Introspection

As I get to the end of yet another year when I feel as if I have gone nowhere and that the inexorable sands of time are running out ever-faster, it's hard not to sink into self-pity. I don't do so mainly because it's a trait that I despise in others. I'd rather be hated by other people than pitied by them, so I might as well stick to self-dislike rather than feeling sorry for myself.

I think that I reserve most of my dislike for myself because I know that, at heart, I am a coward. I haven't had the courage to take steps that I should have taken and I have, as a result, drifted through life achieving not very much. No kids, no marriage (failed or otherwise), no "fuck-it-all" grand decisions. I have instead taken either the cowardly option (attempting to drink myself to death because life was far too scary) or the safe, but boring option (following the principle that it's very easy to make lots of money if all that you focus on in life is making lots of money). Balance, as it were, just don't come into it.

I say this because there are many times when I wish that I had made those grand decisions, but more times when I am glad that I didn't. "Just have a cup of hot chocolate and think about it tomorrow". And many's the time that I badly badly wish that I was one of a couple, that I had kids to moan about (or to be proud of), but also many is the time that I know that I am what I am and I am the way I am -- and being one of a couple isn't the way I am. If I were in that situation, I'd probably want to be out of it just as much as, when I'm out of it, I want to be in it ... if you see what I mean.

And anyway, if I'd had a son, it would have been great to christen him "TGI".

For the last three or four years I've had this "sensible long view" that ends when I am 60. It's a relatively grey way to look at life but is, I think, one of the bits of baggage that comes with my sobriety. There are many worse bits of baggage to be burdened with.

And yet, I still have the feeling (and it's one that seems to be growing, albeit with that gradual manner of a slowly dripping tap gradually filling the sink) that I might one day suffer some kind of catastrophe-theory "oh-fuck-it" shift and make a grand gesture. However, the greater probability is that a seismic shift will be forced upon me, and I'll just go along for the quake.

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Good god, "Dreamer" by Supertramp just came on the radio (Pure Move DAB highly recommended, btw). I ambled through to Classic Gold, mainly because I really was in that kind of mood. I actually enjoyed Tom Petty's "American Girl" -- that was a record that I'm sure was plaeyd a lot when I was at University.

There was once a Doonesbury sequence where Mike Doonesbury "gets on down" to some rock record from the 1970s, only to be told at the end of the track that he's listening to "Middle-Aged Rock Radio, just in case you thought you were still with it". I know the feeling sometimes. But when, as now, they come up with "California Dreamin'", you actually don't really care. It's still the right music for the right mood.


The DIY upstairs has entered a couple of days' hiatus, although I did make it to Wickes to buy some bits and pieces that were required.

I made one serious error with the Lincrusta wallpaper. having run out of the Lincrusta glue, I gambled on standard wallpaper paste mixed very thickly. It hasn't worked properly, and the net result is aesthetically, well, a pile of shit. On the plus side, I'm getting better with the dado rails and, if I can hang the other paper decently, the blemished area won't be too horrific to the casual observer -- especially if I put a headboard in front of it.

Not that I'm going to be getting many people visiting to stay in the spare room anyway. Of the friends of mine that have consented to stay alive, many have just drifted away, for various reasons, most of which are probably my fault. One factor of course is that I am not one of a couple -- and this leads to inevitable drift as your friends gradually get married and produce offspring. Another is that I'm no longer a games fanatic, and, without a games hobby and zines, that link also fades. Although I have two or three "acquaintances" at work with whom I would happily have lunch, none of them could be called social freinds.

A further factor is also that, quite simply, Lewisham is not in south-west, west or north London, which is where most people I would meet socially would be. Mikey, the only guy even vaguely nearby, has no desire to mix, for the aforesaid reason that I am not married and I don't have children of a school age. Neither do I play golf. I've met no-one in the area because, well, I just haven't put myself about in the area. I could have joined bridge clubs, or book clubs, or whatever social thingies there are around. But I haven't. Like I say, no-one to blame bt myself there.

