26jun2003:
A very weird experience.
Small-ish agency - potential client, $$$$ goes my brain - in London's
Covent Garden. I bang on the door, yowl French-accented mantras at the receptionist.
(There aren't many places you can't feel confident in wearing a thousand quid
of Versace. And I sort-of know this agency from interviews three years ago.)
Heads swivel when I mention my name. I hadn't expected this. I
wrote those
fucking essays five damn years ago, for chrissakes!
Yet somehow, a few of these folk know me. Maybe they saw flamin' NTK
when they flamed me last year.
I thought I was turning up to share a beer, yet I end up in the
freelancer's equivalent of a job interview. But hey, if they've got £3K
a month to spend, who's whining?
18jun2003: Ow! RSI's being joined by sore elbows
this week. Novelists presumably have hard calluses all over their hands and
arms, but copywriters don't. Marketing ideas happen with pen and paper, not
screen and keyboard, and on a normal day I spend less than three hours at
the qwerty rockface. Wish I had a campaign to write instead of a 25,000 word
copy job.
14jun2003: mixed doubles. I'm really in two minds
about the two British political events of this week.
At the beginning of the week came the Euro (non)decision. At its end
came a constitutional shake-up. Characteristically for the UK's bossy, spin-obsessed
government, both events were handled arrogantly and behind closed doors. First, the Euro decision. The word from 11 Downing
St: Britain isn't ready yet. Which was bad for Blair, points
for Brown. (The Euro is one of the two issues on which they differ.) But instead
of the expected firm NO from No. 11, Brown was remarkably upbeat, saying there
was every chance of Britain meeting his five criteria for entry into the Euro
next year.
The Euro is an issue I find hard to decide on. If Britain entered
the eurozone, it'd be a deeper part of Europe, generally a good thing. Worth
giving up control over interest rates for? Perhaps, since rates are decided
largely by market conditions anyway. Over tax, possibly the next stage? Even
there, perhaps. Bringing decent infrastructure to the poorer members is a
noble goal. Though I'm not sure having a single tax policy for Britain and,
say, Latvia is really workable. But a single tax policy gives birth to single
spending policies... and defence... and law... slippery slope time here. So
a bit of negative here.
BUT - with every pound becoming a euro, it'd give the world a
second true settlement currency. With the dollar being used for pretty much
all international settlements, the USA's ability to raise debt is practically
unlimited. Which means its military spending will always be able to take another
increase. By denominating settlements in Euros - or even having the choice
- the USA's encroaching hegemony can, perhaps, be informed by something other
than Bush Family Values.
(Meandering...) Of course, this could push both ways. Tightening the
USA's ability to increase its deficit might make the White House so nervous
it'd close the US economy to outsiders even more than it's doing already.
Wouldn't that be ironic: if a step to prevent the US achieving world hegemony
actually made it determined to get the role?
(It's not too farfetched. Would Iran and the DPRK have stepped up their
nuclear programmes if they didn't see the USA as a bigger threat these days?)
I can't help imagining the USA sometimes as a future North Korea: inward-looking,
combative, and armed to the teeth.
But the real deal - obvious if you read between the lines - involves
the other difference between Blair and Brown: Blair is Prime Minister,
and Brown isn't.
My guess is that Brown's now promised Tony he'll give way on the Euro
in two years, IF he appoints Brown as his successor. Gordon's been waiting
a long time to be PM, and now he's seen his chance.
That's the only real story of Britain's Euro decision: a handshake
that gives Gordon his turn at being PM. Should a G7 economy be gambled on
an ambitious guy's promotion?
But anyway... second, the constitutional change. No
more Lord Chancellor. Finally, the UK's judiciary is no longer headed by a
politician. After 1400 years (the first Lord Chancellor was appointed in 652
AD) it's arguably a good thing.
While the whole process was botched - it seems Blair both dreamed
up the changes and printed the sacking letters in his tea break on Wednesday
- and there are vast confusions like conflating the Scottish and Welsh offices,
a UK Supreme Court is a good idea. No more cabinet ministers dictating sentences
for crime that make the front page, just to gain votes. Perhaps it'll force
judges into the real world, too: no more pontificating on the 'lack of danger
to society' in not jailing thieves, when the real issue is about punishing
the bastards. And - this may be too much to hope for - fewer cases like Tony
Martin's, who is now in jail because he shot two burglars who broke into his
home in the dead of night - and whose surviving burglar is now getting
taxpayer's cash to sue him.
Of course, it won't be perfect. Supreme Court appointments will still
be politically influenced; just look at the USA. On that abortion issue, the
people's opinions are split basically down the middle (47%pro/48%anti), yet
there's not a single Supreme Court judge that isn't anti-abortionist. (Or,
it seems, atheist; they all believe in supernatural creatures.) And all because
of Bush. But the principle's there.
