Labels

A friend of mine, or perhaps I should say an acquaintance from my sphere of activity, persists in calling me ‘earth mother’, and it annoys me.

I didn’t really understand why, and hadn’t been able to work it out, until I critiqued a novel in one of my FM crit groups. In it, the main character talks about group behaviour in one of the scenes, and how dominance can be established/asserted by labelling others in the group. If the label is apt enough, it will be adopted by other group members and consistently applied to the label-ee, and that effectively both defines and restricts their role within the group, reducing their threat to the supremacy/security of the dominant member(s).

This makes absolute sense to me, and I understand now why I am so reluctant both to make and accept one-word summary judgements about people. Whilst I’m not arrogant enough to think that she perceives me as a threat to her dominance of the group (it’s really not a position I aspire to – I’ve never been nor never wanted to be the ‘queen bee’, but then again I’ve never been part of a ‘court’ and a ‘wannabee’), I can see that my independence from her opinion (i.e. I don’t fall in with her norms, I do what I want and I’ll disagree with all the nodding heads if I think they’re wrong) makes her feel undermined and perhaps even vulnerable – I’m beyond her influence and control, and she’s not used to it and doesn’t like it. Her answer is to define me as ‘earth mother’ – a term that is perjorative (conjuring up an eccentric but probably harmless ditz with some odd views) and segregational (she’s not like us) without being overtly insulting. And by thus categorizing me, she’s conveniently lodged me in a characterising pigeonhole, which means she doesn’t have to think about what I say or do because now I’m fulfilling the role of her choosing and she has the situation under control. I find it intensely annoying, because now the little voice I did have has been removed, and I feel utterly reduced by it. I’m not about to compromise my principles to shatter her/their perception of me, and I can’t avoid it because it’s school related. I feel stuck, and limited by it, and I can’t help but feel that’s her intention (even though it’s probably a subconscious process for her – I don’t think it’s a carefully thought out strategy).

Things like this are the reason I didn’t get the Asperger’s diagnosis for so long. If people didn’t like me/couldn’t accept me without the tag, then why would that perception change with the tag? How does putting a label on it help me in my day to day life? It’s not like a penicillin allergy where you can wear a wrist band, and it’s not an obvious impairment. And because it’s so invisible, how do you bring it up in conversation (especially when conversation is the one thing you can’t do)? Hi, I’ve got Aspergers? Don’t think so . . .  (Incidentally, the trigger to getting my A diagnosis was post-natal depression, when I realised I couldn ‘t develop any coping strategies on my own, like I’d always done before, and needed help). But even now I find it difficult to define the label and how it applies to me. I suffer from Aspergers? Sometimes, but not in the same way you’d suffer from a serious or painful disease – it’s not physically limiting, and it’s not terminal. I have Aspergers? well, I do, but ‘have’ again sounds like an illness, like ‘I have measles’, and I don’t think of it in terms of an illness. Maybe I’m just over-obsessed with language and place too much emphasis on precision of meaning of words (‘cos, gosh, that’s not typical of an A person at all ). In the end, I mostly settle for ‘I am affected by Aspergers’ – which is still not satisfactory, but comes as close to it as I can get at the moment.

But again, it comes down to compartmentalising a person with a quick one-word judgement – and I don’t believe that you can ever summarise someone so quickly and easily without reducing them to merely that fact or characteristic. People are multi-faceted, multi-talented, and although one aspect of their personality or talent or activity or opinion may take prominence, to label them as that and only that is to reduce their capacity to fulfill their potential, and for them to help you to fulfil yours by showing you an aspect of yourself you hadn’t considered before.

An unplanned hiatus

I couldn’t tell you where the last ten days have gone. They have zipped past in a blur of mad working – on my writing, on critting, on some serious textile-ing and in a haze of illness.

