Notes from London 1
Oct. 14th, 2008 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusA tube ticket to go one stop in Zone 1 now costs £4.
On TV everything seems to be platoons of soldiers attacking things. The only thing that isn't soldiers is chef Gordon Ramsay. But he's depicted at the head of a digital line of chefs attacking pans of food. "Don't let me down!" Ramsay barks at his platoon.
I eat the buffet-style breakfast in my hotel (MyHotel) assuming it's free. Nope: a bill arrives at the end. My two bits of bread and cheese, one orange juice and one tea cost £14 plus gratuity (in this case, zero).
The hotel does provide free newspapers, but only right wing ones: The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and The Financial Times. The pink paper has a pull-out Japan special which congratulates the nation for not deregulating its banks. The fact that Japan still makes stuff (Toyota is the world's most successful car company, and Kyoto-based Nintendo has the highest per-worker profitability of any company in the world) makes Japan better-placed than Britain to weather the current crisis.
The cleaner in my hotel is Polish.
British women all have "toxic highlights", peroxide blonde. Sign in Soho hairdresser's window: colourists wanted.
At Boots they have self-service pay stations now instead of human cashiers. You take your purchases to a post, swipe the barcode, and feed cash into slots.
I go into RBS to pay in some cheques. A young black employee cuts off my path to the vacant teller's windows. Can he set up an interview with a financial advisor? There are products that could save me a lot of money. "Paying these cheques in will save me money by getting me out of overdraft!" How much is my overdraft limit? How long have I been with the bank? "£2000! Since 1978!" Eventually I get to the teller window and pay in my cheques. As I leave I want to compliment the young man on his tenacity by saying "I hear this bank has room at the top!" (CEO Sir Fred Goodwin has resigned) but then pause to wonder where exactly the "top" of RBS is now that the government owns 60% of it. I guess that makes Gordon Brown its CEO, and my hungry young promotions man a potential prime minister.
I buy Studio Voice and Ku-nel at the Japacen. London for me mostly means better Japanese shopping than we have in Berlin.
Downstairs at Zavvi, which used to be Tower, then used to be Virgin. The Afropop trend is confirmed by articles in Frieze and NME (which, like me, slags Keane). Modern Painters seems to be finished -- their ad-famished July / August issue hasn't been replaced. (Update: In fact the magazine has relaunched.)
I consider buying Animal Crossing for Hisae's DS, but it's thirty quid. No wonder Nintendo is so profitable!
Zavvi contradicts my rant about the plethora of categories in record shops; here there's just "Music", and within that "Rock / Pop". The extensive shelf space is taken up with multiple copies of the same CD. This aggressive promo is the opposite of the global diversity which was Tower's USP when it opened here in the 90s. Zavvi is anti-diversity.
Zavvi has two Momus CDs, Circus Maximus and the Creation years compilation. Sister Ray has two too: Summerisle and Otto Spooky. So on Picadilly Circus I'm an 80s artist from London, and on Berwick Street I'm a 00s artist from Berlin.
I buy The Wire -- which has a Joemus ad headed "Live gloriously through art!" on page 2 -- in Selectadisk. They're playing a band called Noah and the Whale, who sound quite good.
District Line services are suspended because of a Person Under a Train (PUT) at Earl's Court.
Inflation in the UK has hit 5.2%. The bank bailout amounts to £288 for every person on the planet. "Death of City Bonus Culture" is the Evening Standard billboard. The headline on the paper is "London Property Prices Fall by 20%".
On TV everything seems to be platoons of soldiers attacking things. The only thing that isn't soldiers is chef Gordon Ramsay. But he's depicted at the head of a digital line of chefs attacking pans of food. "Don't let me down!" Ramsay barks at his platoon.
I eat the buffet-style breakfast in my hotel (MyHotel) assuming it's free. Nope: a bill arrives at the end. My two bits of bread and cheese, one orange juice and one tea cost £14 plus gratuity (in this case, zero).
