Hi,
Thank goodness for the four day week. I think I’ve had enough rides on this particulra un-merry-go-round for a time! 🙂 Talking of shorter weeks, I noticed an article about more UK companies trialing this.
Half a job
As a part time part timer (five days then four days) I can say it’s made a big difference to our lives. The option to safe stuff up and have the weekend clear is a gift. Getting errands sorted, phone calls, bills paid, housework, and clearing up.
Talking of which, I’ve braved the upstairs cupboard where some of my old Lynn things have been ignored. Clearly I do not need to buy any more tights for a time. However, some recycling would be a good idea!
Yes, the reduced hours mean I am paying for it by having to take a pay cut, but I guess I’m in that lucky number where we can afford to drop income a little. Maybe one day the outgoings will be low enough – or a four day week might come in? 🤞- and I can drop that extra day.
Environment news
Apparently a number of Austrialian beaches have had problems with some polution washing up onshore: discoloured greasy, spherical blobs that reek. According to researchers, said items are a form of fatbergs, which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as “a large mass of fat and waste material that forms in sewers.” I cannot place why the word is circling around my head this week 😏
Mundane existance
There’s been a few times where I’ve sat down to write something in YATGB and I’ve felt “but does any of this matter? Does anyone need to know what I’ve been thinking about or doing?“. Of course, the snag here, is perhaps the truth of it, in that a lot of the stuff we do, doesn’t really matter at all. Not to be all nihlistic about it 😉But, it may well make the journey more comfortable and it helps pass the time. In wiser words:
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different
Kurt Vonnegut
But, here’s the thing, in less plesant times, I feel there’s a benefit to talk about the small stuff, little victories, even. It’s not about the celebration of trivia, but I do think it’s about remembering the good things. Time with friends, being who you need to be when you can, enjoying the moment, being kind, seeing positive stuff.
Or, if you prefer a quote from Norman Stanely Fletcher (AKA Ronnie Barker in the BBC comedy, Porridge): “…One, bide your time. Two, keep your nose clean, and three; don’t let the bastards grind you down.“
Perhaps its easy for me to write this as someone based in the UK. I will say this, though. Post-Brexit and over the years since – no doubt helped by toxic rhetoric from the Nasty Party – emboldened thugs, bigots, and, frankly, scum. Yes, I did say scum…. but you can identify as fatberg if you prefer😏 So it’s not as safe as it was in years passed. Or, perhaps more accurately, so the villians would like you to believe.
Yes, there is personal safety and yes, care is needed. But, I believe that most folk are kind, and as such, we should be okay to go out, meet who we like, and love who we need to love. That will not change.
Hope
What hope might I offer? Well, Child 2.0 is studying History as part of their A Levels. On family film night, we sometimes watch a documentary. Just recently, we watched the series Nazis: A Warning From History. I think it came out in the 90s and I remember it being harrowing. Not just for the events that took place, but there were interviews with former residents and some of them…. some of them had clearly not learned that what they did was wrong. Grassing on neighbours who were then ‘disappeared’ and other things.
One of the things that struck me about the government of that time, is that they were useless. I had believed – wrongly, it turns out – that the regime was a well oiled, efficent machine. Apparently not. While there was a lot authoritarian love of rules and policing. Most of the time, nothing got done because they spent time arguing, stiffing each other over, and trying to suck up to the idiot in charge.
Should we be complaicent given the above? No, we should not. We should be watchful. We should push back as best we can. But, I feel we should not give up.
If there’s one thing we learned from the last round of idiocy around the pandemic, that a group of clueless, rich white dudes are only good for shouting, lining their own pockets, and faffing about. They may talk big, but it seems that’s all they’re good for.
L x
Thanks for that post, and for linking to the Dudeist website, which I all too often forget about, and indeed that whole, you know, like, kinda philosophy thing, man. Arthur Dent is more my actual incomprehending and vaguely horrified status, so Kurt Vonnegut and Jeffrey Lebowski will do nicely for the point. They should put Epicurus on the Dudes list. Man, he was a total dude, chilling out in his garden in Athens. The trouble is, serious upheavals, like war or persecution of minorities, is not something you can ignore and chill out over if it’s you who’s in the firing line, or are likely to be. Brexit, for instance, has ruined my life just as war and revolution ruined my parents’ lives. Just shrugging is not really an option to anyone with brains or empathy either. Hopefully, Trump and Musk will simply rob America and not bother with violence – Trump didn’t show much interest in violence as a tool of state before (except to Mexican immigrants) and that may continue. The sheer incompetence of Putin’s and Kim’s regimes, the Nasty Party’s government, and Trump’s previous one is a saving grace, too.