On the writing front, I’ve been working on Holly’s course, and have got three absolute barnstormers of ideas on the go, all playing to the stuff that gives me shivers. I am *so* excited about them, I can’t wait to write them. Two are sure-fire short stories, but one of them is expanding into an epic monster, a multi-faceted four-way fight with an ambiguous figure as the fulcrum between the opposing factions – I think, at this stage, it will be my next novel. It feels great, and comes as a huge relief: I haven’t written any fiction since March this year – partly the demands of life, partly a hectic ‘work’ schedule and partly because I’ve been entrenched in edit mode. Everything has been about reviewing, rebuilding and getting some submissions out on the tracks . . . and working crits for the  crit groups I participate in over on FM, a vital piece of brain-training when it comes to re-working my own stories. So although I’ve been feeling productive, I haven’t produced anything new for a while. So it is just fantastic to have ideas zinging in my mind, and to be so excited about writing again. I’ve been missing that feeling.

On the good news, I had an article accepted over at Seven magazine – it is such a thrill to see my writing in a real, proper magazine. It gives me renewed faith in myself and my writing, at a time of year when everything traditionally turns black and I start to give myself some serious schtick for being a failure and a loser. Further up-factors are coming my way, too, because I’ve got a second article placed with them which I have high hopes will be used/published, fingers crossed. I’m hoping that once I get back into the routine after our little half-term holiday next week I’ll start to catch up on some of my drafts and get some more non-fiction out of the door, but with new and improved sticking power because I’ve got something on my c.v. at last!!

I’ve been slogging away trying to get some sample pieces done for my visit down to Otterton Mill, and hopefully a spot in the gallery . . . I’ve made some good progress in pulling together a few bits and pieces, but I’m hung up now on a big piece of embroidery on a woven/patch shopping bag that’s taking time, but is easily one of the best pieces I’ve ever done – I’m really pleased with both design (it’s inspired by a section of a Chintz pattern – I have *the* most gorgeous V&A Chintz pattern book) and execution – I’m playing with stem stitch for some of it, and am really pleased with how it’s coming out. That’s the one thing that I might not get finished in time, which is stressing me out a bit, because I need to finish the embroidery before I can attach the lining . . . eeeeep! Still, there’s time . . .  I just need to not panic!!!!

Progress has not been helped by an evil bug that has gone through the family. It’s like having migraine in a virus form . . . severe headache, nausea, exhaustion, visual disturbances, and now topped off with an irritating sniffle. Rumpus is the only one not to have had it yet . . . poor Minni Babalou hurled all over me and the floor last week just as I was about to head out for parent’s evening up at the school (I think it might have been a conspiracy to stop me leaving!), then I had it the following day (unsurprisingly), then Honey came down with it on Sunday, and now T.O.M has had to be given a lift home from work as he was too sick to cycle. Needless to say, his version is MUCH WORSE than anyone else’s and he is totally incapacitated. BAH! I ought to be better at sympathy, but looking pathetic and martyred and retiring theatrically to my sick-bed wasn’t an option for me so I find it difficult to tolerate in anyone else. I must work on my soft skills . . . .

Anyway, it seems finally to be on its way out of my system, so I’m feeling much more back on top of the workload and starting to relish life again. I am so glad that this illness seems just to be a blip, as I was so down and incapable of anything beyond survival tasks (i.e. urgent and essential business only, no niceties, no frills, no pleasures) that I got worried that I’d been hit on the blindside by the depression. I am so determined not to have it this year, but it worries me that determination may not be sufficient. I went to the doctors a couple of weeks ago to get myself referred back again to the shrink who sorted my Aspergers, but I’ve heard nothing . . . I must follow that up to make sure I get the intervention I need, having turned down the drugs.

In the meantime, onwards and sideways!

Stocks, soups and stored knowledge

We’ve had a fun couple of food days.

We had a roast hoggett (hoggett is a 1-yr-old-sheep) leg last night, so today was leftover-tastic. I had to laugh, though – more at my own assumptions being blasted out of the water than anything else. Rumpus asked where the meat came from, so I told him. He was horrified, and wanted to know how the sheep managed with one of its legs missing.

Ah.

I think he might be a vegetarian now. He wasn’t happy about the sheep being killed so we can eat it, but I’m pretty unsentimental about farm animals. This particular sheep came from the farm we go to every week, we see them in the field, we know they are well treated, and live as contented and whatever as a sheep can be before it’s slaughtered. I don’t buy into the ‘it’s immoral to eat/use animals at all’ argument in any way, though I do think it is immoral to disregard those animal’s welfare needs in the interest of making a quick profit.

Anyway, I digress.

