Category: Modern Life

Becoming modesty

The eldest is now back in the UK, after Berlin and Milan, and living in Hackney. Just around the corner, it seems, from one of the mad mullahs, so lots of police activity. The day before yesterday she managed to lock herself in the bathroom. It took 20 minutes and the Fire Brigade to release her: they were as surprised as we were to learn that the bathroom door had a deadlock. It makes you wonder about the previous tenants. Anyway, no harm done and at least she had her dressing gown with her (her mother’s first thought).

Yesterday evening her front door bell rang. There was one of the boys in blue. They were making house to house enquiries about three “parked” cars. Not, as the eldest immediately thought, to caution her for wasting the Fire Brigade’s time! I doubt that Red Watch complained.

Plus ça change, plus ça le même chose

An interesting meeting this morning with Bill Wells of 2.0 Ltd. An opportunity for gossip and information. And a lovely idea, that the Digital company is the woollen mill of the 21st century: a few very clever (and rich) people running it; and a vast number of people simply working for them. Mrs Gaskell, you should be living at this hour.

A better class of riot

Whingeing about the dire state of the economy with a good friend, who is the chairman of a major UK accountancy group, he told me of a recent dinner he and his wife had attended somewhere in the West Country. The property developer sat next to his wife told her, in all seriousness, that he had just bought an estate in the Welsh Marches, to which he was imminently retiring, because he expected social breakdown and riots on the streets of London by Christmas. . . and didn’t think the Metropolitan Police were up to stopping them.

Perhaps that explains what Devon & Cornwall Constabulary were doing in Waitrose car park in Okehampton in the middle of last week, kitted out in full riot gear, and role playing in and among the public. Nonetheless, if you are going to practice how to control food rioting, Waitrose seems an unlikely venue.

Money’s tight

It is often the everyday that illustrates the story. My cab driver the other Saturday told me that late afternoon the day before he had spent 45 minutes looking for a fare. The problem, he averred, is that aren’t spending: or not the ones who would usually call a cab. It seems that M&S have had the same problem with selling food.