You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2008.
Freaky economics. Go watch.
One quote from the post-war restructuring of the US economy and the need for a new way of consuming:
Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.
Victor Lebow 1955
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Now playing: Sister Rosetta Tharpe – What Is the Soul of Man?
via FoxyTunes
My boss is senior in every way. We were travelling together and before you could say ‘senior citizen concession please’ she’d nipped ahead and bagged us two seats on a packed train from Euston. Anyone making the mistake of giving way with an ‘Age before beauty’ crack was countered with a swift and very sweet ‘Pearls before swine’ before she eased herself into the gap.
She insisted on paying for the coffees on the return trip as I’d paid on the way up, and in a sort of reverse hustle she swopped my fiver for her tenner before sending me meekly towards the onboard shop, 18 carriages away. When I saw the length of the queue, I returned sans coffee and without a comedy outsized cookie – the type that you only ever see for sale in an onboard shop on an English train.
My boss and wily senior partner refused to take back the £10 she’d reverse scammed on me insisting my need was greater and I should spend it on pop for the children. (Me neither.) Foolishly determined not to be in her debt I waited for the inevitable nap – although I succumbed before she did. When she eventually closed her eyes – around Crewe – I moved into position. My clammy hand poised, I prepared to palm the £10 into her open handbag. Convinced she was well away, I made my move and pushed the tenner into the black hole that is an older woman’s handbag. My wrist was seized in a tight grip – a hold learned in a Stasi training camp – and she eyed me intently. We had a moment. I blinked first and sheepishly withdrew my hand with the £10. She warned me not to do try anything like it again.
No chance. I must be the only person slapped for trying to give money to their boss rather than taking it off them.
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Now playing: Charlotte Eksteen – Langsam
via FoxyTunes
Why did the Marxist only drink herbal tea?
Because all proper tea is theft.
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Now playing: Ex Cathedra – Agnus Dei
via FoxyTunes
Big cheer to JB
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Now playing: Nick Drake – Northern Sky
via FoxyTunes
The Writers Room piece in the Saturday Guardian has pictures of famous and famousish writers’ rooms with an explanation of why they put that Afghan rug just so, or have a Mozambique desert scene to ponder on, or whether they sit side-on, back to, or facing a window or wall. The seduction of the piece is that you might think if I did that, I too would be writerly, prize winning and featuring in a Guardian feature.
I have a bit of desk envy when it comes to Al Gore’s work space:
TDS has got our household on a carbonfast for Lent. This means I’m honour bound to simplify and not mug the planet further so will be unable to add the plasma tv and three cinema display screens to the disorder and chaos of our house which looks not unlike a Turner Prize installation.
My consolation:
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. A.A. Milne
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Now playing: The Kooks – She Moves In Her Own Way
via FoxyTunes
