Friday 30th September   

I told you, back in early September, the sixth actually, though that seems so long ago now, that we might still get some sort of a summer at last, a final flaunting of sunshine, and here it is, a real late bloomer.  And London has never looked better; I am sitting in a Starbucks, medium latte (as I ordered, thank you very much) by my hand and the sun is shining.  The great thing is that the grass is so green, that late rich green of early Autumn, not the fresh almost too green of spring, or that dried out, yellowing sun-parched colour of mid-summer, but a deep soft lush green.  And it just has to make you happy, everyone has a smile on their faces, and people are automatically crossing the street, just to feel a little touch of the sun on their pallid city faces.

And what with all these financial worries, the euro-zone, and the world apparently sliding inexorably into yet another depression, actually of course the same one we slipped into in 2008 when the banking system went bonkers, don’t we just need a bit of sunshine.  The trouble is that humans generally do not learn from their errors; they mistake a degree of experience in how to deal with things as wisdom, when sometimes a completely new way of thinking is required.  So, all the remedies that have been applied to the financial crisis are the tried and tested tinkering with and fine tuning of the machine, when the real problem is that the whole thing has toppled over under its’ own weight, and like Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again.  Well, not in the same way; the driving force of the world, definitely since the end of the Second World War has been one of continuous and ever increasing growth, built on the twin pillars of cheap raw materials and labour (mostly stolen from the third world) and more and more paper money and credit.  Well the merry-go-round has stopped, the machinery has juddered to a halt, and all the little city-boys have been thrown to the ground.

We have to come up with a new and sustainable way of living together that doesn’t simply result in the same people getting richer and richer each year; while at the same time allowing everyone to have a decent life.  And just in case you think I have swallowed a book by Keynes or that I am at last a convert to Communism, no, the truth is somewhere in between raw capitalism and some socialist nirvana.  Don’t ask me for the details; that is for the politicians to work out, I am simply saying what they all know deep down.

But let us for a moment forget all of this serious stuff, and even if it is a result of global warming, possibly created in part by the stupid activities of mankind in the last century, let us bask in this rare moment of sunshine a day longer, please.

The sun has got his hat on, Hip-Hip-Hooray.