The hotel does provide free newspapers, but only right wing ones: The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and The Financial Times. The pink paper has a pull-out Japan special which congratulates the nation for not deregulating its banks. The fact that Japan still makes stuff (Toyota is the world's most successful car company, and Kyoto-based Nintendo has the highest per-worker profitability of any company in the world) makes Japan better-placed than Britain to weather the current crisis.
The cleaner in my hotel is Polish.
British women all have "toxic highlights", peroxide blonde. Sign in Soho hairdresser's window: colourists wanted.
At Boots they have self-service pay stations now instead of human cashiers. You take your purchases to a post, swipe the barcode, and feed cash into slots.
I go into RBS to pay in some cheques. A young black employee cuts off my path to the vacant teller's windows. Can he set up an interview with a financial advisor? There are products that could save me a lot of money. "Paying these cheques in will save me money by getting me out of overdraft!" How much is my overdraft limit? How long have I been with the bank? "£2000! Since 1978!" Eventually I get to the teller window and pay in my cheques. As I leave I want to compliment the young man on his tenacity by saying "I hear this bank has room at the top!" (CEO Sir Fred Goodwin has resigned) but then pause to wonder where exactly the "top" of RBS is now that the government owns 60% of it. I guess that makes Gordon Brown its CEO, and my hungry young promotions man a potential prime minister.
I buy Studio Voice and Ku-nel at the Japacen. London for me mostly means better Japanese shopping than we have in Berlin.
Downstairs at Zavvi, which used to be Tower, then used to be Virgin. The Afropop trend is confirmed by articles in Frieze and NME (which, like me, slags Keane). Modern Painters seems to be finished -- their ad-famished July / August issue hasn't been replaced. (Update: In fact the magazine has relaunched.)
I consider buying Animal Crossing for Hisae's DS, but it's thirty quid. No wonder Nintendo is so profitable!
Zavvi contradicts my rant about the plethora of categories in record shops; here there's just "Music", and within that "Rock / Pop". The extensive shelf space is taken up with multiple copies of the same CD. This aggressive promo is the opposite of the global diversity which was Tower's USP when it opened here in the 90s. Zavvi is anti-diversity.
Zavvi has two Momus CDs, Circus Maximus and the Creation years compilation. Sister Ray has two too: Summerisle and Otto Spooky. So on Picadilly Circus I'm an 80s artist from London, and on Berwick Street I'm a 00s artist from Berlin.
I buy The Wire -- which has a Joemus ad headed "Live gloriously through art!" on page 2 -- in Selectadisk. They're playing a band called Noah and the Whale, who sound quite good.
District Line services are suspended because of a Person Under a Train (PUT) at Earl's Court.
Inflation in the UK has hit 5.2%. The bank bailout amounts to £288 for every person on the planet. "Death of City Bonus Culture" is the Evening Standard billboard. The headline on the paper is "London Property Prices Fall by 20%".
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 11:58 am (UTC)and no, not all 'British women all have toxic highlights' - I know that I don't. I rarely go to Zavvi anyway, due to prices and whatnot. Fopp and especially independent record shops have better prices, and usually better choice..
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:17 pm (UTC)How long are you here for btw?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 09:18 pm (UTC):)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:19 pm (UTC)The women with toxic hair might be Russian! They 'highlight' the great diversity of London!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 11:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:16 pm (UTC)imomus berlin
into Google.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-15 06:15 am (UTC)site:imomus.livejournal.com berlin
(into the Googles)
AA lecture tonight
Date: 2008-10-14 12:17 pm (UTC)Re: AA lecture tonight
Date: 2008-10-14 12:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 01:17 pm (UTC)http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/search?q=daily+mail
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:29 pm (UTC)but whatcha doin' going to Chavvi? There are much better independent stores!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:30 pm (UTC)Britain only has right-wing newspapers. Apart from the Morning Star I suppose, but most Londoners would rather eat their iPods than be seen with a copy of that.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:31 pm (UTC)"Death of City Bonus Culture" sounds like marvelous post-modern title.
take me back to dear old blighty
Date: 2008-10-14 12:44 pm (UTC)I bought my copy of Otto Spooky in Zavvi, back when it was still Virgin, in about 2006 or 07, I don't remember. If memory serves they also had 'Folktronic' and 'Forbidden Software Time Machine'. You see 'Circus Maximus' everywhere nowadays.
