Frost already? Attitudes to money and work. That Queue.

There was frost on the bowling green at the Cricket and Bowling Club this morning. Alongside the path that goes through the wooded valley between the two millponds on the edge of the village there was frost ln the grass and the nettles and other leafy plants. It was only a light frost, very pretty and all that, but still, isn’t it a bit early even for that? It’s only September 17th and it doesn’t seem all that long since the weathermen were going on about our sweltering under a heatwave! I had better get out and  pick some more blackberries before they are all frosted to mush. It’s a nice day for foraging: bright and crisp and sunny. The wind is cold though. Forget autumn, we seem to be heading directly into winter.

I was reading an article about the writer Terry Pratchett, whose books I probably should re-read. They are a nice mix of light relief and a critical look at the world and all its madness. I suspect the article was intended to help publicise his autobiography/biography/memoir - a book he never finished because of the early onset Alzheimer’s disease that eventually killed and now completed by his assistant Rob Wilkins - Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes. 

In the article, an edited extract from the book, Rob Wilkins writes about Terry Pratchett’s attitude to publishers’ advances for his books. As his books became more and more popular and his fame grew so the size of the publishers’ advances grew. And Terry Pratchett would bargain the amount down, always worried apparently that the income generated by the sale of the next book would really not merit such a large advance. He didn’t want to cheat by accepting unearned money.

It must have been the morning for finding things about attitudes to work and money because not long after finding the Terry Pratchettbstuff I came across a post on Facebook by a certain Pedr Ap Robert in Campaign to rejoin the EU: 

“MOGG IN THE CHANNEL: EUROPE ISOLATED, Number 267

Rumours abound that, having helped lull us all to sleep with nearly a fortnight of increasingly dumbed-down wallowing in our national bereavement, Mogg plans to abolish the EU-inspired law limiting the working week of most of us to 48 hours. 

With its suggestion that quality of life might occasionally matter more than money - and even a hint that humans are ends in themselves not means to others' - the 48-hour cap was always one of the civilising benefits of EU membership that Brexiters hated most: a classic conflict between price and value in which they always - and on principle - take the wrong side. 

Not that they phrase it like that, of course. They present the 48-hour week as a denial of workers' freedom and the chance to maximise one's earnings (whatever the cost in parental neglect to one's children, especially if all the Nannies have been snapped up by one's betters).

But this merely raises the question why wages are so poor that anyone should HAVE to exceed 48 hours' work a week while those who pay those wages have four cars on the driveway and a His & Hers Discount Card at Beetlebonnets Waxing Emporium in Beaconsfield or Alderley Edge.

Call me cynical, but the abolition of the cap is merely an excuse to squeeze hourly wage rates even further while portraying it as some kind of liberation.

It isn't. “

(In some places, by the way, they are experimenting with reducing the working week while maintaining wages ate the same rate. Oddly enough this seems to have had no negative effect on productivity - quite the opposite.)

Ironically enough the Rees-Mogg stuff appeared on on my Facebook page just above a friend’s post about William, now Prince of Wales, inheriting a yearly income of £23m from the Duchy of Cornwall.

Some comments suggested that this income pays for all sorts of things to do with the upkeep of the estate but the post went on: 

“As heir to the throne, the prince is entitled to the annual surplus generated by the Duchy’s vast portfolio of land, buildings and financial investments.”

and:

“The yearly private income will cover the cost of both William’s public and private life.”

Even if he pays his staff out of this, does even a prince really need so much money each year?

So it goes. It probably depends on what you have grown used to.

And then there is That Queue. I came across this about a survey done by the University of Essex: 

“The University of Essex team also asked people queuing how they vote.

Professor Johns added: “One of the striking findings is that on terms of their party politics, this  is a conservative queue. But, if you ask about their social attitudes, the small “c” conservativeness is not there at all, this was predominantly a remain queue. 

That’s obviously got something to do with the fact that it is easier to get there from Greater London which is more remain, but even if you ask about things like their views on things like classic liberal-conservative things like the death penalty, this is a group slightly more liberal than Britain as a whole.”

It’s amazing what they find to study and do research into.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!