I always buy a big joint, so we have plenty over for in the week. This week there was enough meat over for two meals, so Honey and I split some of it up and she put it through the mincer with onions and some (fresh) herbs – that’ll go in the freezer for another day, and then we made pastry together and made a meat pie for dinner. AND THEN we put the bone into the pan with veg tops and trimmings for stock.

It made me think about when I was young, and the relationship I had with my mother and with food. It was non-existent, pretty much. Food came from the supermarket, even back in the 1970’s, and meals were functional and little more – my mother’s cooking standards were erratic, it’s probably most diplomatic to say – so I have no real memory of learning to cook from her, and most of what I know now is reconstructed from what I remember of my grandmothers’ cooking.

My mother’s mother lived in the country. She had a big, old-fashioned larder, always brim-full of fascinating things – jams, jellies, chutneys, pickled onions – all the harvest of the year stored and good for use all the year through. She had a fridge but I don’t remember her having a freezer until I was in my late teens, and even then she never had much in it. In her dining room, there were always fermentings on the go in huge demijohns under the sideboard, and I remember being fascinated by the slow rise and pop of bubbles through the luscious blood-dark sloe gins and elderberry wine and raspberry cordial she used to brew. When we stayed with her, it was all traditional home-cooked food – nothing flash, nothing fancy, but everything was done well, and she never wasted anything.  And her soups were divine. She always used to make a huge stock from the sunday joint, and it would slowly mature through the week, the base for every other meal, it seemed almost. I miss those soups – so rich, yet so light, ambrosia for the soul, so comforting in winter and refreshing in summer. And because she never made two the same, I don’t have a single recipe.

It was a good way of living, and I loved spending time in her kitchen. I am ashamed how little of it I remember, and wish I could have kept more of this stored knowledge. I think it’s sad, too, that my mother missed out on it all somehow. She maintains that it was the sixties, and she wasn’t going to be a housewife or mother, therefore never learned the ‘trade’ . . . ironically, she ended up being both, just without the skills. (Somehow she muddled through – we all made it).

I feel almost as though I’ve gone full circle, coming back to where my grandmother used to be, sharing the same interests and applying the same techniques and knowledge that she had to my harvests here and now, and I’m hoping that a lot more research will help me unearth and learn a lot more about her cookery and householding skills.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t for a minute want to turn the clocks back to a time when women were effectively chained to the home with little/no other options in life – I think that being able to choose a career in any field I want to, being able to combine a small business with family life, being able to lose myself in fulfilling domestic tasks and childcare is an incredible privilege.

I do regret, however, that I missed out on sharing times like those I have had with Honey with my mother, and I regret too that a lot of the stored knowledge of the women of our family, handed down a long line of mothers and daughters, has been lost to us. I feel like I’ll never recapture any more than a small proportion of it. I hope it’s enough.

A satisfying weekend

I don’t know if it’s global warming, but I’m not complaining. Garden tidy-up is usually done in pouring rain, howling wind and involves plenty of misery and cussing, numb fingers and rain down the back of my neck. To be able to do it in glorious sunshine and a t-shirt is astonishing, and very welcome.

As a result, I’m massively ahead of where I normally am this time of year.

I’ve constructed a cloche of old off-cuts and some plastic sheeting from old packaging for my forcing carrots – it probably gains null points for artistic impression, but will (I hope) get the job done. My Shakespeare shallots are all sprouting nicely, and I’m getting the first shoots through on the Shenshyu onions I put in. I have the merest promise (or maybe it’s a hallucination) of the spring onions starting to pop up. It’ll probably turn out to be grass, but I’m excited by what I see for now! My Spring Hero cabbages are well on their way now, so I’m hoping that now the butterflies are getting fewer, they won’t wreak as much havoc as they did earlier this year. I HATE picking caterpillars off my brassicas . . . little devils had pretty much all my calabrese.

The garden is looking ready for winter. I’ve got a few splashes of scarlet from the pansies and cyclamen, and we’ve still got calendula, fennel and marigolds in full glory, so the colours are magnificent even through everything has started to die back. I’ve left the aquilega heads on for now, but the fennel seeds are safely bagged up – I really don’t need another summer of uprooting self-seeded fennel from all over the garden, but I’m happy for the aquilegas to run riot (for now). I’ve broken up a fern and redistributed it . . . and shifted around the sage, thyme and artemesia to hopefully get a bit more benefit from companion planting next season.

