Perhaps this will not be in keeping with the festive mood which should be in the air but I wanted to write this post just to get some things off the man breasts. I suppose it won’t make much sense really, and in the grand scheme of things, people will disregard it as a piece of writing and more the dribble falling out of someone’s mouth made into sentences. But I suppose I had to get this down, even if only to make some small part of my aching body feel better. A little bit of history to start this all off with is in order first;

I was born in London though never really lived here until 6 months ago when coming down for a new job and possibly to progress further in a field than wouldn’t have been possible elsewhere. Everyone knows that London possesses opportunities and experiences you can’t get anywhere else, that is why many people come here.

I came down with ideas that it would be filled with fun days, great nights and hopefully things would begin to look up, far more than they had done in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, I was aware of some of the differences that come between London and where I came from, sunny Shropshire, and I didn’t have any illusions it would be easy.

But when I got here a few months ago, even I had not prepared for what was to come and in fact not a lot of people believe it either.

People, work, money, money and then even more money with booze to top it all off with, it all revolves around the fact that unless you are famous or indeed just lucky enough to be rich, you are most welcome in the capital, whereas the majority of people fall silently into the good night without so much as a fart or even heaven forbid, a thank you for working double your hours for free.

And so because the title of Lord of Leisure doesn’t come with state funding (at least, not yet) let’s assume we are all in the working group of the population here.

It seems that on one hand you are encouraged to progress and on the other, heaven help you if you try and go above your station, or make a mistake, as we are constantly reminded by our taskmasters, you are replaceable. They will simply remove you and get some other poor sap to work the long hours, threaten them with the fake pressures and loss of money and the cycle repeats over and over.

Someone once wrote “Evil prospers when good people do nothing” or words to that effect. In quite a lot of places here in the capital, there are plenty of evidence of this type of evil growing in power. So why is no-one angry?

Why aren’t people concerned that this is the environment we all live in? Maybe it’s people’s indifference is what is making this a worse place, like good soldiers we have simply gotten used to it. It’s the way it is. Such a wonderful answer without giving anything away as to why it is the way it is. It’s been like this for all time, and it will be like this always.

Then I start looking at the bigger picture for once. It would be nice to think during these financially harsh times that people do take the time back and live for themselves as opposed for their taskmasters. But instead the overwhelming sense of what would happen if they had no money coming in lingers in the air like a bad smell from a dog’s bottom and no-one wants to take that chance, so are more than happy to carry it on as long as nothing bad happens to them.

I suppose the credit crunch has done much to knock people in many respects. Don’t want to spend any money, go anywhere, do anything, just in case there are further bad times to be had. People are being more reserved and well, I know you could argue: About time. We’ve had it good for far too long and maybe it’s good that we all realise there are consequences to our actions.

But there is another side which I failed to consider: fear. No-one’s spending, which buggers the politicians’ plans over, which means less money going into companies back pockets and because they answer to shareholders, they have to give dividends regardless, which means people are sacked to keep the margins nice, which means less people spending, which after a cycle of all this means things are worse. It’s Groundhog Day without Andie McDowell,which actually is not a bad thing but the point is, that is where we are at now.

And now it’s the fear of losing everything which is now driving us all to work far more than we should. Thing is, now it’s expected of us to do far more normally. What happens when the workload becomes too much for too little?

Right now, the whole lot is just so confusing to a simple person like me, and maybe that is why this waffle is more “waffly” than normal. Then again most things are confusing, like why every tube train smells like wee and vomit even after being cleaned twice…