Don't worry, be happy
Jul. 18th, 2007 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksIt's nice to see that Lottery money is going to be used to help Londoners to be happier. Unfortunately the general thrust of this is "Be more optimistic, take more exercise, and grow vegetables in your window box". I already grow peppers and chillis; I take exercise (if anything, I might over-train), and the recommendation to 'be more optimistic' is something I try at, really. But there might be a reason that Londoners as a rule are not an optimistic bunch. As the opposition MP might have said on The Thick Of It "It's the shit door. It's the door that you open when you want to feel like shit".
It's perpetually fascinating when people from the outlands, responding madly to the mildest criticism of their own region (e.g, writing the line "I drove for miles in Leicestershire without finding a petrol station" would generate dozens of responses from Leicesterites saying that it is all your fault, not Leicestershire's) by launching into their own diatribe against London. This totally misses the points that (a) this is no kind of counter-argument and (b) I would probably agree with most of the points made anyway. It doesn't take away from the point that one reason the place is so horrible is that there are very few Londoners in it. London is like a flat that's rented rather than a home that's owned. We all know that the former is not kept in as good as a condition as the latter. Which is a bit of a bummer for we permanent residents.
Anyhoo, it's nice to get some lottery money for a change; call it a part-exchange for our three hundred quid a year extra that we'll be paying until I die for the privilege of watching some drugged up Asians winning all the swimming medals in 2012.
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Of course, another reason for London getting it in the neck is that a large proportion of the people who come here from outside don't really want to be here in the first place. It's just here is where the jobs are.
I'm beginning to wonder how the people in their 20s today are going to cope when the next recession hits. It's now 16 years since the last kick-you-in-the balls "I'll never get a job again" recession. Certainly most of the people in this office can't really imagine the idea of being unable to get any job. Not being unable to get the job that you want, but being unable to get any job, even one that you don't want but you are willing to do "because you need the money". This is a bit like being the really popular and good-looking girl at university. It's not exactly good training for learning to cope with how horrible the real world can be.
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I played like a total donk last night, and I still won a bit of money. This convinced me of two things. The first is that a sound mental state is nearly all that matters when it comes to winning at No Limit. If you only play when you feel 100%, you will clean up from people who are playing when they aren't 100%. The trick, of course, is getting to feel 100%. Last night I didn't feel great. I was tired and a bit grouchy. Net result was being too laggy, calling when I shouldn't, and spunking away cash.
The second point was that the fact that I still won money; this was either evidence that I ran particularly well (which I didn't -- the shortish tilto-episode was caused by me running badly against a donk) or that there's a sufficient gap in class that I really ought to be hammering away at the $200 buy-ins, rather than working on auto-pilot at $50 buy-ins or semi auto-pilot at $100.
The catch is that one of "make sure you feel 100%". That's such a rare feeling for me these days that I'm perpetually worried that I'm setting myself up for a $600 loss.
To which, of course, my more rational side should reply: "so what?"
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It's perpetually fascinating when people from the outlands, responding madly to the mildest criticism of their own region (e.g, writing the line "I drove for miles in Leicestershire without finding a petrol station" would generate dozens of responses from Leicesterites saying that it is all your fault, not Leicestershire's) by launching into their own diatribe against London. This totally misses the points that (a) this is no kind of counter-argument and (b) I would probably agree with most of the points made anyway. It doesn't take away from the point that one reason the place is so horrible is that there are very few Londoners in it. London is like a flat that's rented rather than a home that's owned. We all know that the former is not kept in as good as a condition as the latter. Which is a bit of a bummer for we permanent residents.
Anyhoo, it's nice to get some lottery money for a change; call it a part-exchange for our three hundred quid a year extra that we'll be paying until I die for the privilege of watching some drugged up Asians winning all the swimming medals in 2012.
+++++++
Of course, another reason for London getting it in the neck is that a large proportion of the people who come here from outside don't really want to be here in the first place. It's just here is where the jobs are.
I'm beginning to wonder how the people in their 20s today are going to cope when the next recession hits. It's now 16 years since the last kick-you-in-the balls "I'll never get a job again" recession. Certainly most of the people in this office can't really imagine the idea of being unable to get any job. Not being unable to get the job that you want, but being unable to get any job, even one that you don't want but you are willing to do "because you need the money". This is a bit like being the really popular and good-looking girl at university. It's not exactly good training for learning to cope with how horrible the real world can be.
++++++
I played like a total donk last night, and I still won a bit of money. This convinced me of two things. The first is that a sound mental state is nearly all that matters when it comes to winning at No Limit. If you only play when you feel 100%, you will clean up from people who are playing when they aren't 100%. The trick, of course, is getting to feel 100%. Last night I didn't feel great. I was tired and a bit grouchy. Net result was being too laggy, calling when I shouldn't, and spunking away cash.
The second point was that the fact that I still won money; this was either evidence that I ran particularly well (which I didn't -- the shortish tilto-episode was caused by me running badly against a donk) or that there's a sufficient gap in class that I really ought to be hammering away at the $200 buy-ins, rather than working on auto-pilot at $50 buy-ins or semi auto-pilot at $100.
The catch is that one of "make sure you feel 100%". That's such a rare feeling for me these days that I'm perpetually worried that I'm setting myself up for a $600 loss.
To which, of course, my more rational side should reply: "so what?"
____________________
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Love it or leave it
Date: 2007-07-18 02:31 pm (UTC)I actually enjoy coming to London these days because my visits have been less smash-and-grab see-6-clients and back home on the train. You come to appreciate that the place does have something to offer, but dear God, I'd rather live in a tent than Nicki's flat in Camden.