Spaces are ready for the fruit bushes – blackcurrant, redcurrant and raspberry are coming, though I still need to prepare the ground for the apple and pear trees I’ve got coming (yes, it’s a big garden ), there are only three major jobs I’ve still got left to do. The apple tree needs pruning, but it’s early for that yet, and the vines are finally going this year. We inherited a pergola walkway from the previous owners, and they’d planted it with grape vines - a lovely idea in theory, but in practice they’re a nightmare – too many and too big for the space, and the fruit, despite my best efforts and by-the-book pruning and tending, is bitter and good for nothing except our winter starling visit. So all but one are getting ripped out. I’ve got homes for three of them, which is good, I hate to think of just binning them, but one remains a candidate for the bonfire, sadly. Again, I’m going to hang on until all the leaves are off before I launch into that one. That only leaves the side of the house – currently it’s a weedy old gravel patch. The plan is that next year, it’ll be a gorgeous little fragrant patch of meadow . . . but to acheive it, I need to weed the whole thing, scrape off the gravel, make a path through it to the gate, break up the surface and compost/top-soil it, all before I can sow the seeds. I’m just glad it’s not a big bit of land I have to do it on!

Actually, make that 4 big jobs, as I’ve just remembered that I need to re-paint the fences and the garden bench this year. Meh. Should have done it this weekend whilst the sun was shining, but pottering about in the mud is much more fun. Oh well. Next sunny day . . .

Things are getting going indoors as well – my winter herbs are sprouting in their window container, and I’ve sown some natives – achillea, anthriscus and angelica – in starting trays, all to go out this year. The achillea, despite being the most temperamental to germinate, apparently, is already up. I’ve got more prosaic cauliflower on the go as well, so I can get the jump on next season’s planting . . .

It’s all so exciting . . . it’s given me a real buzz, and something to hang on to in what is traditionally a horrible time of year for me. The dreaded depression usually starts to rear its ugly head around October/November to pull me into the biggest black hole by December (Christmas is awful), and although I can feel it stirring, I’m hoping that I’m giving myself enough to look forward to in terms of plans and targets that I can beat it without having to resort to the medical profession . . . p.m.a. and all that, and fingers crossed that I don’t get as physically incapacitated by it as I have done the last couple of years.

The hard physical work in the garden has given me another bonus, as well. I’ve got two really strong story ideas out of it, that just hit me like lightening. One of them scared me so much I got all squeamish and icky about it and had to go have a cup of tea to calm myself down, and the other is just incredibly convoluted and byzantine - I’m not sure it’ll work out as the short story I originally envisaged . . . but I’m not sure I’m ready (even with Nanowrimo looming) to commit to a novel. I’m too deeply involved in other things – editing the Serpent novel, the ‘How to Think Sideways‘ course, making the Jay Lake ’story a week’ write/submit schedule (and of course I have two mad weeks of textile arting to do now!) – to let myself get loaded up with another project. I need to sit tight and keep it back-burner for now . . .

Up, up and away . . . . wheeeeeeeeee

OMG – work!!!!!

I’m in a tizzy . . . and totally thrilled . . .I’ve been asked to do some sample pieces of my textile art for a craft gallery down in Devon (Otterton Mill) . . . one of my customers went in, wearing one of my pieces, and the owners asked where yada yada yada – upshot is, she’s contacted me and I need to get some pieces together and my portfolio to show, with a view to exhibiting . . .

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

Better get myself sorted out, then . . . two weeks and counting . . .

Kale is not food

I’ve tried. Lord knows I *have* tried.

I have treated it like cabbage. I have treated it like spinach. I’ve treated it as something in between the two.

I’ve stir-fried it, boiled it, steamed it, shredded it into a pasta & goats cheese dish, pureed it into potato soup.

The kids won’t eat it. T.O.M. won’t eat it . . . and his face approached that of an early Christian martyr about to fed to the lions when the kale made its appearance. I don’t like it, and I’m pretty unfussy.

And it remains the most inedible, stringy, prickly, bitter and repulsive piece of greenery I have ever had the misfortune to come across.

