Following on from yesterday, here's my attempt at some new commandments for the cultured middle class.
1. Do not walk down the street holding coffee.
2. Don't use the internet for recreation or to alleviate boredom, unless you are at work.
3. Only communicate with the people you care about directly, never address them as an undifferentiated mass. (aka Thou shall not tweet or post status updates)
4. Never queue more than 20 minutes to eat.
5. Directly help the most deprived in your community, preferably in a way that doesn't use any of your professional skills. If you really can't spare the time, donate to a local charity and carefully read all of the literature it sends you.
6. Only read the Guardian once a week.
7. Refrain from celebrating gentrification. Don't eat or drink in the most gentrified place on your high street.
8. Be price-sensitive: don't buy things that seem unnecessarily expensive.
9. Spend time in local working class spaces and learn to be respectful towards such spaces and comfortable within them. Remember that multiculturalism includes indigenous class cultures as well as immigrant cultures.
10. You always look undignified when checking your phone. Never let anyone see you do it.
Saturday, 24 May 2014
Friday, 23 May 2014
Half a thought
Don't have time to sketch this out totally, but imagine if you wanted to "fix" the cultural middle class by means of a short manifesto, or rather, a series of pledges to abstain from certain behaviours. What would you put on it? And I mean quite specific, literal pledges rather than abstract, open-to-interpretation notions. Ten Commandments type stuff. Like, "Do not tweet". The commandments are allowed to be clunky, babies are allowed to be thrown out with bathwater. They don't have to be prohibitions either, I guess you could insist that people, for example, maintain a certain proportion of serious reading to watching box sets, but that already seems to be slipping towards "self-improvement" rather than abstinence and self-negation in service of others.
The commandments have to be adopted voluntarily, so they have to resonate with people in the first instance - it's a mutual, collective exercise in self-control and self-discipline. They don't have to cover every little thing - the idea is that, once the five or ten commandments are adopted, they will serve as metaphors or principles informing all other areas of behaviour. The commandments will disrupt the fabric of an infantilised, self-obsessed culture. But they will sneak into that culture in a familiar form, like a computer virus - it will be like the 5:2 diet or "The Rules" or something. "Yes I'd love to meet for a drink, I can't drink in that pub though because the price of a pint is above the acceptable level laid out in the Commandments. Let's go to the other one, OK?".
Anyway don't have time to sketch it out, but what would go in?
The commandments have to be adopted voluntarily, so they have to resonate with people in the first instance - it's a mutual, collective exercise in self-control and self-discipline. They don't have to cover every little thing - the idea is that, once the five or ten commandments are adopted, they will serve as metaphors or principles informing all other areas of behaviour. The commandments will disrupt the fabric of an infantilised, self-obsessed culture. But they will sneak into that culture in a familiar form, like a computer virus - it will be like the 5:2 diet or "The Rules" or something. "Yes I'd love to meet for a drink, I can't drink in that pub though because the price of a pint is above the acceptable level laid out in the Commandments. Let's go to the other one, OK?".
Anyway don't have time to sketch it out, but what would go in?
Thursday, 22 May 2014
19:30 update
Typing this on phone, can't edit last post.
Walked with Jess to polling booth. Stood outside polling booth for three minutes, cracked and went in intending to vote Green. As soon as I got in I regretted it, immediately felt ashamed and humiliated. Took my three ballot papers into the booth and ran the pencil down the boxes. I liked how it felt so I carried on carving languid pencil strokes over the whole surface of each paper. I was kind of in a trance, it was relaxing. I thought about drawing a cock on one of the papers but then thought of the poor volunteer counting the ballots. I drew a smiley face on each ballot instead, maybe it will cheer them up. By now I was totally calm. I folded the ballots, dropped them in a box. As I walked another guy walked in, he looked like a twitterer and I hated him in that moment.
I've always found premeditated ballot spoiling silly and twerpish, but this felt kind of OK. I realise as I type this that my account sounds a bit like accounts of people who self-harm.
