Stupid Credit Crunch is making me read pointless things
According to every publication in Britain published in the last few months, we are in a credit crunch. Every single one. It’s starting to get annoying. I think most of us are aware of this by now. It feels like everything that has has ever been published is being re-released with a credit crunch angle. Journalists are salivating with the prospect of rewriting travel articles, handy tips, and where to shop, all with this exciting new slant that the world is broke. It now seems to be all about beating the credit crunch with 3 for 2 deals on microwave currys in the supermarket or going on holiday to Croatia. Even my local pub has a Tuesday night ‘beat the credit crunch with our £10-for-a-bottle-of-wine deal’. It always had this deal. Is this really the way to fix the economy?
Thankfully our leaders are calming us with speeches saying: “We will do what needs to be done. For, er, as long as it needs to be done.” Thank god for that. They really seem to be on top of it. Not being vague at all. One solution has been to print more money and whack that back into the economy. Like Zimbabwe. It’s all very depressing and repetitve and tedious.
The result has been that I have tried to avoid the popular press for a couple of days and I’ve been scouring all the piles of magazines that have littered my flat. I have discovered a few things of minor interest that I would not have otherwise known. For example, Hitler really did only have one ball. Apparently the evil moustachioed dictator received abdominal wounds in the battle of the Somme and had to have testicle cut off. The doctor who did it confessed it to a priest in the 60s as he felt guilty about saving Hitler’s life. The fact was finally revealed years after the doctor’s death.
Plus:
According to Fortean Times (FT246 March 2009):
“Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, killed in Mumbai by Islamic militants who stormed the prayer centre he ran, was reading a book called How to Protect Yourself If Terrorists Come To Your House. After the seige, it was found beside his bed. Gold Coast (Queensland) Bulletin, 10 Dec 2008.” Surely this can’t be true? I wouldn’t want to question Australian publication’s veracity but the title sounds suspiciously specific.
I have also been reading a lot about Shakespeare and how we know bugger all about him. Just the odd fact like he was born and died on the same day (years apart obviously) on the 23rd of April – St George’s Day. No wonder he was so patriotic.
Mostly though, I have been playing Fallout 3 on the Playstation 3. You wander around a post-apocalyptic world shooting mutants and eating rabid dogs and giant irradiated cockroaches. I find it surprisingly soothing. Nothing like a bit of perspective. Even if it is fictional.
