Interesting times continue

I feel most unsettled today; I have the sense we could be on the edge of something truly momentous. A bit like those moments when you feel you're close to understanding a truth and seeing a change in your thinking - and yet the understanding and change is somehow still eluding you. Maybe that's just me.

Another amazing week with more accepted wisdom turned on its head. Firstly, Gordon Brown. Floundering leader a month ago, the new Churchill today. Yes, that was the comparison I heard on Radio 4 yesterday. Quite how this compares with thousands being killed I am not so sure but that's by the by.

Unprecedented government intervention and cross country cooperation on interest rates - and yet the panic didn't stop, although I'm sure it will pass in time. Just where did we find £400 billion pounds to unblock lending between the banks? That's an incredible sum of money.



And then, on a much smaller scale, Iceland and the impact their fate could have on the Scottish independence movement. As Brian Taylor says, Holyrood politicians may "have to slap themselves to stop muttering "Iceland" every time the First Minister mentions small nation independent status in future." A month or two ago, independence was most definitely in the air, it was coming through the back door. As I said last week, the argument for it now seems risible.

What will it all really mean? Will it blow over in a few years of pain and we'll go back to the way we've always been? Or will we change?

I like Paul Mason's Newsnight post, and this comment: The successful outcome to the next policy response will be a prolonged recession and a heavily socialized banking system. The unsuccessful outcome could be a depression. Either way take a long look at the high-debt economy...as I write students are arriving in London to run up an average £30k of debt that will hang around them for a decade, people are paying for drinks on credit cards. Taxi drivers are passing in cabs effectively the property of the Icelandic government. So look around, as Auden might have put it:


"As the clever hopes expire, Of a low dishonest decade"


And finally.... to lighten the mood, this post Tamsin has alerted me to, which has to be the funniest thing I have read in a very long time. I love this idea of Robert Peston transformed into a ball of energy and blue light, the essence of pure news. Absolutely inspired. God, we are clever bastards in this country, aren't we? Although, clearly not, in so many ways.

Tribal wives

Has anyone been watching Tribal Wives on BBC 2? Just watched the latest one, with Dionne, a 33 year old Londoner, heartbroken after her last relationship ended and wondering if she'd ever meet the right guy and have kids. What a wonderful woman, she was beautiful and smiled and laughed her whole way through her month with the Maasai. I felt she truly embraced the experience and I found her ability not to judge their ways quite inspiring. This Times reviewer disagrees. He's interpreted her acceptance of polygamy and female circumcision as being agreement with it which I don't think was the case. He also believes this whole series is set up to promote the idea that the tribes have a more real way of living than "us westernised wage drones".

Whether it is more "real" or not, what they do have is a sense of community. I'm not necessarily a believer that we should all go back to our hunter gatherer roots, but I do keep coming back to this thought of community over and over again as I readjust to what UK society expects of me in my mid thirties. i.e. to own a flat, to have reached a certain level in my career, have a husband or partner, be planning or having my first kid and be in a comfortable financial position. (It's not looking too great on any of these things, but I wouldn't say I was unsuccessful as a person.)

More than anything, this series has shown the love and support and joy these people experience in their daily lives. I know it is not all a bed of roses by any means, but this truly was my experience in Borneo too. Their community gets them through the hard work and inequality and hunger and whatever other trials they may face.

I helped out at this mad Rat Race at the weekend. Coerced a little by Pippa but it of course I loved it. Lots of (mostly) over-achieving types putting themselves through physical hell. (Most of whom too conformist and over-achieving to be truly sexy. It did have the potential to be one great perv fest, but sadly didn't quite deliver; lycra is never a good look.) It was great fun. I chatted to new people all day long whilst playing my small part in a bigger whole and didn't think about myself once. A little community just for one day. We need more of this feeling in our world.

If you're happy and you know it....

I spent the afternoon with my wee nephew today. He washed my hair for me. (Paula was cutting it, so this wasn't as random as it sounds.) What a lovely feeling to have his little hands on my head, saying "is that nice Auntie Hannah?". En route to the park, we were singing "If you're happy and you know it....." {insert ending of his choice} which was our cue to perform.

So I've decided I could set up a little business. "Rent a prime-time kid". The market would be overworked and undersocialised single 30 and 40 somethings with too much time to think about themselves and their issues.

You cannot fail to be high on life after an afternoon with a small child. My only problem would be guaranteeing the quality of the product. Because come the walk home, he was most definitely on the tired and whiny side. That's where my value proposition could well collapse.