There's a line, and I've crossed it - even though I was meant to be below it.

Today i started the Live Below the Line challenge. It's not going so well. It started with the best of intentions. I had some squidgyfied (meaning slightly past its best) spinach, some value rice, and a few bunches of herbs to get me through the first day, with some chewy sweets thrown into my work backpack for good measure in case I got a sugar low and couldn't concentrate on my world-saving work.

But then Jeannette brought chocolate in. And Damien had lots of leftover roast meat that was going to go to waste...so instead of sticking to the challenge which I'd harked on about for weeks, I went for utilitariansim. Is me proving to myself and my peers that I can scrimp and suffer and save and starve for five days really worth letting purchased and processed food go to waste? Is that really what awareness-raising is about ? Or is it more sensitive and sensible to use up all the shockingly shoddy foods we produce and sell for extortiante profits on this side of the economic divide in order to prevent additional wastage ? And also to prevent me from spending what little money I earn on even more nutrition-free crap.

There's a further argument (oh yes, this can get worse) : I have good friends. I know decent people. I frequent sociable people. Thereby, food and sociability go hand in sticky hand. To top off the plying of cooked and packaged goods thrown at me during the deskjob, upon returning home to my gourmet flatshare, I was flipped at by some fresh pancakes, which were justified solely by the explanation 'yes but you didn't buy them, I'm giving them to you' (also accompanied by some faux-champagen which Lucinda had left for us after a flying visit to Paris). It's a fair excuse and one which, frankly, if I were to turn my nose up at, would make me think I had even less heart than those people who forget that there are starving suffering (for real) people on the other side of the world/channel/road.