Cherry Red should hurry up and get the other re-releases out sharpish... copies of 'Tender Pervert' are exchanging hands for stupid money in some reaches.
Anyway, Nick, stiff upper lip and all that.
Re: take me back to dear old blighty
Date: 2008-10-14 12:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:35 pm (UTC)If you wrote less you\'d be more interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 12:43 pm (UTC)Momus never stop
Date: 2008-10-14 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 01:34 pm (UTC)Good luck with the talk, I hope they're buying you dinner after!
London Town
Date: 2008-10-14 03:22 pm (UTC)Yep, it's pricey here but try travelling from Oslo Airport into town - £50 GBP for a 20 minute train journey, £6.00 for a soft drink. London felt positively bargain basement when I got back yesterday!
Re: London Town
Date: 2008-10-14 04:40 pm (UTC)a one way ticket is currently 160 NOK, or about £15 (which is bad enough if you ask me).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 04:01 pm (UTC)I remember the days when the consoles would be expensive while the games would go for about 199SEK (c:a £16). These days they are more likely to cost 599SEK (c:a £48).
I've heard that is how they make money with the game's industry these days. Sell the console at a low price, while the games are the one to save up for. Perhaps it began while the Gamecube arrived on the market. The price dropped fairly quickly.
But it was years since I last read a game magazine.
Suicides from financial crisis cause concern
Date: 2008-10-14 04:52 pm (UTC)In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family's mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead."
Then Carlene Balderrama shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table.
Across the country, authorities are becoming concerned that the nation's financial woes could turn increasingly violent, and they are urging people to get help. In some places, mental-health hot lines are jammed, counseling services are in high demand and domestic-violence shelters are full.
"I've had a number of people say that this is the thing most reminiscent of 9/11 that's happened here since then," said the Rev. Canon Ann Malonee, vicar at Trinity Church in the heart of New York's financial district. "It's that sense of having the rug pulled out from under them."
With nowhere else to turn, many people are calling suicide-prevention hot lines. The Samaritans of New York have seen calls rise more than 16 percent in the past year, many of them money-related. The Switchboard of Miami has recorded more than 500 foreclosure-related calls this year.
"A lot of people are telling us they are losing everything. They're losing their homes, they're going into foreclosure, they've lost their jobs," said Virginia Cervasio, executive director of a suicide resource enter in southwest Florida's Lee County.
But tragedies keep mounting:
• In Los Angeles last week, a former money manager fatally shot his wife, three sons and his mother-in-law before killing himself.
Karthik Rajaram, 45, left a suicide note saying he was in financial trouble and contemplated killing just himself. But he said he decided to kill his entire family because that was more honorable, police said.
Rajaram once worked for a major accounting firm and for Sony Pictures, and he had been part-owner of a financial holding company. But he had been out of work for several months, police said.
After the murder-suicide, police and mental-health officials in Los Angeles took the unusual step of urging people to seek help for themselves or loved ones if they feel overwhelmed by grim financial news. They said they were specifically afraid of the "copycat phenomenon."
"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair," Deputy Police Chief Michel Moore said. "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times."
• In Tennessee, a woman fatally shot herself last week as sheriff's deputies went to evict her from her foreclosed home.
Pamela Ross, 57, and her husband were fighting foreclosure on their home when sheriff's deputies in Sevierville came to serve an eviction notice. They were across the street when they heard a gunshot and found Ross dead from a wound to the chest. The case was even more tragic because the couple had recently been granted an extra 10 days to appeal.
• In Akron, Ohio, the 90-year-old widow who shot herself on Oct. 1 is recovering. A congressman told Addie Polk's story on the House floor before lawmakers voted to approve a $700 billion financial rescue package. Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae dropped the foreclosure, forgave her mortgage and said she could remain in the home.
• In Ocala, Fla., Roland Gore shot his wife and dog in March and then set fire to the couple's home, which had been in foreclosure, before killing himself. His case was one of several in which people killed spouses or pets, destroyed property or attacked police before taking their own lives.
...................