Walked with Jess to polling booth. Stood outside polling booth for three minutes, cracked and went in intending to vote Green. As soon as I got in I regretted it, immediately felt ashamed and humiliated. Took my three ballot papers into the booth and ran the pencil down the boxes. I liked how it felt so I carried on carving languid pencil strokes over the whole surface of each paper. I was kind of in a trance, it was relaxing. I thought about drawing a cock on one of the papers but then thought of the poor volunteer counting the ballots. I drew a smiley face on each ballot instead, maybe it will cheer them up. By now I was totally calm. I folded the ballots, dropped them in a box. As I walked another guy walked in, he looked like a twitterer and I hated him in that moment.
I've always found premeditated ballot spoiling silly and twerpish, but this felt kind of OK. I realise as I type this that my account sounds a bit like accounts of people who self-harm.
Election Day liveblog
10:46
I'm planning on not voting today, partially because I went to Goldsmiths and I agree with Russell Brand, but also as an experiment to see what it feels like. The experiment is related to my theory of the governance class, I think. Have I become so conditioned to 'doing my duty' that I cannot bring myself not to vote?
I didn't bother voting in the 2012 US presidential election and that felt perfectly fine, but this is the UK, where I've voted in every possible election since obtaining citizenship in 2004 (except for the AV referendum, but that was because I moved house and couldn't sort out a postal ballot when on holiday). Reading the Guardian liveblog, I already feel slightly uneasy about not voting, I might not be able to hold out the whole day, but let's see.
For context, I am planning to not vote for:
- London MEP
- Lewisham Council
- Mayor of Lewisham
Anyway let's see how I get on.
12:02
Listening to a Michael Sandel Radio 4 show on the ethics of voting. Everything they are saying is making me feel better about not voting.
13:15
Just learned that people are now taking selfies in voting booths and posting them on Twitter. I will probably never vote again.
13:57
Reader Al from The North gets in touch BTL to say he has held his nose and voted Green. I think that is the party I would probably vote for if I were to vote, or at least the party whose policies I agree with the most, e.g. basic income, land tax - I've just finished Polanyi's The Great Transformation (which I really recommend, old school accessible sociology/history/economics in the vein of The Affluent Society or The Rise of the Meritocracy) and he has a good attack on the "fictitious commodities" of labour, land and money. The Greens seem to be going along those lines.
I guess as a small, democratically-run party they inevitably attract nutcases - apparently their annual conference narrowly avoided adding some kind of "9/11 truth" policy to their manifesto - but I suppose I shouldn't let that become too much of an issue for me, that problem sort of fixes itself as a party grows. I think it's the "green" bit that puts me off, I don't trust people who make the environment central to their politics, as I suspect it means they basically don't like humans.
There's also the problem of what they would do in power, or even in coalition. There's a new Neighbourhood Forum just set up in New Cross by some local residents, both urban planners. Their stated aim is to help New Cross residents have some say over how the area is redeveloped as capital flows in. Their manifesto is a mix of serious things like ensuring affordable housing, investment in schools etc, as well as more flighty, creative class type stuff about the built environment, re-envisaging public spaces, incentivising creative businesses etc. I don't doubt that they really care about the former, but my fear is that they will quickly realise that issues of housing and deprivation are very difficult to tackle and will just end up focusing on getting the little government grants to run small, tweetable projects that will only serve to gentrify the area and push up my fucking rent. I've already had a polite online exchange of views with the founder over his constant hyping of the area's few gentrified businesses (including one that hadn't even opened yet) as beacon for the future - ignoring that New Cross actually has a relatively stable and apparently thriving retail mix of BYO Turkish restaurants, black hairdressers etc.
Anyway my point is that if the Greens got in, I reckon they'd bottle it on basic income and land tax and just force everyone to use like eight fucking bins when recycling and call it day. I love living in Lewisham and not having to recycle, fuck Hackney.
I was feeling bad about not voting when I started writing this but now I'm back on track.
15:40
Just saw a tweet from the P-----m Liberal Club, a working men's club I belong to, reminding people to vote by linking to a Bob and Roberta Smith pro-voting art poster image. You could write a thesis on that tweet.
I started drinking there about 18 months ago when it was facing bankruptcy and had more or less become an illegal drinking den. It's basically where the remaining white working class of Peckham go to drink, the old ones anyway. I joined it just to get away from SE London gentrified wanky pubs and save some money (£2.75 a pint of mild). The club was nearly sold into flats last August, but then it was saved. You can probably guess who saved it. The club is back in the black thanks to the hard work of some local creative class types, but now there is like yoga and shit going on there and the Saturday night bingo keeps getting moved out of the hall to a side room to make way for private events like "underground" short films, craft markets, you know the drill.
