July 29, 2004
Living On Borrowed Time
It doesn't surprise me that debt is becoming a big problem in the UK right now. The fact is, there are two main culprits, who will also be the two main losers.
First are consumers themselves. Since the mid 90s we have been on a spending binge. Ignoring for now why we need to buy so much in the first place, there is the fact that it is unsustainable. Sooner or later we won't be able to afford the debts we need to pay off and have a decent standard of living at the same time. By 2009, it could well lead to a new wave of poverty sweeping the country - one caused not by unemployment but by the fact that most net income will be spent on repayments, with very little left to feed one's children or pay for light and water.
But everyone is so short-termist in their views now. It's like we don't want to face the future and would rather have it all now - in the form of costly consumer goods and over-priced houses. It reminds me of how people in WW2 used to act. They'd booze, smoke and have sex like there was no tomorrow. They of course had a reason for this - one single German bomb could wipe them, their families and most of their street out in a second.
Our reason for this kamikaze hedonism is not so certain though. Do we all subconsciously feel some great doom is upon us? The irony is, with the huge debts we have run up, that great misfortune seems more likely than ever. We're all on a course to economic self-murder.
But so are the credit companies. They've been on a binge of their own in the last decade - making as much money as they can out of the poor. While mortgage lenders are making a mint out of the credulous middle classes, so the loan companies have been making a killing via the poor-and-silly.
I have first hand experience of this. When I lived in Langley I lived between two addresses. One was my Father's house in a pleasant suburban area. The other was in my Mother's flat, right next to the infamous Langley Tower Blocks. (i.e. Chav/pauper central.) The credit companies didn't realise this though. As they saw it there were two people in Langley with the same name – one who was nice and middle class and so unlikely to borrow much and another who was a feckless prole who they could loan money to and then screw some serious interest out of. So it was that my mother’s mail was full of letters begging me to take out any number of credit cards, car crefit and loans at low prices (but plenty of small print). These companies knew I was living in a poor area so thought I would be gullible enough to be suckered. I wasn’t of course, but I did seriosuly think about jamming their junk mail down their greedy throats.
Things got stranger still when I got a flat of my own for a while. I was at the Slough branch of my bank and trying to get proof of my accounts so I could apply for housing benefit. (As an aside, never do this in Slough. Slough Borough Council is slow, slovenly, needlessly bureaucratic and mean spirited. Par of the course for what was then a Labour council, suffice to say.) But when I said the magic words ‘housing benefit’, the bank worker I was speaking to immediately changed her tone. She became more condescending, less rational, more keen and falsely friendly. She also stopped calling me sir. “Oh, you’re applying for housing benefit are you? WOULD YOU LIKE A CREDIT CARD?” Quite apart from the fact that my bank thought I was spendthrift white trash just because I was trying to get benefits was bad enough. But the fact that they were actively trying to saddle a person in such a position with debt was pretty disgusting. And I’m not the only one this has happened to – there are a lot of other benefit claimants I know who have had similar experiences. I politely refused the bank’s offer of course. I’ve got enough debt as it stands, in the form of student loans, and my monthly repayments are pretty peppercorn, compared to what most people are paying out these days – and it can only get worse.
The thing is, these banks and lenders must have taken leave of their senses. Any fool can tell you that the biggest risk you can take is to lend money to people who are unlikely to pay it back or default on their payments. And yet on every daytime TV ad break you will be bombarded with any number of promos for cheap loans and spend-now-pay-later schemes that are too good to be true. Read any down-market magazine and you’ll get whole page adverts dedicated to these ‘AMAZING OFFERS’ too. They’re even on the Internet, and prop up many a .com or .co.uk’s balance sheet in terms of ad revenue. This shows that lenders don’t seem to care that and that they are targeting the demographics most likely to want a loan in the first place – without thinking about it much.
