Amanda Baker's Blog
January 21, 2025
The Profit Beast
The Profit Beast is humanity’s nemesis, the ‘end times’ foe we should all lift our heads and take a good look at.
Nothing at all that we need so desperately to deal with; the approaching climate crisis tipping point, ill-health, destitution, abuse, exploitation, environmental damage – none of these things can or will be dealt with because doing so would enrage the Profit Beast.
The Profit Beast is vast, invulnerable and on his final course, Truth.
The Profit Beast, fed by out-of-control consumerism and co-conspirator advertising, are now such a perfect symbiotic mechanism that we stand little chance of outrunning this man-made monster.
Is this just scare-mongering about a grim dystopia? Pause for a moment and look up from amnesia-inducing smartphone or mind-numbing TV and take a quick glance at real reality.
Two commonplace UK cases of catastrophic consumerism and profit before people-ism - are the obesity epidemic, fuelled by the sugar saturated processed food industry and more recently the insidious youth Vaping trend.
According to The Lancet – global obesity levels tripled between 1975 and 2019. Obesity related deaths in the US are around 30,000 annually and 3,000 in the UK. According to the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Care, obesity costs the NHS £6.5 billion annually and is the second biggest cause of preventable cancer. Private profit, public cost – which we’ll come to later.
Still, one of the main culprits – sugary drinks - are not blanket banned in schools. Over and above that, as an additive to the most surprising foods, often those we regard as savoury, quantities of sugar have gone up exponentially in the last 4 decades. In the US, sugar consumption increased 30% between 1977 and 2010.
And of course, there is profit to be made in both causing and then treating the harm when it inevitably occurs. But more of that later too.
Sugar is a marketing preference for the processed food industry. It helps get people hooked on their products and it’s a very cheap bulk additive. The fact that it decimates body and dental health and kills does not matter.
A more recent phenomenon, one that has taken off in the UK like a nuclear-powered rocket, is Vaping. The sheer number of youngsters vaping on my local buses is a depressing sight.
The delivery system for the latest nicotine addiction is not biodegradable and is also an ignition hazard. Ah progress…
The youngest child I’ve seen vaping appeared to be about 9.
But the new vape shops selling the death dummies on my local high-street, look like sweetie shops.
The CDC (Centre for Disease Control) lists one of the known e-cigarette harms as detriment to adolescent brain development. E-cigarette ‘juice’ usually contains nicotine which is addictive. Vapes often also contain carcinogenic chemicals. Plus -
· Heavy metals such as nickel, tin, and lead in many flavours
· Tiny particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs
· Volatile organic compounds
· Flavourings such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to a serious lung disease.
But mostly, scientists agree we just don’t yet know the full range of harms though my local vape shop happily displays a neon sign claiming vaping is 95% safer than smoking. How they know what the scientists don’t is anyone’s guess
E-cigarettes attained a fast pass because they were supposed to encourage traditional cigarette smokers to stop. Most young people addicted to vaping have never smoked cigarettes.
Meanwhile we all have to go on being swamped by those huge clouds of exhaled, warm toilet-cleaner-scented lung farts.
The Fentanyl crisis in North America is the much more extreme end of death4profit with opioid deaths outstripping gun deaths in the most gunny place in the world. I hesitate to say that it’s as bad as it could get because where late-stage capitalism and out of control consumerism are concerned, there’s no extreme that is too extreme.
The price to society is not in truncated lives, ill-health and misery alone. It is a huge hit to public services. On the other side, a secretive few, siphon off profits Midas would have blushed at.
The public sector clears up the private sector’s mess. Private profit – state clear-up. Private wealth – public cost; medical services, police, charities, social services etc. All paid for - not by the wealthy who hide their obscene wealth and avoid the taxes that would fund the very services they over-burden with their greed.
