Tag: collective

Time For The Leathers

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Something exciting has happened today. Well not really but we bought a scooter for the pizza takeaway. In reality after the initial excitement of starting up and being the only takeaway here open, we have quietened done a bit. Apparently though this seems to be a common thread for all the takeaways in the village. The rumour is everyone heard we were doing well and decided to open again too but now we’re all just fighting over the scraps and surviving. Even the local caravan site has started selling pizzas, interestingly enough with similar prices to ours but a fraction cheaper. They do though put hardly any filling on and charge quite a lot for extras which we don’t bother charging for at all. It’s interesting this business thing, I can see why people allow it to take over their whole life. It doesn’t mine and I only intend on doing it until the end of the summer once these mythical tourists disappear but still it’s an interesting little experiment. I’m all about the experiences. I’ve dropped the anti-capitalist and become an entrepreneurial money maker, or at least attempting to become a money maker. I’m still not sure I’m taking it quite seriously enough to go full madman and that’s why it’s all a bit of fun. I want to make it a collective but my non-anarchic friends are refusing to countenance such a thing. Can’t quite make it a collective of one and I suspect they would have even more to say if I actually tried.

Anyway the important thing and the reason I started this piece was that we have bought a scooter. My friend who does the deliveries is not keen on it unfortunately and is refusing to drive around the village on it, he’s a car man. That means it’ll be down to me to put our logo on it and become that comedy idiot looking silly on a scooter. I can’t wait. I find scooters ridiculous, probably just as my mate does, but I’m always fine with looking silly. Secretly I’ve always wanted a motorbike and have resisted this far as I suspect I would probably have killed myself but I’m older now and arguably slightly more mature. If I resist my more ridiculous instincts I should be fine but certainly I see this as the first step on the road to buying a motorbike. A cool one mind, not some racer, something that looks a bit beat up and simple. My ego is picturing the intellectuals motorbike whatever the hell that is. I’m also happy to start at the bottom though, and by the time I’m ready for my midlife crisis I should just be good enough to drive an actual real life motorbike. In the meantime I can’t wait to make that ridiculous noise scooters make. Ah village life.

The Covid-19 Miracle

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Times of crisis expose reality for what it is. It is undeniable that we live in a world that thrives on illusions, usually used to sell us things we don’t need and to instil a sense calm servitude. There must be a multitude of old adages about how if we as a collective people knew the truth we would rise up and smash the state and it’s puppetmasters. How true that is is slightly debatable, I don’t have much faith in us not just taking the safe and easy option given such a scenario. I am attempting to avoid talking about this coronavirus with every post but it is quite a challenge when it has entirely taken over our lives, our newsfeeds and our thought processes. Everything seems the same as I look out the window but apparently it isn’t, that may just be one of the illusions I’m still living within.

This then may not yet appear to be a crisis but from all I hear it is already well within that category of event. Even if nothing more happens now, we wake up tomorrow and miraculously Covid-19 has disappeared; we have probably done enough damage to the economy that we’ll suffer another recession. Capitalism thrives on this, we live in an age of disaster capitalism and this will be welcomed with open arms by those already starting to buy up stock on the cheap. I’m not necessarily doubting the severity of this virus, while I doubt there is much danger for myself I worry about my parents, and I know I’ve said this previously. What I will be critical of, and it is another thing to add to the disgustingly large pile of bullshit, is how the media has used any opportunity to sensationalise everything relatable they can. The hysterical criticism of people who have stockpiled food in response to the hysterical whipping up of fear that stocks may run out. Like capitalism, like the vast majority of politicians, the media has no morality. I’m not going to go as far as to say the whole thing has been set up to create a new recession but the media have certainly played such a part in bringing one about, it is easy to justify accusations it is intentional.

Saying all that though, are they not just a creation of our own making. They keep creating sensationalism because all we respond to is sensationalism. If people were more receptive to stories about initiatives in local areas that have been set up to help those in need during this crisis then maybe they would print some. Maybe they don’t exist that’s the problem. I have been attempting to find any local to me and cannot. It is probably too early, people are still out and about.

We have been taught for so long to look out for ourselves and this is easy when things are comfortable, it’s when we struggle that we need to come together. As a society we haven’t really struggled collectively since the Second World War. Politicians are already trying to invoke this kind emotive response but they’re all so pathetic and such weasels that it is hard to take them seriously. Boris Johnson with whistle to his lips about to order us over the top, “Nah you’re alright ya prick, you first…on ya go”. On the upside we may rediscover what it feels like to get to know and help your neighbour, or help anyone. Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself with that though. The Covid-19 miracle and how it saved society. At the very least we’ll get some great data in a year or two about the environmental benefits of industry, airlines and cars being shut down. The steroid boost that slowed climate change, we have have just gained ourselves a little extra time. Now that would be a miracle.