I have asked Abel and Cole not EVER to include it in my veg box again.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

British Manufacturing

British manufacturing is in decline!

Now that’s a news item I’ve heard so many times it’s sometimes hard to take seriously, but this time I think they really mean it – depending on what sort of manufacturing you are talking about.

Competition from countries where wage and resource and energy costs are a fraction of what they are here has meant the loss of almost all but the most tenacious of mass-manufacturers of FMCGs (fast moving consumer goods), and heavy industry – shipbuilding, for example – has again been cut out almost completely by foreign competition (even if a lot of the design and technology of these foreign factories is UK-generated). The motor industry (Rover Group failure notwithstanding) appears to be reasonably healthy, although it is questionable whether it can be called British, given it is now almost all in the hands of foreign owners. The traditional concept of mass-manufacturing, particularly when compounded with the current financial situation, is one that is no longer sustainable in this country. It has been declining steadily for decades, and I think it is pretty much in its death-throes. The UK is just not big enough to compete in a mass-market, and our resources are too costly.

Is the picture really as gloomy as has been painted? Have we truly become a nation of shop-keepers and service-providers? I’m not convinced. I think that there is a steadily growing undercurrent amongst those self-same expensive resources that is starting to build a new manufacturing industry. It is not a bulk industry, it is not aimed at the mass-market, and it is not high volume. Rather, it is a swathe of specialised products across a range of different sectors, who are delivering sophisticated, high-end, high-spec, technology driven products and supporting services coming from an enterprising, problem-solving and innovative group of diverse people.

The fact is that the UK remains the sixth largest manufacturer in the world, and manufacturing accounts for around half of all exports. A good proportion of these exports are high-technology products and components, more than the US and Germany, even. Only the US attracts more foreign direct investment into its manufacturing industry, and 3/4 of all business investment in research and development comes from this sector. Globalisation may have brought some problems, but it has presented UK Manufacturing with some significant opportunities, which have been grasped with both hands.

The increasing sophistication of both processes and products have had one key negative impact. The proportion of graduates employed in manufacturing is steadily increasing, alongside investment in intangibles – training, research and development, etc. As automation and productivity levels have increased, and as complexity and specialisation have increased, so the need for large quantities of unskilled manual labour has steadily declined: there is no longer a need for the large volumes of labour industry once required.

So what impact does this have on our society? The scaremongers are right, to a degree. The decline of British Manufacturing as a mass employer has effectively done away with the need for a working class. In times past, landowners and industrial entrepreneurs of all kinds have been dependent for profit and success on a large pool of flexible unskilled labour that can be drafted in to carry out vast quantities of simple, repetitive tasks. Now that is no longer the case, we are faced with a problem.

The working class is still there.

We still have a large pool of unskilled, and as a general rule poorly-educated, labour. Unfortunately, the number of jobs requiring unskilled, poorly-educated labour are steadily declining. With the loss of traditional agricultural, domestic and manufacturing employments, no new source of employment has come on-line. And in the jobs that are available, there is stiff competition from foreign migrants, generally from other EU countries, willing to work harder and for less money than our own working class.

I heard the MD of a firm of heating engineers complaining recently about foreign workers and how dangerous they were on site. I challenged him and asked him if they’re such a problem, why does he employ them. Why not employ English workers? The simple answer is that he cannot find enough English workers to fill the vacancies, and when he does they want more pay and work less hard than their foreign counterparts.

Close to where I live, an old filling station that had been derelict for a number of years has been taken over by a group of East Europeans who are now running the most fantastic hand car-wash service. It’s stunningly quick, outstandingly good value, and they’re friendly and do a great job.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well. It’s by way of an illustration. Here’s another.

A friend of a friend told me that he would have to get a job earning at least £20k p.a. (before tax) for it to be worth him taking it, because at any less than that, the amount of benefits he would lose by working would make him worse off. This enforced dependency on the state seems absolutely insane to me. Surely it would be possible to balance the two so that there is incentive to work, rather than a disincentive?