In the US in the case brought by Oklahoma City after years of opioid carnage – one lawyer estimated the opioid epidemic – started by the prescription medications for a quick fix for pain in a society addicted to quick fixes - accounted for 80 percent of city crime. Yet another cost to the many for the gargantuan profits of a tiny few. In Oklahoma’s case the ‘few’ making eye-watering profits out of the deaths of young athletes, workers with back pain, teachers, nurses etc, were Perdue Pharma who assured people that their killer drug Oxycontin was safe – while in possession of proof it was not.
And while advertising is the inducement mechanism, The Profit Beast also protects itself pouring large fortunes into lobbying.
Statista reckoned that in 2022 the US food industry spent $7.5 billion on advertising processed food. Perdue used false figures when advertising OxyContin as a miracle drug and spent $800m+ lobbying to block warnings that it was unsafe. And the Sackler family who own Perdue and knowingly promoted the killer opioids, became so rich from their product of mass destruction, they featured on Forbes rich list. Now they’ve taken their murderous product to countries even more poorly regulated than the US.
Of course, if profit can be made out of causing the problem, it can also be made offering solutions. Big Pharma gave the world Oxycontin. It also now provides a drug to keep users alive if they OD – so they can carry on using. No one gives addicts their lives back. The food industry gifts us global obesity but then, especially in the ‘developed’ world, profits massively off the diet industry. We now have ‘miracle’ drugs to reverse the obesity The Profit Beast gifted us. Side-note – as early as 2023 the hysteria surrounding the new wonder anti-obesity drug Ozempic was apparently triggering eating disorders. We won’t continue down the hell hole on that one.
Try this one. The drug alcohol (no one who uses it calls it that obviously) has been consumed by humans for most of civilisation but, as with other consumables, it changed with industrialised production. It now accounts for around 3m deaths globally and wretchedness, ill health and disease for countless more.
The Institute of Alcohol Studies in London – in reporting how alcohol is marketed to children and young people - stated in 2023 that UK primary school children develop early alcohol brand loyalty and were more able to id alcohol brands than ice-cream or biscuits.
There is no low too low.
Heineken used prostitutes to help get brand foothold in Africa. Just to put things in perspective, global sales of the alcohol market are $1,300 BILLION. Meanwhile the WHO have identified 200 illnesses caused or made worse by alcohol…
Global human catastrophe and crises are no dampener to PB. During Covid, here in the UK, the pandemic was seen by the Conservative government (under Boris Johnson) and their rich pals – fast tracked to government contracts – as just another chance to get richer with £millions of public monies spent on contracts for medical equipment that either did not work or did not materialise. During WWII we’d have called that behaviour profiteering and members of that same party then believed profiteering should be punishable by firing squad.
Even the perverse profits related to butchering women’s bodies not for health but for money, has gone stratospheric. The plastic surgery industry, which used to be the preserve (literally) of the rich and famous and ‘fading Hollywood stars’ is now on any street here in the form of trout-lipped young women with orange skin, fillers and Botox that looks both ugly and painful. One currently popular procedure, the infamous Brazilian Butt Lift or BBL has a rate of 1 death per 4,000 procedures. It’s just another example of wealthy (predominantly men) profiting from deaths of, mainly young, insecure women. Often in private clinics like those that came under scrutiny after a cluster of horrific deaths in Miami Florida, where surgeons were performing up to 8 procedures per day with public hospitals – or morgues - picking up the pieces. The Profit Beast chewed up the whole principle of ‘first do no harm’.
And not only does the public sector pick up the pieces – which is a huge financial benefit for the private sector that rarely pay for their mistakes or corporate criminal conduct - the wealthy and powerful never seem to shoulder any responsibility or repercussions which simply drives the behaviour. Are they all sociopaths?
This question occurred to me recently when Tony Blair (yes – the UK war criminal) was yet again being platformed by the London media earlier this month, complaining that the UK benefits budget was over-burdened by those claiming sickness assistance. And there are issues with how sickness assistance is administered in the UK however, if you or I had been responsible for an illegal invasion on the far side of the world leading to innumerable civilian deaths, decimated an entire country, de-stabilised the region, harmed military personnel and birthed ISIS – we’d keep a more modest profile. Not call-me-Tony.