I suppose the lenders have a business plan that makes sense to them. Lend plebs lots of money and then scare them with CCJs if they don’t then cough up. Ruthless yes, but effective at least in the short term, hence why the companies keep on doing it like this. But sooner or later, the sheer number of people who default on their loans will mount up. What then? What if all the CCJs in the world can’t get all the money back? A lot of banks and lenders could go to the wall and debtor bankruptcies will go through the roof, adding further strain to the economy and society.
But the real problem here is greed. The debtors are greedy as they want it all now whether they can afford it today, in five years’ time or not at all. The lenders are greedy too, as they will do anything to make money – including loaning it out to the vulnerable and the foolish. Both will come to a bad end soon. An economy based on credit and speculation won’t survive. I’d feel sorry for them if it weren’t self-inflicted. The only question is, how much damage they’ll do to the rest of us when they eventually go down.
First are consumers themselves. Since the mid 90s we have been on a spending binge. Ignoring for now why we need to buy so much in the first place, there is the fact that it is unsustainable. Sooner or later we won't be able to afford the debts we need to pay off and have a decent standard of living at the same time. By 2009, it could well lead to a new wave of poverty sweeping the country - one caused not by unemployment but by the fact that most net income will be spent on repayments, with very little left to feed one's children or pay for light and water.
But everyone is so short-termist in their views now. It's like we don't want to face the future and would rather have it all now - in the form of costly consumer goods and over-priced houses. It reminds me of how people in WW2 used to act. They'd booze, smoke and have sex like there was no tomorrow. They of course had a reason for this - one single German bomb could wipe them, their families and most of their street out in a second.
Our reason for this kamikaze hedonism is not so certain though. Do we all subconsciously feel some great doom is upon us? The irony is, with the huge debts we have run up, that great misfortune seems more likely than ever. We're all on a course to economic self-murder.
But so are the credit companies. They've been on a binge of their own in the last decade - making as much money as they can out of the poor. While mortgage lenders are making a mint out of the credulous middle classes, so the loan companies have been making a killing via the poor-and-silly.
I have first hand experience of this. When I lived in Langley I lived between two addresses. One was my Father's house in a pleasant suburban area. The other was in my Mother's flat, right next to the infamous Langley Tower Blocks. (i.e. Chav/pauper central.) The credit companies didn't realise this though. As they saw it there were two people in Langley with the same name – one who was nice and middle class and so unlikely to borrow much and another who was a feckless prole who they could loan money to and then screw some serious interest out of. So it was that my mother’s mail was full of letters begging me to take out any number of credit cards, car crefit and loans at low prices (but plenty of small print). These companies knew I was living in a poor area so thought I would be gullible enough to be suckered. I wasn’t of course, but I did seriosuly think about jamming their junk mail down their greedy throats.
Things got stranger still when I got a flat of my own for a while. I was at the Slough branch of my bank and trying to get proof of my accounts so I could apply for housing benefit. (As an aside, never do this in Slough. Slough Borough Council is slow, slovenly, needlessly bureaucratic and mean spirited. Par of the course for what was then a Labour council, suffice to say.) But when I said the magic words ‘housing benefit’, the bank worker I was speaking to immediately changed her tone. She became more condescending, less rational, more keen and falsely friendly. She also stopped calling me sir. “Oh, you’re applying for housing benefit are you? WOULD YOU LIKE A CREDIT CARD?” Quite apart from the fact that my bank thought I was spendthrift white trash just because I was trying to get benefits was bad enough. But the fact that they were actively trying to saddle a person in such a position with debt was pretty disgusting. And I’m not the only one this has happened to – there are a lot of other benefit claimants I know who have had similar experiences. I politely refused the bank’s offer of course. I’ve got enough debt as it stands, in the form of student loans, and my monthly repayments are pretty peppercorn, compared to what most people are paying out these days – and it can only get worse.
