"The middle ground is getting absolutely murdered"

So said Mike Ashley, this time in the financial pages. He's actually saying something, inadvertently perhaps, that tells us a lot about the way things are going now. There are rich people, a small number but they are comparatively richer than at any time in living memory. They are the ones who "want the latest products". The rest of us are after "extreme value". And the middle ground is, indeed being murdered. That was most of us, by the way: the employed working class, all but the wealthiest of the middle class.

Nobody could have predicted just how fucking weird things would turn out in the way we live. We 60s kids grew up with the notion that inequalities were gradually eroding. Many of us wanted revolution, wanted it now, but there was always the underlying hope that things were evolving nicely anyway: the poor were getting better-off, the rich more like us, less outrageously rich.

Selfishness and greed became acceptable, even praiseworthy in the 80s. And now, income is horribly polarised. But the fucking weird bit is, celebrity culture means that the the poor watch the rich's antics with salivating envy, thinking only: I Want to Be One of Them. And hardly ever: This Situation is Shit, Let's Change It.

Comments

  1. MichaelSat Jul 12, 06:12:00 pm BST

    Shopping 1 Politics 0. Even in the midst of a credit crunch, people are still opening new shops promising no credit checks if you agree to pay 30% more for things you don't need just because they're big, shiny and newer than the neighbours have got.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMon Jul 14, 04:12:00 am BST

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there...
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more

How many pallets can you fit in the back of a Fiat 500?

Image
At least 1. Maybe I could have got 3 altogether, at a pinch. Also 200+ gorse seeds, which have begun to look in danger of damping off, so I'm thinking they'll be better off at the allotment in the fresh air. I'm worried about slugs, snails and woodpigeons, though, so I put them in a wheelbarrow, covered with a net. Also this morning, planted a row of beetroot detroit.
Read more