Furthermore, Blair is the man who turned UK universities into Ponzi schemes, introducing US-style tuition fees that have left millions of young folks in life-limiting debt and stress while he has never known a day’s want in his life.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald said of the rich “they are different from me and you”. The problem is they run everything from that position of unknowing and uncaring. What they are aware of is that repercussions will not touch them so they experiment and gamble with our lives.
Sometimes you may not even intend to consume a product. It’s forced on you or your family without knowledge or consent. But you still pay. For example, the ‘forever’ chemicals produced by companies like 3M (subject of the film Dark Waters staring Mark Ruffalo).
3M were found to have polluted huge swathes of Minesota over decades, increasing rare cancers among children. And – yes – like Perdue – the company knew their product was dangerous.
The dumping of both chemicals and plastics is a global problem especially in poor countries or those with poor regulations e.g. the horrific chemical pesticide leak from the US company Union Carbide in Bhopal India in 1984 which killed nearly 4,000 immediately and poisoned the lives of thousands more in the following years. Of course – because it was in India and not the US, victims and their families stood little chance of being properly compensated. Low-grade safety concerns are integral to a consumer industry where profit is everything and consequences are for mugs.
OR
You could just casually hand money over to the chronically wealthy in exchange for anxiety and debt. No need to lug STUFF home from the shops or get it delivered or spend years knowingly or passively consuming poison. We call this gambling and that too is epidemic (post 513 Gargantuan Gambling Gremlin).
But if you thought gambling was the bottom, the ultimate way for con artists to fleece the gullible – the 21st century gave us a new low. Crypto. And if we needed a more perfectly timed example – there was Trump fleecing his own supporters with what is technically called a meme coin or ‘shit’ coin, on the eve of his inauguration, flanked by his pet billionaire oligarchs.
Natural disasters kill people indiscriminately, but out-of-control profit motive is killing us and rotting our world and poisoning our children with no curbs on its euthanising enthusiasm.
There is no area you could now point to, it has not corrupted and corroded. Cheap deadly housing like Grenfell here in the UK. Mass housing built for quick profit on flood areas or known earthquake fault lines. Housing crises – again I’ll use the example here in the UK; after good quality council housing was sold off by Thatcher it was never re-invested. The post-war dividend of good healthcare, affordable decent housing and decent state education was sold down the river (the river flowing with effluent thanks to privatisation of water companies) for the profit of the few whose response is to hide their ill-gotten wealth in off-shore accounts.
At the more immediately violent end - war.
Industrialists benefitted in WWII from the sale of armaments just as arms companies have been raking it in from the genocide in Gaza and the slaughter and devastation in Ukraine. But wars make countries and ordinary people poorer in all ways. The few have profits; the many have incalculable loss and deep lasting scars.
True, The Profit Beast is no recent manifestation, its dehumanising effect has haunted us for centuries. The Atlantic Slave Trade is a grim and iconic example which besmirches human history with infamy and shame as possibly the contemporary world’s most heinous, long lived ‘civilisation-sanctioned’ act of profit-before-people. As a side issue – for anyone who thinks black slavery ever fully ended in the Southern US states - do read up on The Restitution Centres of Mississippi!
Go walk the famine roads of Ireland – built in the late 1840s, belated public works meant to provide literal starvation wages. The horrific trauma of The Great Famine in Ireland is often, rightly, put at the feet of an uncaring English government that had a racist and merciless view of the Irish and treated Ireland as a colony, useful for its land and resources – its people barely regarded as human. What is often missed is that Irish Catholic mid-level farmers – who saw the devastation of their fellows all around them – continued to sell good quality food abroad that could have stayed in Ireland, because they got a higher price.
During The Highland Clearances here in Scotland (1750 – 1860) around 150,000 highlanders were turned out of their crofts. Homes were burnt, communities destroyed and possessions smashed, food spoiled and even milk poured out so they could not return. Sheep were deemed more profitable than people.
