In the vicinity of clouds

#33

   The Greeks have a word for what is happening, hundreds of words in fact. To them we are indebted for Tragedy, Anxiety, Democracy, Ethics, Idiocy, Comedy, Agony, Abyss, Apology, Asylum, Dilemma, Monopoly, Xenophobia, Piracy, Police, …in fact a whole plethora – there, that’s another one. All of the above might usefully be applied to an analysis (Greek) of the chaos (tick √) besetting the European (√) economy (√) and politics (√). Commentators everywhere are busy describing the Euro (√) Crisis (√) using words liberated (no, sorry – that’s Latin) from the Greeks… Payment to Athens of some long-overdue royalties on this extensive vocabulary would surely offer an original and lasting solution to the problem of Hellenic debt.

   This week, the circus (Greek) has decamped (whoops, that’s French) to Rome, ultimate source of the remainder of the English language except for the Nordic/Anglo-Saxon bits (mainly to do with boating, building and farming) and the ones that Shakespeare just made-up when it suited him (e.g. barefaced, critical, monumental, castigate, countless and obscene). Come to think of it, you could try arranging those examples into a fairly pithy (Anglo-Saxon) sentence summarising the failures of the recent G20 summit (Shakespeare) in Cannes.

   Joking apart, the European cabal (Hebrew) of the global banking oligopoly (Greek) is hitting the buffers because somebody somewhere suddenly decreed levels of sovereign debt to be un-sustainable (Saxon prefix added to a Latin word). The heavy burden of government debt in the USA, Britain, Ireland and across Southern Europe is the result of trying to stave-off the inevitable for a period of thirty years. Sooner or later, the de-regulation of rapacious asset-strippers begun by Reagan and Thatcher was bound to end in tears. Their so-called Big Bang (Norse) united the investment bankers of the world in a grand endeavour to sucker Governments, home-buyers and pension funds into the greatest Ponzi scheme (American!) of all time. And a generation of politicians gleefully played along; happy to use the time-honoured principle of ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’. How else did they think it could end but in the present slow-motion, multi-national train-wreck?

   So, what is to be done? I don’t hear any of you asking me. The advice of Her Majesty’s Government is that we all hide behind the sofa for a year or two. But The Bus Lane can now exclusively reveal that desperate Eurocrats are turning to the rightfully long-neglected economic theories of the undistinguished Italian academic, Professor Goccia Dalle-Nubi. From the serenity of his ivory-clad tower in the Faculty di Follia at the factitious Università di Pazzesche, the Professor has consistently advanced his Theory of Ambiguità Creativa, which may loosely be translated as ‘creative ambiguity’. Financed by grants from Sorpresa Inc and his godfather’s fabled Sicilian bank Inatteso S.A., Dalle-Nubi has obsessively researched his data and marshalled his evidence ever since his premature release from a secure psychiatric facility in 1979.

   In its simplest form, Dalle-Nubi’s contention is that, when viewed historically, the most successful technique for stimulating economic growth has been to persuade governments to follow policies that are, quite simply and unashamedly, utterly unexpected. The first inkling we had that ‘creative ambiguity’ was once again loose in the world came when George Papandreou announced that Greece would hold a referendum on the bail-out deal. Sarkozy and Merkel were predictably horrified (not being in the habit of consulting their populations on matters European). They demanded to know where the idea had come from and the fingers all pointed at Dalle-Nubi.

   With increasing confidence, his growing army of supporters around the world – the soi disant ‘Communité des Nubiles’ – proclaim that ‘creative ambiguity’ has been the missing link – some would even say ‘the God Particle’ – of the global economic system down all the years since Keynes first published his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money back in 1936. Seventy-five years on, and despite (or - possibly – because of) the continuing ‘heads-in-the-sand’ attitude of the World Bank and the IMF, leading hedge-funds and bankers are spearheading a desperate campaign to prevent the Eurocrats and their political puppets from putting Dalle-Nubi’s theory at the epicentre of all future policy deliberations. Why are the money-men so afraid? Because the only thing ‘creative ambiguity’ has going for it is that it brings total uncertainty to the markets; thus – and at long last – giving the speculators a genuine run for their money. Outside the Bourse, the Nubiles can be heard chanting Victor Hugo’s maxim, “No one can resist an idea whose time has come.”