I am not for a second proposing that benefits should be cut to those who are unable to provide for themselves and their families, and whole-heartedly agree that there should be some sort of state safety-net to help those who need it. I do not buy into the Daily-Mail-generated benefit-scroungers judgement tags. I don’t think those on benefits have it easy. I do think that there needs to be a radical change to this culture of dependency, which to me is directly linked back to the old paternalist tradition, a view of the working class as helpless ignoramuses who need to be protected from themselves by those who know better (but who aren’t actually interested in helping them to help themselves). It’s a view based “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for today” rather than “teach him how to fish and he’ll eat forever.” What I see is that this approach is starting to become dangerous. There is an increasing opt-out from society amongst the youth of that class who see themselves effectively excluded from success by virtue of their background – and in a culture where success is measured in material possessions, that opt-out is taking them beyond the law (and further disenfranchising them in the process). Criminalising an entire class is not a good solution, in my view.

What I do say is that we need to take a good hard look at our society and ask ourselves a couple of questions:

1) If the Victorian economic model no longer holds true, why is paternalism still so prevalent in this country? Why do we still feel that we have to ‘look after’ the working class? Why can they not be empowered to look after themselves?

2) Given the change in the economic model, and a shift to a problem-solving, innovative, knowledge-based business culture, why are we still running the mass-education, info-dumping programmes started by those same paternalists? Sure, it’s been tweaked around the edges, but it’s still essentially the same: corrall as many children as possible in one place, and stuff them with whatever information is needed to make them effective corporate drones.

It doesn’t work any more. Certainly not in this country, anyway. We need a wholesale culture shift in the education system that takes advantage of our strengths and plays more towards a local-based, small-scale, sustainable and sophisticated society, where teaching is more challenging – a drive to think rather than just to learn, where philosophy and logic have a clear place, and there is more focus on hands-on, craft-driven, apprentice-master style leadership and inspiration, where children are allowed to identify and explore and follow their passions. Logic dictates that such an approach cannot be carried out in the huge secondary schools servicing our communities currently. We need the shift back to small schools, where a close relationship is possible and necessary between teacher and pupil, where an individual has the space and time to explore their own understanding and sense of self in partnership with school and parents and peers. And not just a priveleged few: everyone should have this sort of opportunity.

Yes, it will cost more in the short term, but  surely in the longer term it will save a fortune in benefits, and in healthcare costs too, if one accepts the assumption that an educated population is a healthier one – and will generate more in taxes given higher employment levels at higher levels of earnings. If we have a generation of ambitious, empowered and energetic entrepreneurs creating and problem-solving and innovating, then we have an incredibly bright future.

I wish I could believe it might happen.

Sweet Potato!

Mmmmmmmm

I got sweet potatoes in my veg box for the first time this week. T.O.M. got to try out some experimental cookery this evening . . . lucky him! This time, it all went well . . . (there have been disasters . . . )

I adapted a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe based on what I had in the house . . .

2 sweet potatoes

1 medium onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil (or therabouts)

284ml carton of double cream

salt/pepper to season

peel and slice the sweet potatoes – they should be about as thick as a coin.

Coat with the olive oil, and add the onion, garlic, pepper and cream.

Add to a gratin dish, arrange roughly (not obsessively!) so the slices are all more-or-less flat.

Cook in pre-heated oven @ 180 C for 30-40 minutes.

Eat!!!!!!

I’m still noshing on them – even cold they are delumptious – soft and sweet and garlicky and just pure heaven on a spoon.

I wonder if a little scrape of nutmeg would enhance the flavour? Maybe next time I will try . . .

The sky is falling

or so we must believe . . .

I’m irritated by this financial crisis on so many levels – and I think all my various irritations come down to a simple, fundamental statement: the people responsible for it are not being held accountable, nor are they suffering as a result of their actions. This seems so profoundly unjust, particularly when it is those who ARE suffering – we the people, the taxpayers, the prudent savers, the responsible homeowners – who are being made to cough up to cover the cost.