The Profit Beast devours the soul.
Interestingly, though not surprisingly, when the system collapses under weight of greed as it did in the banking crisis of 2008, caused by the bankers, it was the banks that were bailed out to save the economy not the people at the bottom, crushed under personal debt they had no control over. The Profit Beast never pays. It devours then spews out our remains.
The problem we have today is that The Profit Beast becomes bigger, more ravenous and faster moving the more it’s fed and – like much else – it has gone Global. There is no corner it cannot/does not reach.
However - and it is a huge however – if what you conclude here – as I do – is that the poverty, misery, suffering, instability, chaos and destruction is all unnecessary - that is the very point. These are all – and always have been – problems engineered by greed. Specifically, it is created by a tiny handful of men who think they should have all the power and all the resources and more money than anyone could ever know what to do with. They are the moving parts of The Profit Beast. Why we’ve let them have it, is the massive question only psychologists and possibly historians will be able to answer. If, that is, humanity has much history left to make…
In the very most basic terms - if three people grab 97% of an available cake – the other 97 have to survive on 3%. It is that simple. It’s always been that simple. There have been very few times in human history when, if we had equality, we could not adequately feed, clothe, care for and house the vast majority if we had the will to do so.
Argentina is a good microcosm. A hugely wealth country just 100 years ago – it was plundered by its wealthy elite. Now ordinary people cannot afford the basics; inflation is out of control and many have returned to medieval bartering to get the essentials of life. And – of course – they have elected a right-wing nutter Javier Milie who wants to punish the poor more because that is what you do when it’s the rich who’ve run off with everything…
Spectacularly, here in the UK, we continue with that most idiotic remnant of long-gone empire - The Royal Family. £millions of public monies go every year to one of the wealthiest families and certainly the biggest landowners and hoarders of ill-gotten gains, making King Charles the greatest ‘benefits queen’ of all time. This is a man who had a public temper tantrum because a pen didn’t work…
Brexit. While xenophobia and racism were used to get the result, obeisance to The Profit Beast was the driver. The deregulation that leaving the EU delivered was the jewel in the crown for the wealthy, in a country already brought low by 45 years of privatisation and lack of investment in public infrastructure and institutions. Shame on many of the big unions and their blokey bosses for supporting it.
In America, The Profit Beast is on his last course – no longer hiding as it drools and dribbles. Trump is just a manifestation/personification of this phenomena.
Yes, its basic greed but it’s much more. The Profit Beast is willing to cannibalise our fellow human beings just for a fast buck down to the last man woman and child.
And we know. We’ve known for all time.
There is no major religion, creed or philosophy that does not site greed as a danger/evil to humanity. “Money is the root of all evil” is a mantra anyone could recite. I guarantee that for most people in our secular world – asked to list The Seven Deadly Sins - the one they are least likely to miss out is Greed.
But we don’t need deep religion or high philosophy, we can look to the shallow glitzy end of town.
In the quadrilogy Aliens (yup, no. 3 with its panto penal colony isn’t great) we’re repeatedly shown, it is not the horrific aliens that threaten all humanity. It’s the avaricious corporations and the grasping individuals who make them up.
In the fourth film, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is spliced and cloned for profit and dramatically dehumanised before our eyes in 8 manifestations kept in a science facility in what I think is the most gruesome scene in any of the four films.
But, in the second film, in case we don’t get it, Ripley confronts Burke – the rapacious company guy who is prepared to sacrifice everyone and everything for gain – she says
“I don’t know which species is worse, you don’t see them fucking each other over for a goddam percentage…”
We know. We’ve always known.
* ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ***
Zero One Zero Two (see goodreads)- In this dystopian novella which combines poetry prose, I dally with the delusion of hoping off to another planet when we’ve destroyed this one.
Casey & the Surfmen (see goodreads)– In this environmental poem in the epic tradition (audio) I've examine people power. Why do we use it so seldom?