I'm not saying that this is A Bad Thing, it saved the club - in fact I really don't have any criticism at all of the new people coming in, other than that they've removed one of the few remaining sanctuaries I had from their type, as they've been fairly sensitive to the situation. But I love - LOVE - how doggedly ungrateful, resentful and mistrustful most of the long-term members have been towards their "saviours". Oh you're a nice couple, a bit middle-class but you're really on our side? Hmm, where have we heard that before?
Anyway, a tweet from the Liberal Club reminding me via Bob and fucking Roberta Smith to vote, brilliant. I'm fairly certain almost all of the members will be voting UKIP.
Regarding voting as a nice harmless ritual, that's something I'd always believed (having always voted in very safe seats) until I started to think that maybe it's not so harmless if it is, in fact, just a ritual. I started to suspect that someone, somewhere, is laughing at me trooping off to do my democratic duty. This is kind of what finally gave me the resolve to quit smoking - the idea that some fat Republican prick in the American South was making millions off me killing myself - not just killing myself, but convincing myself that I was living life to the fullest, like a bon viveur, unlike all the uptight Protestant squares around me. I suppose that's the little intuition that's crept into my head - when I vote, is someone mugging me off? Is it actually degrading to vote in 2014 Britain?
16:18
Just checked Facebook (I am trying to finish that pub article but massively procrastinating) and the club tweeter has also posted that Bob and Roberta Smith poster on her personal page, writing above it "Yes! Vote-a-doodle-dandy.."
Vote-a-doodle-dandy.
(She's voting Green).
17:57
Resolve hasn't really weakened, although voting Green suddenly seems tempting. I've always thrown them a patronising 2nd preference when given the opportunity, voting for them outright would feel kind of new.
19:04
I've just convinced Jess to vote (she just got home). Will now walk with her to polling station and see if I can still resist. Our conversation went like this:
O: Did you vote?
J: No, I don't know anything about what's going on in Lewisham, what the issues are.
O: Well who do you trust to run Lewisham?
J: Labour. I'm going to vote Labour!
I should work for the Labour party.
I'm planning on not voting today, partially because I went to Goldsmiths and I agree with Russell Brand, but also as an experiment to see what it feels like. The experiment is related to my theory of the governance class, I think. Have I become so conditioned to 'doing my duty' that I cannot bring myself not to vote?
I didn't bother voting in the 2012 US presidential election and that felt perfectly fine, but this is the UK, where I've voted in every possible election since obtaining citizenship in 2004 (except for the AV referendum, but that was because I moved house and couldn't sort out a postal ballot when on holiday). Reading the Guardian liveblog, I already feel slightly uneasy about not voting, I might not be able to hold out the whole day, but let's see.
For context, I am planning to not vote for:
- London MEP
- Lewisham Council
- Mayor of Lewisham
Anyway let's see how I get on.
12:02
Listening to a Michael Sandel Radio 4 show on the ethics of voting. Everything they are saying is making me feel better about not voting.
13:15
Just learned that people are now taking selfies in voting booths and posting them on Twitter. I will probably never vote again.
13:57
Reader Al from The North gets in touch BTL to say he has held his nose and voted Green. I think that is the party I would probably vote for if I were to vote, or at least the party whose policies I agree with the most, e.g. basic income, land tax - I've just finished Polanyi's The Great Transformation (which I really recommend, old school accessible sociology/history/economics in the vein of The Affluent Society or The Rise of the Meritocracy) and he has a good attack on the "fictitious commodities" of labour, land and money. The Greens seem to be going along those lines.
I guess as a small, democratically-run party they inevitably attract nutcases - apparently their annual conference narrowly avoided adding some kind of "9/11 truth" policy to their manifesto - but I suppose I shouldn't let that become too much of an issue for me, that problem sort of fixes itself as a party grows. I think it's the "green" bit that puts me off, I don't trust people who make the environment central to their politics, as I suspect it means they basically don't like humans.
