Tales from the river bank

If you take a walk up the River Thames starting at Woolwich you will track the three themes that have dominated this blog over recent months.

Walking past Canary Wharf you will come to the Tower of London and the financial centre; the square mile as it is known and the epi centre of the banking crisis that rocked the economy during Autumn last year.

Directly across the river you will overlook Bermondsey; the place where Jade Goody was born. This blog tracked her sad death, noting that  it could  mark the beginning of the end to our nations preoccupation with celebrity culture.

Another half an hours walk along the South Bank, taking in the wonderful variety of street performers and artistic delights, you will find yourself looking over to the Houses of Parliament and the most recent implosion to rock our nation.

The ripples from the credit crunch and the expenses scandal are yet to fully work through. The effect so far however has been collosal and whilst the death of a celebrity could hardly rank with these, nevertheless the scar on the nations pyche is there for all to see. I suspect an analysis of media coverage these last six months in the UK would put these three subjects right at the top of the agenda.

Interestingly if you continue up river you will pass Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop and eventually the royal palaces of Hampton Court.

Anyone want to guess what’s coming there?

So disasters or opportunities? Well disaster if you have just lost your job, knew Jade Goody as a friend or family member, and hold the Houses of Parliament as the last bastion of democracy.

Opportunity if you have any care at all for the huge environmental damage that consumerism has had on the planet.

 Opportunity also if you believe there is a greater cultural heritage in our nation than that which continually encourages us to sell out to our TV’ schedules and yet more celebrity antics.

Opportunity  if you actually think a thorough expose of politics will eventually lead to a greater grassroots involvement and something much closer to true democracy.

Finally, opportunity  if you happen to consider that your story really does count. A vacuum has opened right up so that the stories of ordinary people like you and I can find greater space than ever before.

It is time to invest. Not in another corrupt set of M.P’s or in more shares and stocks. Neither in the next celebrity personality to make a grab for the mantle that’s fallen. Rather in our own story.

There is also a new sound to be heard in the nation, and it is not the sound of discredited Speaker for the House of Commons, Michael Martin Rather it is the sound of your voice and mine, your story and my story.

The value of stories is on the rise in the UK. That is all good for you and I

Branson or Branston?

Whichever.

One is a pickle, the other says we are in a pickle. Or more accurately, “the uk economy is F******”. See report on AOL website.

His spokesman said ” he is only saying what everybody else is thinking”.

Thanks.

Very helpful on the day of the worst unemployment figures in 10 years. Very uplifting.

Thanks a bunch.

T******.

Tim Ocsko

An ‘interesting’ interest rate cut by BOE.

Well I suppose that kills the myth once and for all that the BoE operate independently of the government with another further  ‘Brown’ inspired Keynesian move. The autobiographies and revelations of the official secrets act in 25 years are going to keep universities busy up and down the country.

Good to see the Banks react with their usual ineptitude – withdrawing new tracker products. Ho hum! Least we can blame the government where the bank is almost owned outright by them. A bit naughty really but no surprises.

The sad thing is though for many borrowers being tied into a fixed rate will prevent them from feeling any benefit. I do wonder in this post laissez faireworld which Brown is engineering whether some move to subsidise those caught in fixed deals whilst at the same time introducing some short term tax breaks for those who rent – would really stimulate the economy rather than fill the boots of the banks – who helped us get into this mess.

Tim Ocsko

Monday 13th October. A day for hope?

00.30 AM GMT Monday 13th October.

So the banks are going to get nationalised in a few hours time, Fred Goodwin will resign, the Bank of England will fulfill its role as lender of the last resort…..

Markets will probably have a bad day, the ripple effect of the crunch will continue its seismic waves through the global economy and our news will be dominated by nothing else……

No room for hope there then?

Well if you watch and listen carefully  – you will hear a groaning. Quite and distant but nonetheless present and real. A mourn as a much loved belief system by a few doctrinaire and privileged apostles. T

The death knell of the evil, devisive “economics” of Thatcherism.

Now I am not sure whether we have the leadership to build on this – get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, open up the mines, invest in schools, hospitals and public work programmes, attackh head on poverty – but this could be the start of the beginning of real change.

These are days of history.

The Credit Crunch can become a time of jubilee, enacting for the first time JK Galbraith’s1930s economic prophetic imperative that Society must address the misbalance of wealth, that reliance on an ever decreasing pool of the wealthy was a recipe for disaster.

Monday 13th October – start of the beginning? Cause for hope? End of an era?

What will we make it? What will we demand? What will be our story?

Will it be our best day?

Tim Ocsko

Quality.

I went to this charity event at the start of the year. I collared this feller I have known for a few years. He is what they call a straight talker. No held punches. I poured out exactly where I was. It was confusing mess. He listened without interruption. He told me to take time out – lots of time – as much as I could afford. Since then I have continued to share my journey with him. When I finished work – in those first few tentative weeks – he rang me weekly. He seemed to get it even when I didn’t.

The week I handed in my notice I sat in my favourite Indian restaurant and told a man I look upto greatly what I planned to do that following Thursday – namely hand in my notice. He is a man of reason and I could not give him reason enough for my actions, yet he cheered and wished me very well. He seemed to get it even when I didn’t.

I got a card when I finished work from a very close relative. Another straight talker. It expressed their pride in me – for standing up for what I knew was right even though I didn’t understand what I was doing. She seemed to get it even when I didn’t. 

The day I resigned I told my mum. She was so pleased and affirming. She told me to seek happiness above all else. Money and looks will come and go but happiness is worth fighting for. I couldn’t tell her what I was going to do with my life but she seemed to get it even when I didn’t.

A few days after I finished and my head was a mess and body wrecked and I was generally talking gibberish, a wise man told me to make as much space in my life as possible. He seemed to get it even when I didn’t.

My wife permissioned me on this journey of mine from as far back as November 2006 when I got a new boss who was as mad as a hatter and brilliant too. I told him then of my restlessness. A restlessness I didn’t understand. He listened and told me to spend as much time as possible with my family.  He seemed to get it even when I didn’t. My wife of course got it too – was the first to get it and still does!

So right now…my journey to ‘there’ continues unabated – unpolluted by the knowledge of where ‘there’ is,

Jimmy Carter once berated the American People for being obsessed with quantity rather than the quality of life. It cost him an election which resulted in Ronald Reagan’s victory.

How much of this past few weeks – Credit Crunches, Bank Failures, greedy price hiking Opec countries has been driven by quantity rather than quality? How we need those in our generations who look on and see things for what they are to rise and shine for their day has dawned. People driven by justice and fairness and truth. Driven by a passion to see quality erupt into people’s lives rather than quantity.

Please stand up all those quality people who got it even when I didn’t. Take your round of applause from your audience of one. me.

No, don’t sit down. That was not your final curtain call – the world still needs your quality and the world needs to applaud you for it.

Fight on! Be quality. Listen, Inform and Change this world.

Tim Ocsko