“Tant pis,” grumble the insider traders.

   Weeks ago, the markets discounted all the predictable moves. Now they are confronted by the impossibility of guessing what the hell happens next. Rumours abound that China might embark on its own version of ‘creative ambiguity’ if growth falls below 10%. The ‘utterly unexpected’ in China would most likely take the form of inviting Kim Jong Il to judge the Grand Final of the Politburo’s annual Strictly Elvis competition. (You heard it here first). Were that to happen, Germany would have little alternative but to counter with something even more devastatingly unexpected. This could involve either reverting to the currency of the Weimar Republic or invading Greece, (or possibly, both). Who can say? That’s the whole point!

   Now is the moment for George Osborne to either adopt the F Plan or at least come up with an utterly unexpected reason for not doing so. Just pointing out that Ed Balls is an annoying twat (Anglo-Saxon) will no longer suffice (Latin) as an economic policy (Greek).

In Memoriam

Susan Elizabeth Parr : 14 February 1946 – 22 October 2011

   When our sister, Susan Armstrong, married Harvey Parr at Northwood Church in the summer of 1968, they promised to love and cherish each other until they were parted by death. Never was such a promise more completely honoured. Throughout the eight long years of Sue’s brave battle against cancer, Harvey was by her side at every step: every hospital visit, every consultation, every bout of therapy, every blood-test and transfusion.

   He shared her joy at every success and relief at every remission. He helped her find the strength to carry on past every setback. When the end approached, Harvey was equal to the final challenge. He was a tower of strength for the whole family. He literally moved heaven and earth to enable Sue to spend her last days in peace, and without pain, in her own bedroom, in her own home and with her family around her. No one could have done more for Sue and we all stand in awe of his loving care, devotion and compassion.

   Together, Sue and Harvey built their careers and their delightful family home, shared all their sorrows and joys for forty three years of marriage, raised their two sons and, just one short year ago, celebrated the birth of Theo – their first grandchild. With Sue’s departure, little Theo has lost his paternal grandmother, Ben & Tim have lost their mother, Carol and I have lost our big sister and Harvey has lost his soul-mate. The waves of grief spread outwards to all her family and friends and they do not diminish as they travel. She was greatly loved and is greatly missed.

   When Sue and Carol and I were children ourselves, styles of parenting were rather different from what is considered normal today. When we transgressed, our parents left us in no doubt as to our deficiencies. If we did something right, they tended to confirm that this was no more than was expected. The effect of this upbringing was to make Sue into a perfectionist. But the only person of whom she ever demanded perfection was herself.

   She worked tirelessly at her profession as a Physiotherapist, as a wife, and mother and ultimately as the doyenne of our extended family. Of all the critics I have ever encountered, none could stop me in my tracks so completely as Sue, when she would look me in the eye, shake her head and say quietly;

“Oh…David…”

   My younger sister, Carol, joined Harvey in devotedly nursing Sue through her last days. And when the three of us were together at Sue’s bedside my thoughts sometimes drifted back to the days in the early 1960s when Harvey, Susan, Carol and I had all been pupils at Ashlyns School, in Berkhamstead. In those far off days - now forever sunlit in my memory - the words of the King James Bible washed over us every day in assembly or in the school Chapel.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

They said it was the Psalm of David. I always liked that one and I rely on it coming back to me at times like this.

   While Sue lay dying, I was already searching high and low for some words from the great canon of English literature appropriate to our feelings for her. When Harvey told me that Sue had chosen a woodland burial, in the countryside she always knew and loved - the peaceful woods and fields which were the last scenery she saw from her bedroom window – my attention kept returning to a few lines from a sentimental poem I had been required to learn for English homework, one evening in the long ago at Ashlyns. 

   They were written by the Edwardian poet Rupert Brooke who, like Sue, was given time to contemplate the approach of death. Our farewell to Sue is offered in these lines:

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace,

Under an English heaven.