There's also the problem of what they would do in power, or even in coalition. There's a new Neighbourhood Forum just set up in New Cross by some local residents, both urban planners. Their stated aim is to help New Cross residents have some say over how the area is redeveloped as capital flows in. Their manifesto is a mix of serious things like ensuring affordable housing, investment in schools etc, as well as more flighty, creative class type stuff about the built environment, re-envisaging public spaces, incentivising creative businesses etc. I don't doubt that they really care about the former, but my fear is that they will quickly realise that issues of housing and deprivation are very difficult to tackle and will just end up focusing on getting the little government grants to run small, tweetable projects that will only serve to gentrify the area and push up my fucking rent. I've already had a polite online exchange of views with the founder over his constant hyping of the area's few gentrified businesses (including one that hadn't even opened yet) as beacon for the future - ignoring that New Cross actually has a relatively stable and apparently thriving retail mix of BYO Turkish restaurants, black hairdressers etc.
Anyway my point is that if the Greens got in, I reckon they'd bottle it on basic income and land tax and just force everyone to use like eight fucking bins when recycling and call it day. I love living in Lewisham and not having to recycle, fuck Hackney.
I was feeling bad about not voting when I started writing this but now I'm back on track.
15:40
Just saw a tweet from the P-----m Liberal Club, a working men's club I belong to, reminding people to vote by linking to a Bob and Roberta Smith pro-voting art poster image. You could write a thesis on that tweet.
I started drinking there about 18 months ago when it was facing bankruptcy and had more or less become an illegal drinking den. It's basically where the remaining white working class of Peckham go to drink, the old ones anyway. I joined it just to get away from SE London gentrified wanky pubs and save some money (£2.75 a pint of mild). The club was nearly sold into flats last August, but then it was saved. You can probably guess who saved it. The club is back in the black thanks to the hard work of some local creative class types, but now there is like yoga and shit going on there and the Saturday night bingo keeps getting moved out of the hall to a side room to make way for private events like "underground" short films, craft markets, you know the drill.
I'm not saying that this is A Bad Thing, it saved the club - in fact I really don't have any criticism at all of the new people coming in, other than that they've removed one of the few remaining sanctuaries I had from their type, as they've been fairly sensitive to the situation. But I love - LOVE - how doggedly ungrateful, resentful and mistrustful most of the long-term members have been towards their "saviours". Oh you're a nice couple, a bit middle-class but you're really on our side? Hmm, where have we heard that before?
Anyway, a tweet from the Liberal Club reminding me via Bob and fucking Roberta Smith to vote, brilliant. I'm fairly certain almost all of the members will be voting UKIP.
Regarding voting as a nice harmless ritual, that's something I'd always believed (having always voted in very safe seats) until I started to think that maybe it's not so harmless if it is, in fact, just a ritual. I started to suspect that someone, somewhere, is laughing at me trooping off to do my democratic duty. This is kind of what finally gave me the resolve to quit smoking - the idea that some fat Republican prick in the American South was making millions off me killing myself - not just killing myself, but convincing myself that I was living life to the fullest, like a bon viveur, unlike all the uptight Protestant squares around me. I suppose that's the little intuition that's crept into my head - when I vote, is someone mugging me off? Is it actually degrading to vote in 2014 Britain?
16:18
Just checked Facebook (I am trying to finish that pub article but massively procrastinating) and the club tweeter has also posted that Bob and Roberta Smith poster on her personal page, writing above it "Yes! Vote-a-doodle-dandy.."
Vote-a-doodle-dandy.
(She's voting Green).
17:57
Resolve hasn't really weakened, although voting Green suddenly seems tempting. I've always thrown them a patronising 2nd preference when given the opportunity, voting for them outright would feel kind of new.
19:04
I've just convinced Jess to vote (she just got home). Will now walk with her to polling station and see if I can still resist. Our conversation went like this:
O: Did you vote?
J: No, I don't know anything about what's going on in Lewisham, what the issues are.
O: Well who do you trust to run Lewisham?
J: Labour. I'm going to vote Labour!
I should work for the Labour party.
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Job searching
I said in my last post that I have a policy of not discussing my job search - to clarify, I mean that I am not discussing particular jobs applied for, industries/roles being targeted, progress in applications. The overall plan is that I will be totally silent/evasive about what I am up to, and then suddenly just announce that I'm moving to Dover to become a fireman (for example).
