London tonight
This isn't one of the promised updates covering recent months; it's just about tonight. Apparently, since I have started journalling again, I am journalling again.
I'd been planning to swim tonight because: Poland; eating too much; drinking too much; exercise but not enough to compensate for the aforementioned. Instead I was hanging out with the MD and the head of finance because big stuff is happening in my company and I'm better off in that loop than out of it. More about which another time.
It was the end of the day and we were watching the news. Footage of London burning.
On that subject: What. The. Fuck. This isn't political protest, though in the broader sense there's politics under it. It's mostly hopeless angry and savage greedy and pointless tragic. No-one really knows what it is yet. It's a portent of a long-predicted future of gated communities and armed riot police on street corners - maybe. Or, more likely, it's a brief chaotic flash, an explosion born of complexity, momentarily shattering the illusion of control, clear only in hindsight, which won't stop the experts from finding out they knew everything about it all along. It's a sign of the times. Control is an illusion because control means prediction and prediction is on the way out. I so predict it.
London tonight is one face of uncertainty. It's rather ugly. In the near future we'll see many more of uncertainty's faces; thankfully some will be beautiful.
On the same subject but more practically: It's happening near friends (and it kicked off on the weekend very near some friends). But I am lucky. It hasn't come to my neighbourhood yet and almost certainly won't unless absolutely everything goes to shit, which it almost certainly won't. The greatest risk to me in the short term is that my weekend plans might go squiffy, which I suppose is quite low down the list of Britain's worries.
So in the office we talked about the riots before going to the pub to talk about our corporate stuff. On the way the MD mused about the side of London we don't see. We live in a bubble, he said. I didn't tell him how much time I spend outside that bubble. Instead I said, yes, we think of the Goldman Sachs guys as living in a bubble (ha ha, amateur sociologist/economist crossover pun; though I didn't point that out) but we ourselves are so insulated from those who have no prospect of a decent job.
We got to the pub and stood outside sipping beers chatting in our big responsible business bubble when CRASH. A chair had broken because an older suited man had leapt on a younger suited man and pinned him to the ground with his elbow on his throat, murmuring drunken threats into the young man's terrified face. The two City of London police officers who had been standing on the corner ambled over and separated them expertly, diplomatically, gently. The older man went inside to leave his email address so he could be invoiced for the chair. (City of London officers are thorough in their approach to dispute resolution.) Then the two businessmen left, arm in arm, the junior executive supporting the senior partner, who patted his back and grinned fondly at him like a best friend or an abusive but ultimately loving dad. Pop?
London tonight, man.
I hope everyone I know stays safe until this thing blows over. Statistics tells me you will but prediction, you know, isn't what it used to be. Please be careful.
I'd been planning to swim tonight because: Poland; eating too much; drinking too much; exercise but not enough to compensate for the aforementioned. Instead I was hanging out with the MD and the head of finance because big stuff is happening in my company and I'm better off in that loop than out of it. More about which another time.
It was the end of the day and we were watching the news. Footage of London burning.
On that subject: What. The. Fuck. This isn't political protest, though in the broader sense there's politics under it. It's mostly hopeless angry and savage greedy and pointless tragic. No-one really knows what it is yet. It's a portent of a long-predicted future of gated communities and armed riot police on street corners - maybe. Or, more likely, it's a brief chaotic flash, an explosion born of complexity, momentarily shattering the illusion of control, clear only in hindsight, which won't stop the experts from finding out they knew everything about it all along. It's a sign of the times. Control is an illusion because control means prediction and prediction is on the way out. I so predict it.
London tonight is one face of uncertainty. It's rather ugly. In the near future we'll see many more of uncertainty's faces; thankfully some will be beautiful.
On the same subject but more practically: It's happening near friends (and it kicked off on the weekend very near some friends). But I am lucky. It hasn't come to my neighbourhood yet and almost certainly won't unless absolutely everything goes to shit, which it almost certainly won't. The greatest risk to me in the short term is that my weekend plans might go squiffy, which I suppose is quite low down the list of Britain's worries.
So in the office we talked about the riots before going to the pub to talk about our corporate stuff. On the way the MD mused about the side of London we don't see. We live in a bubble, he said. I didn't tell him how much time I spend outside that bubble. Instead I said, yes, we think of the Goldman Sachs guys as living in a bubble (ha ha, amateur sociologist/economist crossover pun; though I didn't point that out) but we ourselves are so insulated from those who have no prospect of a decent job.
We got to the pub and stood outside sipping beers chatting in our big responsible business bubble when CRASH. A chair had broken because an older suited man had leapt on a younger suited man and pinned him to the ground with his elbow on his throat, murmuring drunken threats into the young man's terrified face. The two City of London police officers who had been standing on the corner ambled over and separated them expertly, diplomatically, gently. The older man went inside to leave his email address so he could be invoiced for the chair. (City of London officers are thorough in their approach to dispute resolution.) Then the two businessmen left, arm in arm, the junior executive supporting the senior partner, who patted his back and grinned fondly at him like a best friend or an abusive but ultimately loving dad. Pop?
London tonight, man.
I hope everyone I know stays safe until this thing blows over. Statistics tells me you will but prediction, you know, isn't what it used to be. Please be careful.