Macro paradigms, or epoch-making overall constellations

Today’s entry is dedicated to the aggressive fiftysomething lady on the rush hour train out of London on Friday night, who grabbed my brother in law’s seat, stole my newspaper, then spent the duration of the journey eating an offensively strong egg sandwich and yelling down her phone at her poor son in his boarding school … whilst sitting in the ‘Quiet Coach’.

Mark my words, friends, the tyranny of the nearly-retired is upon us. Because they don’t work much, they have plenty of time to vote for the party that promises them a massive pension built from the sweat off our backs. We’ll be working until the age of 90 so that this last generation of state-sponsored layabouts can do the same at 60. And they eat egg sandwiches. Horrific.

Speaking of suspicious smells, did anyone else notice something strange about the BA price-fixing story last week? Notwithstanding BA’s name very deservedly being dragged through the mud yet again, we all seem to have forgotten that it requires two parties to tango around competition rules. Step forward Virgin Atlantic, who acted in an equally dastardly manner, but went to the Feds and shopped their old enemy. A new variant on the ole prisoner’s dilemma.

Wonder if Richard Branson is now living anonymously under witness protection? Somehow I doubt it.

Next time an aüslander bitches about black snot and London pollution in general, you’d do well to remind them that in terms of CO2 emissions, our fine city is in fact “dangerously like some hippie commune”. Perhaps Ken should do his bit about the wretched Low Emission Zone and put a sock in it for once.

Speaking of Transport for London, I would like to take the opportunity to declare a jihad against the City Hall muppet who came up with the idea of reducing the number of lanes by 50% on the Embankment just before Chelsea Bridge. This has had the admirable effect of turning a 30 second breeze into a 25 minute perpetual traffic jam. Always a pleasure when the chimplets are getting restless in the back of the sensible estate car.

Did you know that the English version of the Japanese ‘karoshi’ is ‘work-life balance’?

Of the four transactions currently tracking on my radar, two of them have a profusion of people with the same first names. Transaction A has four Tims, whereas Transaction B has three Anthonys. Not sure that this is significant. Or indeed interesting.