I suppose that the closest I have to people I would describe as "friends" are poker players, but even there there is a dichotomy. Even within the small subset of the poker playing community, I have little in common with the majority. Most are live players, most are losers, and most are gamblers with a "win it, spend it" philosophy. But at least, in most cases, the subset of professional "winners" have at least a vague idea where my head is at, which nearly everyone else I meet in life does not.

I may make some changes in the New Year. Certainly in the online poker world I need to make some kind of shift if I want to keep pace with this year or, with luck, continue with my target of a 20% improvement in performance year on year. Even when I'm not enjoying it; even when it feels a little bit too much like "work", it sometimes feel like one bit of solidity to hang on to.

End a sentence with a preposition? Pah! If it weren't for this sentence, I would end the entire piece with a preposition....
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The Good Old Days

It hasn't taken long for national interest to take over from a "we are all in this together" mentality, has it? France's BNP Paribas has abandoned its plans to take over Fortis in Belgium after the Brussels court of appeal suspended the transaction for 65 days and ruled that Fortis shareholders be allowed a say in the breakup of the bank and its takeover.

Now, it's actually a fair enough reaction by the Belgian courts -- the breaking-up of Fortis had all the signs of a stitch-up of phenomenal proportions. BNP Paribas got a great deal out of it (including leaving behind two-thirds of the toxic assets in the rump Fortis) mainly because it was, as they say, the only player in town. Now BNP Paribas has decided, perhaps in the light of the fact that its own numbers aren't looking so pretty any more, that it can do without at least two months of legal wrangles.

Whether this will benefit Fortis shareholders is debatable. It could turn out to be a choice between being stitched up and being executed. Hobson is alive and well these days.

But it's a portent. Free trade is one of those fine concepts that politicians agree with when things are going well. Once stuff starts getting a bit iffy (particularly for the domestic workforce) then economic principles don't so much take a back seat as get tossed out of the window.

Any listening to "Today In Parliament" over the past few weeks has been a sad time for anyone with any knowledge of econommics at all. Speech after speech indicates that the guys who are nominally in charge literally have no clue what got us into the mess (there's still some kind of mass illusion that it's only the lenders who were at fault and all the irresponsible borrrowers can't be blamed at all) and even less idea about how to get out of it.

Instead you get the soundbite world of an USDAW spokesman saying that to put 20,000+ workers on the dole two days after Christmas was appalling timing. Well, er, you pay their wages then. Better still, let the workers take over the Woolworth shops and see if they can make a better job of it. Or perhaps USDAW would care to give it a go?

It also transpired that many thousands of pensioners had been overpaid a few hundred quid a year for decades. The announcement that this overpayment would stop was greeted with horror by the recipients. One guy said "why should we pay for the government's mistakes?" A neat soundbite again, and, like many soundbites, one that fails to stand up to more than a nanosecond's analysis. Er, so you have been overpaid for 30 years, which has cost other people (taxpayers) quite a lot of money. And you think that those other people should carry the bill for overpaying you, just because you have got used to the money?

As I look forward to the next four or five years, in macro-economic terms, it looks desperately grim, and the only plus is that the return of inflation at a frightening level (oh, how the 2010 and 2011 numbers will be fun!) now looks more and more certain. The Fed's actions gave a nice boost to my 20-year Index-Linked Treasuries -- now up nearly 10% since I bought them. In the past I've made the mistake of getting out too soon, and I think that we've now got through to around July/August 2009 before the tide turns against gilts.

That. in logical terms, would be the time to start piling into gold, awaiting the $2,000 an ounce number that is bound to come by about 2013. But there is a downside to this, and that is one of renewed dollar weakness. It's frequently missed that there is a strong correlation between gold strength and dollar weakness (and vice-versa), which makes the apparent large shifts in the price per ounce less significant when measured in euros or sterling. The neatest way round this would be to buy gold futures and sell dollar futures. However, there's more comfort in actually owning physical gold, and considerably less risk.


Enough, the joys of Christmas shopping in Lewisham beckon....
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