Anyway, it’s been clear for a while that your reduced hours have done you a lot of good. Time is precious and often has value way beyond mere money. You seem to be using that precious resource well.
Have a nice weekend
Sue x
“…like war or persecution of minorities, is not something you can ignore and chill out over…”
No, it isn’t – I completely agree. I feel that we need to be wary of “Well, I’m alright, Jack”, as that can lead into the famous poem “first they came for…” type of thing. I feel very strongly that the anti-trans BS is something sinister groups are using to try and push back on wider LGBTQ+ rights and – like all good b*stards /S – they won’t stop if they get their way on that. It seems to me, that it’s a repeat of the Evil Old White Money Men punching down on women, people of colour, rainbow folk, etc.
I am not saying things in the US will get to this point, but I remember reading, what is the tipping point around an uprising and/or coup? The view seemed to be the point at which your state security services – police, military, etc – no longer arrest or attack civilians. We’ve seen comments from US Army heads speak in concerned tones about certain politicans, so I am hopeful there will be natural caution and – possibly – a much needed safety/sanity check against any wild and inflamatory gibberish.
There are some US states and cities who are promoting themselves as ‘safe zones’. I think that’s a very good thing. Some gleams of light against the Stormfront (yes, geek massive, that’s a Boys reference 😉).
Great post, as ever, and the reference to documentary was salutary – I recall the old lady who was confronted over dobbing her lesbian neighbour in suddenly getting very gruff and distracted – it was always pretty powerful. Or, to put it in wiser words: “Lots of people like to imagine what they would do and how they would act in times of genocide like the Holocaust but the answer, of course, is what you’re doing right now.” (I cannot recall the attribution).
And yes, the Nazi State, such that it was, was fractured and broken and constantly in disarray – but it appeared like an efficient well-oiled machine loyal to the Fuhrer and what is Fascism but ‘image over substance’? It was one of my favourite courses to teach, the A Level Germany (Nazis) course but my least favourite to mull over in any depth. Very much my thing though, being interested as I am in Post-Apoca-Lit (my new term I came up with only today).
But, yes, Little Victories are often the only ones people can win. And, also, the most powerful in the long run. Fascism tends to worry about the Big Stuff but it understands how the removal of Little Victories is the path to domination – so maintaining the Little Victories is more powerful (and more difficult) than it first appears. Thank you for the reminder.
Thanks for the kind words about the post. 🩷 Funny in that I can never guess what folk want to read or what chimes with them. I have slipped into the old advice of “write what you know” and “create what you want to see. Others may join you later.”
“…least favourite to mull over in any depth. ”
Yes, very much that. Talk about the horrors of history and that people are capable of such things. Not just the administrators, but the population in terms of dobbing folk in it. Mind you, see COVID19 reporting behaviours.
Jeez, now I’m thinking maybe Agent Smith has a point /S 😁
As to ‘Post Apocalit’ – any computer game in which you can kill of slavers, cannibals, etc; they are first on my hit list.
Little Victories feel a bit like hope or flowers in the gloom. My brain is now replying the powerful scenes in V for Vendetta – film & graphic novel – in which two ladies fall in love despite the risks.
There perhaps lies the undoing of fascism, in that humans are naturally diverse and at some point, someone’s going to ask “but why are we hating on [child, friend, sibling, partner, colleague]?”. That and the eventual wake-up call of “Hang on, is it me or have we got feck all, and they’re living like kings?”
Thanks Lyn, always happy to read what is going in “the Mother Country”. (from one in your antipodes).
Hi Vivien. Good to hear from you. I hope you’re keeping well 🩷
I think the ‘mother country’ has been on the gin a bit too much of late! 😬 There’s certainly a lot of tidying up to do 😉