The thing is, these banks and lenders must have taken leave of their senses. Any fool can tell you that the biggest risk you can take is to lend money to people who are unlikely to pay it back or default on their payments. And yet on every daytime TV ad break you will be bombarded with any number of promos for cheap loans and spend-now-pay-later schemes that are too good to be true. Read any down-market magazine and you’ll get whole page adverts dedicated to these ‘AMAZING OFFERS’ too. They’re even on the Internet, and prop up many a .com or .co.uk’s balance sheet in terms of ad revenue. This shows that lenders don’t seem to care that and that they are targeting the demographics most likely to want a loan in the first place – without thinking about it much.
I suppose the lenders have a business plan that makes sense to them. Lend plebs lots of money and then scare them with CCJs if they don’t then cough up. Ruthless yes, but effective at least in the short term, hence why the companies keep on doing it like this. But sooner or later, the sheer number of people who default on their loans will mount up. What then? What if all the CCJs in the world can’t get all the money back? A lot of banks and lenders could go to the wall and debtor bankruptcies will go through the roof, adding further strain to the economy and society.
But the real problem here is greed. The debtors are greedy as they want it all now whether they can afford it today, in five years’ time or not at all. The lenders are greedy too, as they will do anything to make money – including loaning it out to the vulnerable and the foolish. Both will come to a bad end soon. An economy based on credit and speculation won’t survive. I’d feel sorry for them if it weren’t self-inflicted. The only question is, how much damage they’ll do to the rest of us when they eventually go down.
July 28, 2004
Beer And Oafing
I have decided something. Beer is a rip-off. Or at least, it is in pubs. On Monday I had to pay £2.70 for a pint of Stella Artois in a certain Winchester bar that shall remain nameless. But as I handed the barman my money, I remembered that I could have got a much better deal elsewhere. For 40p more I could get four cans of generic premium lager from Tesco’s. It tastes about the same and gets you pissed just as well. More to the point, that’s four pints for the price of one. (Or 78p a go.) At my local Iceland, you can buy eight cans of Orangeboom for £5.00. That’s eight pints of premium lager for 63p each!
But pubs are not about drinking anyway. They’re about turning up, pretending to be enjoying oneself, talking at the top of your voice (in order to shout over everyone else) and inhaling secondary fag smoke. (My partner is going to hit me for that.) It is a social obligation. If you don’t turn up at a pub with your friends, you’re thought of as a recluse or an outcast. If you’re not ‘a good laugh’ then you’re more likely to get the cold shoulder than if you’re a drunken twat. And pubs are awful, hot, claustrophobic places. The air is choked with the filthy habits of selfish smokers (my partner is going to hit me for that) and you have to put up with drunken oafs who spill beer on your shoes and barge into you on the stairs. All in all, pubs are a rip-off. The beer costs a fortune, you’re made to feel miserable and you are crammed in like sardines with other punters who have been hoodwinked into thinking they’ll be social lepers if they don’t join in too.
Maybe that’s why there’s so much violence in town centres on a Saturday night? Never mind the booze or the UK drinking culture. It’s the fact that people are pressurised into drinking at claustrophobic boozers cursed with rip-off prices and the annoying ways of the other punters. Combine that with the fact that, even in winter, most pubs are far too hot – thanks to all the body heat – and it’s no wonder they are such powder kegs. You try spending a night in a pub you wouldn’t rationally go to, jammed in with every arsehole you can imagine, paying three quid for a pint of beer and gasping for breath while drenched in sweat. See if you don’t then want to be sick on the streets at closing time and seriously wish to bottle the nearest person who annoys you. It’s even worse in night-clubs – they’re more hot, more expensive, more crowded, more socially demanding and physically tiring. And they charge you for the privilege of entry! Mix well with young people and you get an effect much like Nitro Glycerine. It’s not that we’re having too much fun in pubs. It’s just that we get none at all – in fact, they’re more like an ordeal than anything else, and a waste of good money too.
Unlike kebabs.
