Priorities

[mirrorshard]

For a country that's simultaneously in the middle of two wars, a pandemic, and a serious recession, most of the population are really quite relaxed. Or obsessing over something completely different, of course.

[Poll #1430133]

Comments

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

There are also lots of other issues that I care about, but those are the ones I've been obsessing about.

Wrt War in Iraq - Norman Kember is a family friend, and the father of two of my favourite people also visited Baghdad a while back.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

*nods* The only connection to Iraq for me is because diaservantus was with the US Army in Iraq for a while.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I have to say that most people I know seem to have been relatively unscathed by all of the above, but that's probably because I'm insulated by the Atlantic and don't have a sense of what it's like on the ground.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

And wrt swine flu: obviously I now know and am very fond of a very lovely small person who now has it (bless her, hope she's over it very soon). My GP is making sure that I will get tamiflu if I get it, and I will be on the priority list (though fairly low down it, obviously!) for immunisation as that becomes available.

Wrt recession: mostlyacat and I are remarkably unscathed so far, but lots of people we know aren't.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Nearly all the shops I go into have a smaller and more restricted range of stock than they used to, and I know quite a lot of people who've lost their job or are in danger of it. GP's surgeries have signs up saying "If you have flu symptoms, phone us, don't come in" and newsagents' sandwich-board signs are mostly related to one of those four.

And, weirdly, Borders in Oxford Street appears to be closing down.

[strangederby2.livejournal.com]

My favourate quote for a while was from a friends 5 year old son who loudly proclaimed to me one morning, "I need to wee but Norman Kember is using our bathroom!".

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

I think I know which friend and which young man you are referring to. :-)

(He's 5 already? Good grief I feel old...)

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

Nearly all the shops I go into have a smaller and more restricted range of stock than they used to

Really? I haven't noticed that at all. I don't go into many shops, admittedly, but it's more than none. What sort of stock lines have been discontinued?

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I've been noticing it mostly in bookshops and craft/art supplies shops - both businesses that tend to keep a large range of stock nobody needs very often. So I suspect what they've been doing is letting their inventory run down and only restocking the more popular items.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

One friend of mine has just come home from a tour in Afghanistan and is likely to be sent back shortly. Another friend is currently in Iraq on his fourth tour thus far. reddragdiva lost his job (and his job has now been readvertised for £10K less than he was being paid, which pretty much confirms they were getting rid of him so they could hire someone cheaper). And we're now officially part of the pandemic statistics for London. :-/

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I have a number of friends and relatives who've lost jobs and in some cases lose their homes due to the recession, on both sides of the Atlantic; arguably it's part of the reason why Chris lost his job as well, but that's debatable, and more likely internal university idiot politics.

[harald387.livejournal.com]

I've heard artsy friends (both locally and in the US) discussing the same thing. The stuff they buy regularly is still stocked at their favourite stores, but esoteric stuff that they might buy on a whim is mostly gone.

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

The closure of the UHS had been talked about before the recession happened; reasons are difficult to pin down, but very unlikely to be financial / recession-related.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

A *lot* of my colleagues are going to be losing jobs around Xmas. I really hope I'm not one of them (I haven't had a vulnerability letter, so hopefully not). We will probably be striking for "no compulsory redundancies", but I'm not hugely hopeful it's going to dissuade our despotic ruler chief exec.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Good luck!