Re: Love it or leave it
Date: 2007-07-18 04:57 pm (UTC)DY
Re: Love it or leave it
Date: 2007-07-18 05:10 pm (UTC)Sorry I haven't been in contact, but your number is on my mobile phone and my mobile phone is kaput. How was LV?
BTW, your blog page continues to send my computers into paroxysms of cpu overload -- whatever it is that the pages are trying to load onto the machine, it nearly always eventually causes Internet Explorer to freeze.
Here's the link:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23404825-details/%C2%A314m+Lotto+cash+to+teach+Londoners+how+to+be+happier/article.do
Re: Love it or leave it
Date: 2007-07-18 05:11 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: Love it or leave it
Date: 2007-07-19 06:23 am (UTC)-- Jonathan
Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-19 09:38 am (UTC)It is all based on the impact it has on teh individual and the community around him - 1991 had a property price dip and few cutbacks, but never really felt like a true recession.
Re: Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-19 12:53 pm (UTC)But I'm amazed that the recession of 1991 passed you by. And I don't think that it was confined to a few bloated city workers: the ONS figures show that the economy contracted by 2.5% in Q2 1991. This either shows that the city workers contributed more to the economy of the country than was previously thought, or that the recession hit a wider area than you thought.
Then again, this might be part of the "say anything and the line will come back that 'you only care if it impacts you in London'". I was simply referring to the most recent recession -- not denying the impact of the previous one. You are the one who seems to be denying the impact in 1991 -- presumably on the grounds that it only affected people in London (which is not a correct analysis). And, if something only affects people in London, the general feeling among the many outside London is "good, serves them right".
We are used to that. Although it does get somewhat childish and wearing after a while. Not everyone in London is a "bloated city worker".
I also see that 1980 saw the newspaper headline "Government pays large public sector pay increases as recommended by Clegg Commission". So, it was okay for some people.
However, a House of Commons Research Paper of 1999 (http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf) shows that the dip in the early 1980s of GDP and the change in real GDP on the previous year was only a fraction of a percent worse than that seen in 1991. On a less scientific note, I recalla great line in "Our Friends In The North" (originally penned by Peter Flannery, born in Tyne & Wear) where Mark Strong (Tosker), commenting on the business difficulties he had overcome, said: "EVERYBODY went skint in 1991". So, it clearly didn't pass Flannery by.
So, I fail to see how 1991 can be termed "a minor blip". Not if you want to look at things objectively. Maybe you were just fortunate in the region where you lived.
PJ
Re: Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-19 02:12 pm (UTC)In 1991 I was in the middle of my Swedish period, and I was doing well, until I chose to quit that job in late 1993. My income staggered and didn't recover until 1995, but I think that was just me, not the economy as a whole.
-- Jonathan
Re: Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-19 03:16 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-20 05:10 am (UTC)But, as miserable_git had already said, "It is all based on the impact it has on the individual and the community around him."
As I'm never really integrated into any "community", if the state of the economy doesn't affect me, I'm not really aware of it. Maybe I read about it in The Economist, but I don't feel it in my bones.
Even if it did affect me, I think I'd tend to assume that it was something to do with me, or the company I was working for.
-- Jonathan
Re: Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-19 04:42 pm (UTC)The difference in economic outlook was highlighted by the day I left Sheffield for Bracknell a queue of almost 2000 was outside a new large steak house recruiting for waiters/diswashers and when I got to Bracknell I walked past the local council depot which had vacancies posted on a large board by the main gate.
I was hurt more by the housing stagnation and interest rates than job issues in 1991 and the people in the north hardly noticed.
It's just hard to feel I can compare the dropping of tens of thousands of jobs year on year with 1991 - OK some IT contracters got laid off (many of them made up for it with Y2K), but it didn't seem to be anywhere near the wholesale massacre of the 79-83 period.
The bloated city worker thing is my northern-ist sterotype description coming out :-) The people who I knew who worked in London on average/low salaries all generally stayed in work in 1991 - just had to tighten belts due to higher interest rates/lower pay rises.
It is always a subjective issue. Like inflation, recession and even boom are personal issues...
Re: Recession - what recession?
Date: 2007-07-20 08:29 pm (UTC)Frankly, most of the UK really did see the "recession" of 1991 as a blip. Not because we were doing well, something went slightly wrong, and then we did well again ... not that sort of blip at all. We were stuffed (royally) by Thatcher and her idiot cohort Howe, and we still hadn't recovered. It was more a case of "Here it comes again ..."
It isn't a case of whether we hate London, or Londoners. Me, personally, I've got bored of London (cue Dr Johnson of Lichfield joke) and I tend to get on well with Londoners, so long as I can pat them on the head and don't have to go home with them. Being half Cockney helps here.
It's a simple matter of compounding. The rest of the country was utterly screwed in 1983 and given very little way out. It's taken (for example) my beloved Birmingham 20 years, and untold billions of EEC grants, to even look normal again. I'm not joking. Birmingham in 2000 looked around about as good as Birmingham in 1980. Missing all the compound benefits, of course.
It's simple. We don't like you people, because we were fucked, and you weren't. Now stop your whining. Ever had to turn down a job at Birmingham Airport (the only -- and I don't mean only major: I mean only) employer on offer, because every single job, out of the 450 on offer had seven hundred applicants?
And you're absolutely correct. We should stop moaning and find our own personal solution. Which is basically emigration.
Works for me.
Re: Emigration
Date: 2007-07-21 08:11 am (UTC)Mind you, I'd lived in the UK only from time to time before that, and without much enthusiasm.
I've visited Birmingham only occasionally and briefly, mostly to visit the Andromeda sf bookshop (in the days before Amazon). I didn't hang around. It didn't seem likely to become one of my favourite cities.
-- Jonathan