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Barclays has sent me a letter inviting me to "treat" myself to a Barclaycard Goldfish. What a nerve. The name Barclays has been poison to me ever since it allowed my mother's savings to shrink like a stabbed balloon, and blagged her into taking out a five-year bond in her 90s. Now it is hellbent on stuffing its executives with monster bonuses, even if it means borrowing squillions from the Gulf states at inflated interest; we are plunging into recession and on the brink of beggary, and here it is egging me on to spend more money. And it is not even my bank.
So I read the Goldfish blurb carefully - about four pages of big print and numerous pages of teeny-weeny print, because perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps there really is something worthwhile about this credit card, which offers "unlimited rewards as you spend". And 0% "balance transfers", but with 2.9% "handling charge" - 2.9% of what? I ring and ask. It's an 0844 line, so it's costing me 20p per minute, says the Goldfish person. While I'm at it, I ask what "touch your card to the reader" means. Apparently it means that if you want fast service and wish to spend less than £10, you just touch the thingy with your your card, no need for a pin number, and grab your coffee, snacks and the contents of convenience at top speed. And can any robber who snatches your card do it, too? No, answers the information person - probably 20 more pence while he thinks about it, then I ring off.
Why waste more money when there is a page clarifying the terminology. "'We', 'we' [sic] or 'us',' it explains, means Barclays Bank plc ... [and] "'You' or 'you' [sic] means you, the individual ...". Rosemary and I studied this for ages to work out whether it was gibberish or we were stupid. We often do this with documents, but found this section to be more or less total toss.
Has Barclays no shame? Have any of the immensely rich any shame any more? Are they aware of the boiling hatred welling up in millions of breasts, and do they ever try talking to one of the ordinary people in the street? Because if they did, they'd find that you only have to mention bonuses, banks and greed to any passer-by, and they will each turn at once into Mount Krakatoa, pouring out molten fury. I know because I've conducted my own little survey, saying "bonuses" out loud to shoppers, cashiers, to people on buses, at the vets and doctor's, on my dog walkies, and the result is always the same: like pricking the tiniest hole in a big, swollen abscess - something nasty bursts out.
Perhaps our government should tap into this rich vein of hatred and outrage, and make sure the bonuses really do end, the banks stop taking the ****, exorbitant executive pay is taxed at 99% and that Roger Jenkins, who brokered Barclays' Middle East funding deal, together with his wife in her mink poncho, will be crammed into the stocks, pelted with Goldfish cards and publicly shamed. If all that could happen before the next general election, then I predict a Labour landslide.
Boris Johnson is launching a scheme to get Londoners growing vegetables in 2,012 new places in time for the Olympics. What a heavenly idea. All unused spaces are to be used: wasteland, old railway yards, canal banks, school and hospital gardens, roadside verges and flat roofs. The roofs alone would add up to 24 Richmond parks. And help will be available. Roof owners will be provided with tools and compost. Marvellous. Imagine the transformation: no more scrubby bits of ground spattered with weeds and rubbish, no sea of concrete - just sprouts, tomatoes, beans and carrots as far as the eye can see. It'll be just like the Dig for Victory campaign in the second world war, with the population cooperating for the common good.
It's a noble aim. But isn't it a bit late? I feel rather bitter about this plan, thinking of all the lovely green bits that have gone: the bulldozed hospitals such as Friern Barnet and Athlone House in their acres of grounds, all sold and turned into poncey new homes; the school playing fields flogged off for more flats and offices; the extensive prison gardens barely ever used, while the prisoners rot indoors, banged up 22 hours a day; the endless acres of front gardens all paved over to park the cars because it costs too much to park on the roads, or because no one can be fagged with a front garden; and worst of all, those lovely Manor Garden allotments which were flattened to make way for the dreary Olympic site. The plot-holders begged to be allowed to stay and produce food for the athletes - just what Boris is dreaming of - but the brutish London Development Agency wouldn't hear of it.
Now those gardeners are stuck in a waterlogged dump in Waltham Forest, where they can hardly grow anything.
But let's not be negative. Perhaps Boris will succeed and turn London into a sustainable city, because it needs to be. Without imports, London would run out of food in three days, and then what will we do with all those athletes? So I hope that Boris, backed by Sustain, will bring those allotments back, green all the flat roofs and revive all the wasted spaces, so that the atmosphere and the view will improve, risk of flooding will be reduced, street markets will be bursting with home-grown local products, hospitals and prisons will feed themselves, and children will join in and learn that chips come from potatoes. I hope that Boris's dream comes true, and if it does I will vote for him over and over again. If.
This week Michele read The Father I Had by Martin Townsend: "Compassionate and painful, but still amusing account of life with a manic-depressive father. My mother was a comparative breeze." Michele watched Little Dorrit: "Loved it. Even if hardly anybody else did. Bring back the Marshalsea for all the new debtors. It looks better than a B&B."
- Barclays
- Banking sector
- Executive salaries
- Credit crunch
- Recession
- Boris Johnson
- London
- Credit cards
- Borrowing & debt
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