*
Thank you so much for reading. Normally I post weekly at BROWN GIRL OUTSIDE THE RING but as this piece is more substantive than usual, and like a lot of folk I am entirely overwhelmed by the current state of the world I’ll leave this to brew for a while.
Nothing at all that we need so desperately to deal with; the approaching climate crisis tipping point, ill-health, destitution, abuse, exploitation, environmental damage – none of these things can or will be dealt with because doing so would enrage the Profit Beast.
The Profit Beast is vast, invulnerable and on his final course, Truth.
The Profit Beast, fed by out-of-control consumerism and co-conspirator advertising, are now such a perfect symbiotic mechanism that we stand little chance of outrunning this man-made monster.
Is this just scare-mongering about a grim dystopia? Pause for a moment and look up from amnesia-inducing smartphone or mind-numbing TV and take a quick glance at real reality.
Two commonplace UK cases of catastrophic consumerism and profit before people-ism - are the obesity epidemic, fuelled by the sugar saturated processed food industry and more recently the insidious youth Vaping trend.
According to The Lancet – global obesity levels tripled between 1975 and 2019. Obesity related deaths in the US are around 30,000 annually and 3,000 in the UK. According to the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Care, obesity costs the NHS £6.5 billion annually and is the second biggest cause of preventable cancer. Private profit, public cost – which we’ll come to later.
Still, one of the main culprits – sugary drinks - are not blanket banned in schools. Over and above that, as an additive to the most surprising foods, often those we regard as savoury, quantities of sugar have gone up exponentially in the last 4 decades. In the US, sugar consumption increased 30% between 1977 and 2010.
And of course, there is profit to be made in both causing and then treating the harm when it inevitably occurs. But more of that later too.
Sugar is a marketing preference for the processed food industry. It helps get people hooked on their products and it’s a very cheap bulk additive. The fact that it decimates body and dental health and kills does not matter.
A more recent phenomenon, one that has taken off in the UK like a nuclear-powered rocket, is Vaping. The sheer number of youngsters vaping on my local buses is a depressing sight.
The delivery system for the latest nicotine addiction is not biodegradable and is also an ignition hazard. Ah progress…
The youngest child I’ve seen vaping appeared to be about 9.
But the new vape shops selling the death dummies on my local high-street, look like sweetie shops.
The CDC (Centre for Disease Control) lists one of the known e-cigarette harms as detriment to adolescent brain development. E-cigarette ‘juice’ usually contains nicotine which is addictive. Vapes often also contain carcinogenic chemicals. Plus -
· Heavy metals such as nickel, tin, and lead in many flavours
· Tiny particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs
· Volatile organic compounds
· Flavourings such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to a serious lung disease.
But mostly, scientists agree we just don’t yet know the full range of harms though my local vape shop happily displays a neon sign claiming vaping is 95% safer than smoking. How they know what the scientists don’t is anyone’s guess
E-cigarettes attained a fast pass because they were supposed to encourage traditional cigarette smokers to stop. Most young people addicted to vaping have never smoked cigarettes.
Meanwhile we all have to go on being swamped by those huge clouds of exhaled, warm toilet-cleaner-scented lung farts.
The Fentanyl crisis in North America is the much more extreme end of death4profit with opioid deaths outstripping gun deaths in the most gunny place in the world. I hesitate to say that it’s as bad as it could get because where late-stage capitalism and out of control consumerism are concerned, there’s no extreme that is too extreme.
The price to society is not in truncated lives, ill-health and misery alone. It is a huge hit to public services. On the other side, a secretive few, siphon off profits Midas would have blushed at.
The public sector clears up the private sector’s mess. Private profit – state clear-up. Private wealth – public cost; medical services, police, charities, social services etc. All paid for - not by the wealthy who hide their obscene wealth and avoid the taxes that would fund the very services they over-burden with their greed.
