22/01/2009 by admin.

Here I am with what some have called ‘man flu’ , that is a very bad head cold. I have suffered from real ‘flu so have no difficulty in making the distinction. Real ‘flu is totally disabling ; the distinction is whether you want to take to bed or not, whether you have unexplained aches and pains or not. However a bad cold is somewhat disabling - I wanted to go out yesterday but thought I had better not, partly for fear of giving others my cold , partly so my cold wouldn’t get worse and partly because of the embarrassment of continually using tissues in a public gathering.

A cold makes you feel so low that you imagine that when it is better you will be able to face the world anew,even with the stock market in free fall and financial institutions in a state of collapse  So when it stops you can make those positive resolutions once again. Sorry got to go to blow my nose!

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10/01/2009 by admin.

Economists have never been more challenged, There is so much disagreement between them it isn’t true. Thus the recession/has bottomed out/will get deeper/will recover during the third quarter of 2009/ not until the fourth quarter of 2010.

 It almost makes you want to believe the Government.

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01/01/2009 by admin.

Multiple uncertainties on one level; enduring continuity on the other. I suppose it always was so.

It is always difficult for us to imagine what people must have felt at the beginning of other difficult years so, for instance, I cannot imagine what my parents were feeling the year I was born just about 6 months after the great Wall Street crash. My Dad was never unemployed - his great boast - but he worked hard for what he got

Then the years I do remember. Ten years later the world was at war and I do remember entering 1940 apprehensively as a fearful small boy just entering “big” school where we practised wearing our gas masks in the school air raid shelter; ten years later the world was  slowly recovering and I drew my rations at the College Buttery. Many shortages still but Bath Oliver biscuits the great treat and college port (at a price - how modest it seems now) in plentiful supply. Ten years after that when I was married and needing to get to the first rung on the housing ladder. So it went on into the years of plenty.

 Who knows what 2009 will bring? We can old as the hymn says “redeem our mis-spent moments past and live each day as if our last”. Enjoy!

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