Novelist Kate Mosse on Desert Island Discs the other day told us that she usually gets up at about 4.30 in the morning so that she can put some time into writing before the rest of the household is up and about. She likes to hear the birds at that time of day. I can confirm the birdsong! I am occasionally woken by it. Apart from going to the loo, I am not tempted to get up and do things.
(That’s another of life’s mysteries: in the small hours do we wake up because we need to go to the loo or do we need to go to the loo because we wake up? Hmm!)
I can appreciate the pleasure of being up and about early. There was a time when I used to get up at 7.00 or earlier just to be able to have time alone with my father, who was an early riser. Not that we talked about anything too profound but it was always good to watch the day wake up together. Nowadays I set my alarm for 8.00 and usually snooze it at least once! It’s amazing how well you can sleep in the morning.
We hear quite a lot in the media about the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates but today I read about the richest man in the world, a Frenchman called Bernard Arnault. Apparently he has overtaken Elon Musk as the world’s number one rich person. Maybe he’s well known in France but I had never heard of him and compared with other rich men he seems remarkably quiet. Wikipedia describes him as “a French business magnate, investor, and art collector. He is the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury goods company.”
He appears to have spread some money around in France, helping with various projects to do with post-covid recovery and donating money towards the restoration of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. And he has an art gallery in Paris. The writer of the article about him suggested that the money his company donates to good causes is roughly €45m. This, the writer tells us “is like an average French household (in a country where the median net wealth is €124,800) giving about €25 to their dearest causes. Or, if you add in the €43m from LVMH to help the Musée d’Orsay acquire a painting by Gustave Caillebotte this year, then that average family dug deep and gave about €50. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s not missing a zero.” Maybe he gives away more privately without making a fuss about it.
Wealth is all relative of course. Some can put millions without a blink into foundations to help the homeless (Polly Toynbee writes: “Prince William is going to solve homelessness with a new royal foundation, launching a project called Homewards that starts with £3m for six towns and cities across the UK” and then says it’s just drop in the ocean) and some of are just glad to be able help the family out from time to time.
In discussion with a friend I described someone as “well off”. He responded that he didn’t know that person was wealthy: he thought he worked for Manchester University. He decided that he was thinking of “independently wealthy” whereas he now assumed I meant “professional middle class”. Nowadays, of course, the “professional middle class” are also being squeezed and, if they are still paying a mortgage, may not manage to set aside money for a rainy day or for helping out their offspring at a future date.
This is turning into a rather gloomy post. So in that vein here’s another quote from the Guardian, this time on the Covid inquiry:
"Prof Philip Banfield, the chair of the British Medical Association, has said there was “no doubt that both staff and patients were put in harm’s way” because of underfunding in the decade running up to the start of the pandemic."”
There you go. And to round things off on an equally dismal note, here’s a link to an article about the disappearance of arts and culture from state educational establishments.
Hey! Ho!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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