But pubs are not about drinking anyway. They’re about turning up, pretending to be enjoying oneself, talking at the top of your voice (in order to shout over everyone else) and inhaling secondary fag smoke. (My partner is going to hit me for that.) It is a social obligation. If you don’t turn up at a pub with your friends, you’re thought of as a recluse or an outcast. If you’re not ‘a good laugh’ then you’re more likely to get the cold shoulder than if you’re a drunken twat. And pubs are awful, hot, claustrophobic places. The air is choked with the filthy habits of selfish smokers (my partner is going to hit me for that) and you have to put up with drunken oafs who spill beer on your shoes and barge into you on the stairs. All in all, pubs are a rip-off. The beer costs a fortune, you’re made to feel miserable and you are crammed in like sardines with other punters who have been hoodwinked into thinking they’ll be social lepers if they don’t join in too.
Maybe that’s why there’s so much violence in town centres on a Saturday night? Never mind the booze or the UK drinking culture. It’s the fact that people are pressurised into drinking at claustrophobic boozers cursed with rip-off prices and the annoying ways of the other punters. Combine that with the fact that, even in winter, most pubs are far too hot – thanks to all the body heat – and it’s no wonder they are such powder kegs. You try spending a night in a pub you wouldn’t rationally go to, jammed in with every arsehole you can imagine, paying three quid for a pint of beer and gasping for breath while drenched in sweat. See if you don’t then want to be sick on the streets at closing time and seriously wish to bottle the nearest person who annoys you. It’s even worse in night-clubs – they’re more hot, more expensive, more crowded, more socially demanding and physically tiring. And they charge you for the privilege of entry! Mix well with young people and you get an effect much like Nitro Glycerine. It’s not that we’re having too much fun in pubs. It’s just that we get none at all – in fact, they’re more like an ordeal than anything else, and a waste of good money too.
Unlike kebabs.
July 19, 2004
Paul Foot RIP
Paul Foot is dead.
He was the reason I wanted to become a journalist. He was one of the few people in this country that had ideals and clung to them. He was always ready to fight on the side of those with no one else at their side bring to the public stories that had been dusted under the carpet. And he never stopped working hard, despite his heart scare in 1999, despite the failures of his political aspirations. He was one of the few men in this country who could truly be described as Good.
He was also the last gasp of UK Journalism as anything other than either a gutter bully boy protection racket or a clique of middle class Oxbridge grads, drunk on their own smug egos and Chianti. With him gone, there's just more room for them to breathe. Hurrah.
I guess it's the death knell of my dreams to be a journalist too. Or at least one of the full-on variety. With Paul Foot gone, all the positive aspects seem gone. All that's left is the usual bitter, warped bleakness that one gets everywhere else in the UK. But at least he showed us all how it could have been.
July 10, 2004
Salad Daze
I saw two male students in Tesco while I was shopping there yesterday afternoon. It was plain that they lived in the same house as they were out on a joint shopping trip, of the kind that housemates are so keen on. (Y'know, where they buy the communal house baked beans stockpile, the house family sized box of washing powder, the house condom...)
They were also perfect clones of one another. Both were of average height and of average build. They were both in the same kind of clothes too - badly ironed t-shirts worn outside mid-market jeans with Nike trainers for footwear. They even had the same short-back-and-sides and faux-informal middle class accents. The thing is, there's 1000s more of these doppelgangers at every University you can think of. It’s quite scary.
And what then were these young men, these young avatars of academia doing in Tescos? Arguing about sugar.
"You're not buying it."
"Yes I am!"
"No you're not."
"It's my money..!"
"So? I'll have to use it too!"
"That's not the point!"
"What is?"
"I want granulated sugar!"
"You're not getting it!"
"But I hate castor sugar!"
"Well, I'll still lick the spoon after I use it."
"Whatever..."
The row tailed off. I hope it didn't lead to a divorce.
They were also perfect clones of one another. Both were of average height and of average build. They were both in the same kind of clothes too - badly ironed t-shirts worn outside mid-market jeans with Nike trainers for footwear. They even had the same short-back-and-sides and faux-informal middle class accents. The thing is, there's 1000s more of these doppelgangers at every University you can think of. It’s quite scary.