Take the banks. (somewhere, anywhere, please). We lend them our money on the understanding that they are able to invest it wisely for us and keep it safe for us until we need it. They, in turn, lend our money (accumulated and aggregated) to responsible types who will use it to either grow their businesses or invest it in their property – all to be paid back in the proper manner. We even have regulators who are supposed to make sure that this all happens in the proper way. What we hadn’t noticed (or we had, but everyone seemed to assume it was OK) was that actually there are/were a group of people (stupid white men, perhaps) who treated the whole thing as some sort of macho casino game, and they have gambled big-time with our hard-earned. On the way, they have earned themselves some major bonuses and more money than I can ever dream of earning, lifestyles way beyond the means of ordinary people, as a reward. It has always seemed to me to be profoundly unjust that they earned these sorts of sums – what does it say about our values as a society if the people who earn the most, who get the biggest rewards, are not those who help and nurture others – nurses, teachers, police officers, fire-fighters, social workers, childcarers – but those who handle money? Now it seems even more iniquitous.

These people are the ones whose reckless behaviour has got us into this mess. These people are the ones who turned blind eyes to irregular accounting, gave credit where it could not possibly be repaid and thought that short-term paper profits could justify it all. These people are the ones who said that regulation could be relaxed, that the free market and survival of the fittest was a good model to follow. 

Funny that. Survival of the fittest means that those who fall by the wayside should get left behind, not that they should be picked up, dusted off, and set going again.

And now these people are the ones sitting in their SUV tanks and their £m houses laughing at all us poor shmucks who have to bail out the banks. Are they taking any of this pain? Hell no. The bank always wins. It’s true in casinos, and it’s true here.

And the bailouts? The governments are handing them over – the cycle of debt must go on. Not one bleat about changes that must be made, though lots of empty ‘this must never happen again’ rhetoric. Is anyone asking searching, painful questions of the toothless, spineless regulators who sat back and let this happen? Is anyone asking searching, painful questions of the governments who led by example – showing us that living beyond our means was acceptable, necessary, even, to our wellbeing as public borrowing on all levels soared? Is it a surprise that private borrowing followed suit when economic prudence was thrown out of the window, when the government effectively forced a generation into debt (student loans), and when popular culture taught us that only material possessions and the right labels validated us as people?

No.

What is a surprise is that no-one, not one single commentator, is saying that those responsible for this whole fiasco must be held to account. NOBODY is saying that we must change our ways and live within our means, adopt a more prudent, sustainable way of life that avoids such calamities in the future. And nobody is saying that the bailouts we’re handing over must have some serious strings attached to make sure the reckless behaviour of these bankers (that’s a silent ‘w’) doesn’t get us into another, worse, mess further down the line.

That is because our entire society is built on debt – built on the concept that we borrow the future to finance the present. It’s absolute nonsense. The farmer cannot borrow next year’s seeds to grow this year’s crops. He must sow this year’s seeds, the ones he saved from the last crop or that he has bought with the money he made from the sale of that crop, manage his crop well, and use his harvest of the next year to fund his future. It is insane to think we can continue in this cycle of ever and greater debt, but to change it means changing the whole edifice we have constructed, to reveal it as illusory and flawed and to admit that we made a mistake on a massive level. Perhaps this crisis has shown the edifice to be crumbling on  foundations of sand, or perhaps this will pass and we will all forget about it and go back to doing what we were doing before.

There is always that question. Ever since the Northern Rock collapse that triggered this whole thing, the media have been in a feeding frenzy. The whole media business thrives on this sort of affair, and I cannot help but feel quite strongly that the constant spinning, retelling, analysing and speculating done by the 24-hour media culture (they have programmes to fill, after all) must take some of the responsibility for inciting the actions of the public that have caused this massive failure of confidence in the bank. It’s like telling a small child not to press a big, red, shiny button. Of course they’re going to do it. And the end of the world makes great copy. And again, is there any sign of responsibility or accountability here? Of course not. These people are innocent bystanders, dispassionate commentators and speakers of truths. Hah! Like heck they are. Maybe once, but the media serve different masters now, and what are their interests in all this mess?

I guess it comes down to personal perceptions. We can either ignore it and hope it will pass, or take this as a wake-up call, a realisation that there is something prfoundly rotten about the way we are living our lives, that we cannot continue to set-off the present with the future – it is not infinite, though it will always remain nebulous, and what is happening now is so deeply and profoundly wrong on so many levels it needs to be addressed at a basic, fundamental level.

We do not need more/better, and we do not need to aspire to fantasy lifestyles to be happy, or to be content. We should not waste what we have in the fruitless pursuit of what can never be – we waste our time, our money and our lives if we do.

Small is beautiful, less is more and debt is for dummies.