the cash to enjoy the place. But then it occurred to me that this particular gig was free entry. My dad even told me that the band - the Big Girls Blues Band they were called (http://www.thebiggirlsbluesband.co.uk) - charged £10 at some other venues. The Kings Head - a lively half pub half theatre on Upper Street - actually have free gigs every week.

So then I thought that maybe if I explored a bit and went on some adventures I could find lots of free things to do in London and tell fellow ostracised recluses about them. My quest is to go forth into the metropolis, armed only with my fully credited Oyster Card and see how well I fare without spending a penny.

Wish me luck!