In the US in the case brought by Oklahoma City after years of opioid carnage – one lawyer estimated the opioid epidemic – started by the prescription medications for a quick fix for pain in a society addicted to quick fixes - accounted for 80 percent of city crime. Yet another cost to the many for the gargantuan profits of a tiny few. In Oklahoma’s case the ‘few’ making eye-watering profits out of the deaths of young athletes, workers with back pain, teachers, nurses etc, were Perdue Pharma who assured people that their killer drug Oxycontin was safe – while in possession of proof it was not.
And while advertising is the inducement mechanism, The Profit Beast also protects itself pouring large fortunes into lobbying.
Statista reckoned that in 2022 the US food industry spent $7.5 billion on advertising processed food. Perdue used false figures when advertising OxyContin as a miracle drug and spent $800m+ lobbying to block warnings that it was unsafe. And the Sackler family who own Perdue and knowingly promoted the killer opioids, became so rich from their product of mass destruction, they featured on Forbes rich list. Now they’ve taken their murderous product to countries even more poorly regulated than the US.
Of course, if profit can be made out of causing the problem, it can also be made offering solutions. Big Pharma gave the world Oxycontin. It also now provides a drug to keep users alive if they OD – so they can carry on using. No one gives addicts their lives back. The food industry gifts us global obesity but then, especially in the ‘developed’ world, profits massively off the diet industry. We now have ‘miracle’ drugs to reverse the obesity The Profit Beast gifted us. Side-note – as early as 2023 the hysteria surrounding the new wonder anti-obesity drug Ozempic was apparently triggering eating disorders. We won’t continue down the hell hole on that one.
Try this one. The drug alcohol (no one who uses it calls it that obviously) has been consumed by humans for most of civilisation but, as with other consumables, it changed with industrialised production. It now accounts for around 3m deaths globally and wretchedness, ill health and disease for countless more.
The Institute of Alcohol Studies in London – in reporting how alcohol is marketed to children and young people - stated in 2023 that UK primary school children develop early alcohol brand loyalty and were more able to id alcohol brands than ice-cream or biscuits.
There is no low too low.
Heineken used prostitutes to help get brand foothold in Africa. Just to put things in perspective, global sales of the alcohol market are $1,300 BILLION. Meanwhile the WHO have identified 200 illnesses caused or made worse by alcohol…
Global human catastrophe and crises are no dampener to PB. During Covid, here in the UK, the pandemic was seen by the Conservative government (under Boris Johnson) and their rich pals – fast tracked to government contracts – as just another chance to get richer with £millions of public monies spent on contracts for medical equipment that either did not work or did not materialise. During WWII we’d have called that behaviour profiteering and members of that same party then believed profiteering should be punishable by firing squad.
Even the perverse profits related to butchering women’s bodies not for health but for money, has gone stratospheric. The plastic surgery industry, which used to be the preserve (literally) of the rich and famous and ‘fading Hollywood stars’ is now on any street here in the form of trout-lipped young women with orange skin, fillers and Botox that looks both ugly and painful. One currently popular procedure, the infamous Brazilian Butt Lift or BBL has a rate of 1 death per 4,000 procedures. It’s just another example of wealthy (predominantly men) profiting from deaths of, mainly young, insecure women. Often in private clinics like those that came under scrutiny after a cluster of horrific deaths in Miami Florida, where surgeons were performing up to 8 procedures per day with public hospitals – or morgues - picking up the pieces. The Profit Beast chewed up the whole principle of ‘first do no harm’.
And not only does the public sector pick up the pieces – which is a huge financial benefit for the private sector that rarely pay for their mistakes or corporate criminal conduct - the wealthy and powerful never seem to shoulder any responsibility or repercussions which simply drives the behaviour. Are they all sociopaths?
This question occurred to me recently when Tony Blair (yes – the UK war criminal) was yet again being platformed by the London media earlier this month, complaining that the UK benefits budget was over-burdened by those claiming sickness assistance. And there are issues with how sickness assistance is administered in the UK however, if you or I had been responsible for an illegal invasion on the far side of the world leading to innumerable civilian deaths, decimated an entire country, de-stabilised the region, harmed military personnel and birthed ISIS – we’d keep a more modest profile. Not call-me-Tony.
