It was a good day to cycle, yesterday; I avoided getting caught up in the queues of cars outside petrol stations that blocked the road and the pavement, after some fool in the government advocated hoarding petrol against the possibility of a tanker driver strike. Fortunately, I have no vital long journeys to make, and I've modified other journeys to avoid using the car. Picked up Katie from a party yesterday, and we rode home with her sitting on the rear carrier of the bicycle. It was a fine, warm evening for riding, and the streets smelled of blossom as we meandered around Westbury Park.
It is a worry, though; maybe it's the neighbourhood I live in, but there is a substantial stratum of the feral middle class, who descend upon available resources at the mere suggestion of any disruption to supplies of consumables. The Waitrose supermarket adjacent to the petrol station was also jam-packed. Down the road at the Co-Op, it was business as usual.
Acute observations here. There is indeed a feral middle class. I hate to say it, but I did (on the sour of the moment) top up my tank two days back at Sainsbury's in Hove, although I joked with the staff woman shepherding the cars to pumps, saying that she could be as rude as she liked to the bad-temptered drivers, as a kind of revenge.
ReplyDeleteThing is, middle-class people are assertive: they've all had a decent education, know their rights, don't have to bluster, and if they had guns would self-righteously shoot to kill within the law. They don't bluff.
Lucy
That should be 'spur' of the moment, and 'bad-tempered'! Duuuh.
ReplyDeleteLucy
...I like your notion of bad-temptered drivers, too :-)
ReplyDeleteSo many drivers are bad tempered all the time even whilst driving cars which cost the same as a modest dwelling... First station deserted, supermarket queues in all directions, main road station just busy but say I was about to pay the girl at the till was calling her boss to say that her gauges were getting close to empty and she was going to have to close the place very soon.
ReplyDeleteI had not bought fuel for over ten weeks and was close to fumes in the tank when I discovered the world had gone mad whilst my head was in a two inch thick book. Have to admit not watching the propaganda programmes they insist on calling the news helps keep me calm...
It all goes to show how fragile the structure of our broken society is...
I like the idea of a feral middle class. Here in East Bristol we have 'pork-fed chavs'. They're all in work, drive several new-ish cars and spend every penny they can on consumer durables. They have several foreign holidays a year, yet still come back thinking it's funny to say grassy-ass (yes, they go to Spain every time except for when they go to Florida).
ReplyDeleteThey are probably distantly related to ordinary chavs, but they've worked for their money and feel 'entitled'. Entitled to their place in the sun, entitled to park the 4x4 just where they like.
There's a subset of this group who won't buy anything unless it has the right logo. One I know managed to use the first Starbucks in Spain. Can't be drinking that mucky Spanish coffee, it comes in tiny cups and doesn't taste of hazelnut and marshmallow, does it?
Oh yes, and the fuel 'crisis' doesn't bother me. I walk to work as soon as the weather gets better in spring. But then I don't feel 'entitled' to clog up Bristol with my car.
It's the same here too whenever people think they might not be able to use their cars. I love Liz's picture of her part of the UK. Still waiting for a Starbucks in La Rochelle, but we do have 3 Subways.
ReplyDeleteApparently certain politicians thought that the so called "fuel strike" could be used as was the miners' strike in the years of Mrs T....
ReplyDeletePretty disgusting when one of the main points of dispute is lack of respect for safety regs....