Day 85 - The Temple

There is no doubt that elements of the British media are being led like lambs to the slaughter at the moment. There is a certain delicious irony too in this saga that is playing out right now. Normally it would be these self same newspapers and journalists that so enjoy pouring misery on others in the name of selling copies. The hunters are now the hunted and it takes little imagination now to picture the glee in the other publications. As one journo put it, in a poorly written piece in the Times yesterday, 'forgive us for our smugness but it was never going to last', and she was right, albeit, probably never thought it at the time.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just watch Sky News. They have built a facade of respectibility but in essence they are the digital version of the Sun, and The News of the World. If you look closely you will see that the width of their content is painfully introspective. Their glee at others misfortune bubbles just below the surface, their direness in reporting on the financial meltdown helped in its downward spiral. But did it really happen? Yesterday two things did happen. Firstly I spoke with a man, who I know, who celebrates next month his fiftieth year trading on the London Stock Exchange. And I don't mean buying an occassional share here and there. I mean being a stockbroker to the wealthy. For fifty years! He is of the view that what happened was exaccerbated by the mass media, by ignorance and by knee jerk reactions by some players, especially banks. There is no doubt that a period of correction was inevitable, there is no doubt that people, me included, had way too much access to too much credit. There is no doubt that we, this generation, have created a level of consumerism never seen before. There is no doubt that our society values and morals are skewed.

On saturday evening, we, the missus and I and some horribly aged children went to the temple. The temple of consumerism, also known as Westfield mall, which is in Sheperds Bush, west London. As malls go, this is very impressive to say the least. I have written about this place before but last night was interesting. There was no recession here. There was also no English spoken, let me tell you, but people in all shapes and sizes filled every restaurant - there were queues outside of some, filled every waiting area and every car park space. Some clothing shops had queues to get in, all were stocked to overflowing. There does not appear to be a shortage of money. Not one bit.

An interesting experience, made even better by our fortunate witnessing of the popcorn police in action. Never a dull moment.

Until tomorrow.