I will confide that I basically have no strategy at all, other than applying for London jobs first before giving up and applying elsewhere (I like the idea of living in Kent). This is more for my wife's benefit, although I would miss my London friends, my tai chi class and my band.
I have some dark patches where I basically feel that I'm already on the scrapheap, and I just want to move to a monastery. But I remind myself that this job thing is not about me, it's just a puzzle I have to solve in order to eat and have dignity. I'm trying to leave the creative class precisely because it depends too much on "passion" and identification with your job - it's no good starting to fixate on and romanticise other lines of work. I have to detach myself from the process. This is why I am not talking about it - I don't want to reinforce any embryonic attachment to a particular job opportunity or line of work. It's just a puzzle. Present myself in the right way to the right employer, and I'm all set. It's not about me.
All I am really trying to do is to provide my wife with some stability while she builds her career. Then I will live off the millions she will rake in as a professor of visual cultures!
I will confide that I basically have no strategy at all, other than applying for London jobs first before giving up and applying elsewhere (I like the idea of living in Kent). This is more for my wife's benefit, although I would miss my London friends, my tai chi class and my band.
I have some dark patches where I basically feel that I'm already on the scrapheap, and I just want to move to a monastery. But I remind myself that this job thing is not about me, it's just a puzzle I have to solve in order to eat and have dignity. I'm trying to leave the creative class precisely because it depends too much on "passion" and identification with your job - it's no good starting to fixate on and romanticise other lines of work. I have to detach myself from the process. This is why I am not talking about it - I don't want to reinforce any embryonic attachment to a particular job opportunity or line of work. It's just a puzzle. Present myself in the right way to the right employer, and I'm all set. It's not about me.
All I am really trying to do is to provide my wife with some stability while she builds her career. Then I will live off the millions she will rake in as a professor of visual cultures!
Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Maths and English
Wow, leaving it late today.
I have a new policy of not discussing my job search at all, even with my wife, so I can't really talk about what I did today, but it was job search related. It involved doing very basic maths and English tests at a community college. Some of the maths was worryingly tricky - I've fucking forgotten how to do long division. The worst one was this:
"Sarah wants to watch how much fat she is eating. The recommended daily intake for women is 70g. The meal she is cooking contains 48g. What percentage of her daily intake is that? Round it to the nearest number."
Go ahead, try to do it without a computer. Maybe it will be second nature to you, I don't know. It took me like ten minutes. Got it right though.
I also had to take an ICT test, things like word processing, database programmes, presentation programmes, spreadsheets, emails. I did slightly worse than expected on this and retook it - I was particularly annoyed that I only got a Level 1 on presentation programmes rather than a Level 2, even though the whole point of me being there is to avoid ever making a fucking Powerpoint ever again, ever.
Also the beer article that broke my spirit was published today, it's had a good response.
Monday, 19 May 2014
So close to freedom
Just pinged off the executive summary of the report I'm writing for that charity. Literally one pub interview to write up and I can stop using the computer (except for my daily blog obvs).
Tried to go dancing last night at 10:30pm, there was a "world music" band at the Royal Albert. I had heard them doing a session on Cerys Matthews' 6Music show in the day, and they mentioned they were playing Deptford. We went to the cinema at 6, saw The Two Faces of January (terrible name, great-looking film but kind of unsatisfying), went home and ate, watched the Baftas and then headed out. The band had finished! We are just too European for this crowd. Went to the New Cross Inn instead for a student cocktail (Singapore Sling, 2 for £7). That place is growing on me a bit, I was put off when the prices went up. They now have a convoluted time-based pricing system - there's a board listing spirits that says things like:
House spirits - B4 8pm 2.50 / Happy Hour 1.70 / After 8pm 3.60
It's slightly wrong because happy hour is 7pm-8pm Mon-Thurs, so it should be "B4 7pm except Fri-Sun 8pm"
Same for the beer and cider, you can get a Thatchers for £2.90 before 7pm, £2 during happy hour. The Bird's Nest down the road, a genuinely good pub, does a £2.50 happy hour weekdays from 5pm-7pm, including all the new ales and craft beers the manager's brought on, great value. And Nouvelle Spice, my favourite local BYO curry house, does a £5.50 buffet from 12-5pm every day.
Nightlife in New Cross is for losers, in other words: it's all about going out in the day. Maybe I should get a job as a baker or market porter or something.
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