Re: Suicides from financial crisis cause concern
Date: 2008-10-14 04:52 pm (UTC)"The financial stress builds up to the point the person feels they can't go on, and the person believes their family is better off dead than left without a financial support," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Washington D.C.-based Violence Policy Center.
Dr. Edward Charlesworth, a clinical psychologist in Houston, said the current crisis is breeding a sense of chronic anxiety among people who feel helpless and panic-stricken, as well as angry that their government has let them down.
"They feel like in this great society that we live in we should have more protection for the individuals rather than just the corporation," he said.
It's not yet clear there is a statistical link between suicides and the financial downturn since there is generally a two-year lag in national suicide figures. But historically, suicides increase in times of economic hardship. And the current financial crisis is already being called the worst since the Great Depression.
Rising mortgage defaults and falling home values are at the heart of it. More than 4 million Americans were at least one month behind on their mortgages at the end of June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
A record 500,000 had entered the foreclosure process. And that trend is expected to continue through next year, despite the current programs from the government and the lending industry to refinance delinquent homeowners into more affordable loans.
Counselors at Catholic Charities USA report seeing a "significant increase" in the need for housing counseling.
One counselor said half of her clients were on some form of antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. The agency has seen a decrease in overall funding, but it has expanded foreclosure counseling and received nearly $2 million for such services in late 2007.
Adding to financially tense households is an air of secrecy. Experts said it's common for one spouse to blame the other for their financial mess or to hide it entirely, as Balderrama did.
After falling 3 1/2 years behind in payments, the Taunton, Mass., housewife had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company and shredding them before her husband saw them. She tried to refinance but was declined.
In July, on the day the house was to be auctioned, she faxed the note to the mortgage company. Then the 52-year-old walked outside, shot her three beloved cats and then herself with her husband's rifle.
Notes left on the table revealed months of planning. She'd picked out her funeral home, laid out the insurance policy and left a note saying, "pay off the house with the insurance money."
"She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," said her husband, John Balderrama. "Apparently she didn't have anyone to talk to. She didn't come to me. I don't know why. There's gotta be some help out there for people that are hurting, (something better) than to see somebody lose a life over a stupid house."
___
Associated Press Writers P. Solomon Banda in Denver, Joann Loviglio in Philadelphia, Juanita Cousins in Atlanta, Samantha Gross in New York and John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report."
Capitalism requires us to 'dominate ourselves'
Date: 2008-10-14 07:32 pm (UTC)The UK has been run by the biggest pyramid selling scheme in history. "Nobody saw this coming" - except, y'know, a drunk goat with half a GCSE in maths.
1. Establish Neo-communism immediately - no paranoia, no dictatorship, bloody amazing art and design
2. Tie government borrowing and lending to a new Gold Standard
3. Cap all house prices at a maximum of five times the average local salary
4. Confiscate under-occupied dwellings and return these to the social pool. Offer occupants a place on a waiting list
5. Confiscate all 'second homes' and 'buy-to-let' and return these to the social pool
6. Redefine employee wages as a percentage of senior directors and CEO salaries
For a start..
The new kulaks
Date: 2008-10-15 11:44 am (UTC)Re: The new kulaks
Date: 2008-10-15 01:23 pm (UTC)The housing shortage, from my personal experience, is not due to immigrants, but singletons and couples who have 'traded up' and purchased all the family homes.
As mentioned, people wanting their own personal space (but taking everyone else's) will be put on the social housing list.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 10:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-15 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-14 11:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-15 02:13 am (UTC)Dalston Woodsmen
Date: 2008-10-15 10:09 am (UTC)On a tangent, I'm wondering where the "Lavender Bridge" that Lightspeed Champion claims to be falling off? It sounds like one of those faux-rustic house product brands you see in Lidl. Could there be a nexus between hipster-folk and budget groceries?
notes from london
Date: 2008-10-15 01:21 pm (UTC)Re: notes from london
Date: 2008-10-15 02:17 pm (UTC)Re: notes from london
Date: 2008-10-16 12:10 am (UTC)Re: notes from london
Date: 2008-10-16 02:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-16 12:07 am (UTC)