seanessay.com A talk radio show here in Britain said it takes 16 years to save for a first down payment for a house—in London it’s 30 years. If you save money via no avocado, no toast, and no coffee then you will have enough in 34 years—I don’t know about London.
Supply and Demand means that if the supply of homes stays stagnant, then rising demand will raise prices. The UK government is playing with the idea of “one per cent (down) mortgages,” but the result would be wholly predictable to anyone but a politician: A short honeymoon as folks buy, followed by prices going up to adjust. Only if the supply is increased will home buying ease.
I’m in London.
On a Lonely Planet? Well, the young people have a lonely hearts classified page.
QUOTE
… To the incredibly kind girls who picked me up off the floor on Bridge Thursday, you’ve restored my faith in humanity
… TRIGGER WARNING MENTAL HEALTH — I just don’t see any point in going on; and we live in a society; and zero-hour contracts and low wage is pretty much the norm, Last week I saw the homeless guy outside college disappear and no one noticed;
… y’all will like memes about having zero in your bank account and then go back to the Home Counties to your five-bedroomed house owned outright by your parents, I hate you all, y’all have no idea what it’s actually like to struggle.
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After a meeting of a half dozen college students:
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I found it irritating. I think they all got most of their opinions from twitter (X) Do you think it’s possible to generate opinion at the rate the Internet requires? I don’t.
…
I don’t use Twitter anymore, she said, because it became impossible to know what I thought on it… Imagine being told you’re wrong all the time. Imagine it being fashionable to prove people wrong. I can’t thrive in that much negative energy.
UNQUOTE
Actually, all the above quotes (p.46, 69, 70) are from Three Rooms by Jo Hamya.
By the way, I gave my Lonely Planet series London book to charity (down the street from my hotel) because it was like that childhood book my aunt sent me about penguins: I dutifully wrote back Dear Auntie, thank you for the book about penguins. It told me more than I wanted to know. … That’s an old joke.
Camden NewJournal (community newspaper) Comment “As Generation Rent campaigner Betsy Delver said, London is becoming ‘a place where you can’t raise families, be young, start up new businesses—all those things that make the city we love—housing costs will suck the soul out of that.’”
For housing, I wonder if history must always repeat? Like how horribly arrogant Europeans in 1914 were surprised by railroads pouring troops to meet in stalemate and trench warfare. They weren’t forced to be ignorant of the US civil war rails and trenches. If Canadians repeat British housing experience then I will have no sympathy.
Quote of the day, on call-in radio, regarding the MMR jab (measles, mumps, rubella) as Britain faces an outbreak of measles: “I can’t believe the number of people who won’t have their children vaccinated.” This by a caller who, contracting measles, had become visually impaired. Then she became totally blind on her wedding day. (My grandmother went progressively blind from measles too)
The speculation is that modern parents have never known the horror of childhood infections. …Rather like how modern Russian parents have never known the horror of war, making it easy for them to endorse sending their kids to invade Ukraine—Don’t you just hate how history repeats?
Thinking of repetition, memory is already dim, but I know that several US cities did a laborious recount of the federal votes, merely because One Man, without any documenting or footnoting or offering any evidence whatsoever, claimed that the 2020 vote was “stolen.” The results each confirmed the vote was honest, of course—But try telling that to true believers.
History repeats: Back in 1998 One Man claimed that vaccines cause autism. His “study” was merely 12 children, and he is on record as saying he expected to make oodles of money selling autism kits after his “study.” Scientists all over the world have strived to duplicate his study but without the same results: Because he lied. He has been stripped of the right to call himself doctor. But true believers still believe.
Also on the radio, a caller reported how her mother spent years being depressed and alcoholic out of guilt: She hadn’t vaccinated her children. The caller caught measles, and has great trouble with her balance ever since, Her three month old brother, who got measles too, died. Her mother took comfort in saying she would see her boy again, in heaven.
The radio host asked if anyone had a clue how to talk to relatives who were anti-vaxxers, but no one could help. One caller thought the anti-vaxxers are like cultists who would need to —but wouldn’t— volunteer for deprogramming. Regretfully, I cannot offer hope. History shows that cultists, Putinists and Trumpists will keep walking right up to the table with the Kool-Aide.
Before my glowing screen I am clicking away… while in another space and time, up in a cold tower, a grim monk with a candle is scratching away with his quill against the darkness… as a witness to posterity.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
Far up lighthouse-style hotel stairs
Central London, January, 2024
Book Notice: for Three Rooms Click on May 2022 on the left, for ‘existing in exotic….’
My favourite anti-establishment newspaper, the Guardian, has a measles article:
(Disclosure: I am a registered monthly donor to the paper)
