RMOAMLC (6)
OTHERWISE OCCUPIED
It’s Monday morning and joy of joys I have an out of office meeting in Ludgate Circus. I have left myself plenty of time to spare and exit the tube at Bank to walk the remainder of the way. As I walk along Cheapside it occurs to me that I haven’t met up with Julian for a while so I call him.
“Hi Julian, its Olly.”
“Olly, I was going to call you.”
“Well what do you know I’ve saved you the trouble. I was wondering if you wanted to meet up this week.”
“Definitely. Love to. What did you have in mind?”
“I thought we could have a few beers and get a curry,” I venture.
There is a definite pause at the other end of the line. It is pregnant with unease. “I’m not sure I fancy that,” says Julian.
I’m taken aback. “Well what do you want to do instead?” I ask.
“I’m not sure really. I just don’t fancy beer and curry.”
It just goes to show you never really know another person. Julian and I always have beer and curry. Sometimes if we're in a rush we might skip the curry but I thought we held a shared belief that beer and curry represented the zenith of human social interaction. “What’s wrong with beer and curry?” I ask unable to keep a slight edge of petulance out of my voice
“There’s nothing wrong with it as such,” says Julian sounding defensive.
“’As such?’ ‘As such?’” I repeat, “We always have beer and curry what’s changed?”
“Well if you must know,” says Julian, I’m tired of waking up with a thick head and a bad stomach.”
I’m forced to pause and consider these points. There is more than a grain of truth in his objection but before I can acknowledge this Julian goes on, “And I’m fed up of waking in the middle of the night with a raging thirst because of all the salt…..” This too is something I am familiar with but there is more, “..And we always end up talking shit…”
“But its entertaining shit,” I interject hoping Julian will laugh and realise how petty his objections sound but he is warming to his subject and is not about to be deflected.
“…And the last time we went out I fell asleep on the train and woke up at the end of the line. It cost me £50 to get home by taxi…..”
“Well you can’t complain if you have to pay the idiot tax,” I joke.
“…And Tamzin made me sleep on the sofa when I got in and didn’t speak to me for 2 days.”
“Well that’s marriage for you,” I say in what I hope is a sympathetic tone.
“Oh it’s alright for you. No wonder you’re separated.”
This last comment brings the conversation to a juddering halt as we both realise that Julian has crossed an invisible line.
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that last bit.”
“Don’t mention it,” I say magnanimously. “So let me just summarise where we are. You are suggesting that just because it gives you a headache, bad stomach, disturbed sleep, makes you talk nonsense, renders you incapable of alighting from a train at the correct stop, costs you £50 and damages your relationship with your wife this somehow outweighs the positive sensations you get from the complex matrix of delights that is created when you mix beer and curry.” I’m confident that striped down and stated starkly like this Julian will see the folly of his position.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” says Julian seemingly blind to the obvious flaws in his case.
I try another tack. “So what do you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know,” says Julian, “I haven’t given it much thought.”
I seize on this. “Well you seem to have given an awful lot of thought to the negatives,” I pause to let this well made point sink in, “I simply thought that if you were going to suggest that beer and curry was somehow deficient as a night out you might have taken time to consider how we might improve on it.”
“We could have a coffee,” proffers Julian apologetically.
I snort derisively, “Oh yes, let’s buy Vespas and pinch young girls’ bottoms while we’re at it.”
“Well, like I say I haven’t really given it much thought,” says Julian.
“Obviously!”
“Surely as two mature adults we could conceive of some alternative way of spending the evening,” implores Julian.
“The floor is all yours,” I say, “You name it and we’ll give it a go.”
“Oh I don’t know,” sighs Julian with a resigned air, “how about we meet at the Red Lion?”
“Great idea,” I answer triumphantly and as I approach St Paul’s Cathedral and ring off I can almost taste the chicken biryani. Out of idle curiosity I decide to visit the collection of tents that house the Occupy London protest. On my inspection it appears that capitalism can sleep safely in its bed. The tightly packed tents seem to significantly outnumber those visibly protesting. A young man is labouring energetically to produce a sound from two small hand drums and another man is producing a very proficient depiction of St Pauls on the pavement using chalks. Neither of these two exertions seems likely to bring the existing world order to its knees so I turn my attention to the sheets of agitprop taped to every available wall in the vicinity. I’m reading a fascinating polemic against the global conspiracy of bankers and have just reached the point where I‘m invited to consider the works of David Icke for further information on the subject when I am approached by a woman wearing a woolly hat. “You a banker?” she asks.
“No,” I reply. The woman seems a little disappointed. “Would it matter if I was?” I ask helpfully.
“Course it would. Bankers are why we’re in the mess we’re in.”
I suspect that Woolly Hat could talk at some length on this topic and so, hoping to throw her off her stride, I launch a pre-emptive strike. “Surely bankers are not solely responsible,” I say. She looks at me with a mixture of pity and dismay and emboldened by her evident surprise I go on, “Our current problems are symptoms of far bigger issues; it is a feature of our economic system that there will be cycles of boom and bust.”
“Exactly!” says Woolly Hat and now it is my turn to be surprised. I’m not quite sure how I come to be in agreement with this woman. “The whole system is corrupt, it needs to be changed,” she asserts stridently.
“So you are advocating that we do away with capitalism are you?” As I ask my question I am confident that Woolly Hat does not realise the rhetorical trap I’m setting for her.
“Most definitely,” she responds.
“Right, and what do you say we should put in its place?” I ask.
I haven’t given it much thought,” replies my interlocutor.
“Ha! I thought as much,” I comment and as I head to my meeting I congratulate myself on not one but two victories for cool headed reason over the perils of woolly thinking in the course of a single morning.
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