And what then were these young men, these young avatars of academia doing in Tescos? Arguing about sugar.
"You're not buying it."
"Yes I am!"
"No you're not."
"It's my money..!"
"So? I'll have to use it too!"
"That's not the point!"
"What is?"
"I want granulated sugar!"
"You're not getting it!"
"But I hate castor sugar!"
"Well, I'll still lick the spoon after I use it."
"Whatever..."
The row tailed off. I hope it didn't lead to a divorce.
Bastard Tosser Magpies
I hate Magpies. Yes, I believe they bring bad luck, doom, famine and cock rot. Yes, I do freak out whenever I see one on its own, staring at me with absinthe eyes. And yes, I think those who blast the Newcastle-supporting feathery wankers with napalm should be protected BY LAW.
(NOTE: I don't have a problem with NFU supporters per se. Unless they're NFU-supporting Magpies, that is.)
It's not just the pestilential, sticky mist of bad karma they drag along in their wake. No, it's the fact that they seem to get a kick out of fucking your vibes up. Every time I look out of the window, they seem to sense it and fly into my view. For a laugh. And have you seen the way they bounce about in such a pompous way? That and how the little arse-wraiths strut about in a stiff, pert fashion seems to suggest to me that the twats know the havoc they cause, so they go about looking dreadfully smug as a result. Hate! Hate!
The thing is, I think they have it in for me in particular. Everywhere I go, I see Magpies. It's as if a small murder of Magpies is following me across the country. I swear the bastards have tracked me all the way to Scotland, but it's hard to tell as they all look the same. Or what if there's a UK-wide Magpie Mafia? Of the kind linked by Telepathy that allows local murders to stay in contact with the greater Magpie gestalt, that is. Perhaps this helps them maintain their sustained campaigns of terror simply by delegating it to whatever local posse of Magpies are closest to the local victim? The implications are, of course, HUGE.
It's time to make a stand. One of these days, I'm going to take my revenge. With flame and sword I shall stalk the streets, purging the Magpie and its Corvid hi-jinks. Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year: I shall cleanse the land of their evil. Crevice by crevice. Nook by nook.
And soon, little children will be able to play in the open, safe in the knowledge that a Magpie will not suddenly turn up before one of them, setting off a bizarrely ironic chain of events that end with the child falling over and grazing its knee. Ah.
...
Of course I haven't had sex for ages! What's that got to do with it?
(NOTE: I don't have a problem with NFU supporters per se. Unless they're NFU-supporting Magpies, that is.)
It's not just the pestilential, sticky mist of bad karma they drag along in their wake. No, it's the fact that they seem to get a kick out of fucking your vibes up. Every time I look out of the window, they seem to sense it and fly into my view. For a laugh. And have you seen the way they bounce about in such a pompous way? That and how the little arse-wraiths strut about in a stiff, pert fashion seems to suggest to me that the twats know the havoc they cause, so they go about looking dreadfully smug as a result. Hate! Hate!
The thing is, I think they have it in for me in particular. Everywhere I go, I see Magpies. It's as if a small murder of Magpies is following me across the country. I swear the bastards have tracked me all the way to Scotland, but it's hard to tell as they all look the same. Or what if there's a UK-wide Magpie Mafia? Of the kind linked by Telepathy that allows local murders to stay in contact with the greater Magpie gestalt, that is. Perhaps this helps them maintain their sustained campaigns of terror simply by delegating it to whatever local posse of Magpies are closest to the local victim? The implications are, of course, HUGE.
It's time to make a stand. One of these days, I'm going to take my revenge. With flame and sword I shall stalk the streets, purging the Magpie and its Corvid hi-jinks. Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year: I shall cleanse the land of their evil. Crevice by crevice. Nook by nook.
And soon, little children will be able to play in the open, safe in the knowledge that a Magpie will not suddenly turn up before one of them, setting off a bizarrely ironic chain of events that end with the child falling over and grazing its knee. Ah.
...
Of course I haven't had sex for ages! What's that got to do with it?