Furthermore, Blair is the man who turned UK universities into Ponzi schemes, introducing US-style tuition fees that have left millions of young folks in life-limiting debt and stress while he has never known a day’s want in his life.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald said of the rich “they are different from me and you”. The problem is they run everything from that position of unknowing and uncaring. What they are aware of is that repercussions will not touch them so they experiment and gamble with our lives.
Sometimes you may not even intend to consume a product. It’s forced on you or your family without knowledge or consent. But you still pay. For example, the ‘forever’ chemicals produced by companies like 3M (subject of the film Dark Waters staring Mark Ruffalo).
3M were found to have polluted huge swathes of Minesota over decades, increasing rare cancers among children. And – yes – like Perdue – the company knew their product was dangerous.
The dumping of both chemicals and plastics is a global problem especially in poor countries or those with poor regulations e.g. the horrific chemical pesticide leak from the US company Union Carbide in Bhopal India in 1984 which killed nearly 4,000 immediately and poisoned the lives of thousands more in the following years. Of course – because it was in India and not the US, victims and their families stood little chance of being properly compensated. Low-grade safety concerns are integral to a consumer industry where profit is everything and consequences are for mugs.
OR
You could just casually hand money over to the chronically wealthy in exchange for anxiety and debt. No need to lug STUFF home from the shops or get it delivered or spend years knowingly or passively consuming poison. We call this gambling and that too is epidemic (post 513 Gargantuan Gambling Gremlin).
But if you thought gambling was the bottom, the ultimate way for con artists to fleece the gullible – the 21st century gave us a new low. Crypto. And if we needed a more perfectly timed example – there was Trump fleecing his own supporters with what is technically called a meme coin or ‘shit’ coin, on the eve of his inauguration, flanked by his pet billionaire oligarchs.
Natural disasters kill people indiscriminately, but out-of-control profit motive is killing us and rotting our world and poisoning our children with no curbs on its euthanising enthusiasm.
There is no area you could now point to, it has not corrupted and corroded. Cheap deadly housing like Grenfell here in the UK. Mass housing built for quick profit on flood areas or known earthquake fault lines. Housing crises – again I’ll use the example here in the UK; after good quality council housing was sold off by Thatcher it was never re-invested. The post-war dividend of good healthcare, affordable decent housing and decent state education was sold down the river (the river flowing with effluent thanks to privatisation of water companies) for the profit of the few whose response is to hide their ill-gotten wealth in off-shore accounts.
At the more immediately violent end - war.
Industrialists benefitted in WWII from the sale of armaments just as arms companies have been raking it in from the genocide in Gaza and the slaughter and devastation in Ukraine. But wars make countries and ordinary people poorer in all ways. The few have profits; the many have incalculable loss and deep lasting scars.
True, The Profit Beast is no recent manifestation, its dehumanising effect has haunted us for centuries. The Atlantic Slave Trade is a grim and iconic example which besmirches human history with infamy and shame as possibly the contemporary world’s most heinous, long lived ‘civilisation-sanctioned’ act of profit-before-people. As a side issue – for anyone who thinks black slavery ever fully ended in the Southern US states - do read up on The Restitution Centres of Mississippi!
Go walk the famine roads of Ireland – built in the late 1840s, belated public works meant to provide literal starvation wages. The horrific trauma of The Great Famine in Ireland is often, rightly, put at the feet of an uncaring English government that had a racist and merciless view of the Irish and treated Ireland as a colony, useful for its land and resources – its people barely regarded as human. What is often missed is that Irish Catholic mid-level farmers – who saw the devastation of their fellows all around them – continued to sell good quality food abroad that could have stayed in Ireland, because they got a higher price.
During The Highland Clearances here in Scotland (1750 – 1860) around 150,000 highlanders were turned out of their crofts. Homes were burnt, communities destroyed and possessions smashed, food spoiled and even milk poured out so they could not return. Sheep were deemed more profitable than people.
