My Teenage Diary

Comedian Sara Pascoe reads from her diaries, in which she works at the Millennium Dome, gets a new boyfriend and starts university.

At one point in this episode, Sara talks about being so poor that she lived exclusively on a diet of cupasoups and was considering getting a job as a stripper. She was planning on using the money from the stripping to pay for a boob job, so that she could then get more work as a stripper. Rufus is amazed at this, considering Sara is now a feminist comedian.

Sara: I was going for auditions to be a stripper. I had this idea that if I got a job as a stripper, I would get a boob job with the money and then earn more money as a stripper!

Rufus: This is pretty staggering stuff...because you're you, you're Sara Pascoe.

Sara: I know...this is the thing about having morals and beliefs, they are a luxury. When you're really, really skint, it's like a prison when you have no money. At this point, my budget...I was working in a pub. My food budget was £10 a week. There was a Tesco where value bread would get reduced to 10 pence. And I would freeze it so it was always fine, and I would have tomato cup a soups and that's what I ate. Being poor is so horrible. And so something like 'oh, you could earn £300 a week just talking to gentlemen and having drinks' is like 'oh my god, that would be life changing'.

And Sara read out a diary extract in which she talked about moving into a new house in her second year at university:

"Moved into new house, found out there is no bath. Arghhhhh! Not having a bath. Don't think I'll wash any more."

Sara: I didn't (wash) for a year, unless I was somewhere else. I have a fear of water being dropped on my head so I don't have showers. So I didn't, I had sink washes for a year. And I had a boyfriend! I am disgusting. I won't have a bath for weeks and weeks and weeks, I just won't. I just don't want to get wet.