real life

The ongoing saga of the ascension and pre-eminence of the economy.

This is why politicians - and I grant you that George W Bush a very particular example amongst all politicians, but this is just a clear example - just don't get it . People are not concerned about 'the economy'.

They are concerned about their jobs, their mortgages, their families, their lives - but they don't sit around the dinner table or in front of the TV or at bloody barbeques, for crying out loud - and worry about 'the economy'.

Well, maybe at some barbeques.

But the general point still holds.

This never-ending whinge about the insidious effects of the marketisation of everyday life brought to you by Chateau VVB, where throwing out a bucket of nuts, bolts and sundry bits of hardware and motor car, that have stayed with me since the late 1960s, was like cutting off my own leg.

I'm seriously thinking of going through the garbage bin and reclaiming them all.