The Profit Beast devours the soul.
Interestingly, though not surprisingly, when the system collapses under weight of greed as it did in the banking crisis of 2008, caused by the bankers, it was the banks that were bailed out to save the economy not the people at the bottom, crushed under personal debt they had no control over. The Profit Beast never pays. It devours then spews out our remains.
The problem we have today is that The Profit Beast becomes bigger, more ravenous and faster moving the more it’s fed and – like much else – it has gone Global. There is no corner it cannot/does not reach.
However - and it is a huge however – if what you conclude here – as I do – is that the poverty, misery, suffering, instability, chaos and destruction is all unnecessary - that is the very point. These are all – and always have been – problems engineered by greed. Specifically, it is created by a tiny handful of men who think they should have all the power and all the resources and more money than anyone could ever know what to do with. They are the moving parts of The Profit Beast. Why we’ve let them have it, is the massive question only psychologists and possibly historians will be able to answer. If, that is, humanity has much history left to make…
In the very most basic terms - if three people grab 97% of an available cake – the other 97 have to survive on 3%. It is that simple. It’s always been that simple. There have been very few times in human history when, if we had equality, we could not adequately feed, clothe, care for and house the vast majority if we had the will to do so.
Argentina is a good microcosm. A hugely wealth country just 100 years ago – it was plundered by its wealthy elite. Now ordinary people cannot afford the basics; inflation is out of control and many have returned to medieval bartering to get the essentials of life. And – of course – they have elected a right-wing nutter Javier Milie who wants to punish the poor more because that is what you do when it’s the rich who’ve run off with everything…
Spectacularly, here in the UK, we continue with that most idiotic remnant of long-gone empire - The Royal Family. £millions of public monies go every year to one of the wealthiest families and certainly the biggest landowners and hoarders of ill-gotten gains, making King Charles the greatest ‘benefits queen’ of all time. This is a man who had a public temper tantrum because a pen didn’t work…
Brexit. While xenophobia and racism were used to get the result, obeisance to The Profit Beast was the driver. The deregulation that leaving the EU delivered was the jewel in the crown for the wealthy, in a country already brought low by 45 years of privatisation and lack of investment in public infrastructure and institutions. Shame on many of the big unions and their blokey bosses for supporting it.
In America, The Profit Beast is on his last course – no longer hiding as it drools and dribbles. Trump is just a manifestation/personification of this phenomena.
Yes, its basic greed but it’s much more. The Profit Beast is willing to cannibalise our fellow human beings just for a fast buck down to the last man woman and child.
And we know. We’ve known for all time.
There is no major religion, creed or philosophy that does not site greed as a danger/evil to humanity. “Money is the root of all evil” is a mantra anyone could recite. I guarantee that for most people in our secular world – asked to list The Seven Deadly Sins - the one they are least likely to miss out is Greed.
But we don’t need deep religion or high philosophy, we can look to the shallow glitzy end of town.
In the quadrilogy Aliens (yup, no. 3 with its panto penal colony isn’t great) we’re repeatedly shown, it is not the horrific aliens that threaten all humanity. It’s the avaricious corporations and the grasping individuals who make them up.
In the fourth film, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is spliced and cloned for profit and dramatically dehumanised before our eyes in 8 manifestations kept in a science facility in what I think is the most gruesome scene in any of the four films.
But, in the second film, in case we don’t get it, Ripley confronts Burke – the rapacious company guy who is prepared to sacrifice everyone and everything for gain – she says
“I don’t know which species is worse, you don’t see them fucking each other over for a goddam percentage…”
We know. We’ve always known.
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Zero One Zero Two (see goodreads)- In this dystopian novella which combines poetry prose, I dally with the delusion of hoping off to another planet when we’ve destroyed this one.
Casey & the Surfmen (see goodreads)– In this environmental poem in the epic tradition (audio) I've examine people power. Why do we use it so seldom?
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Thank you so much for reading. Normally I post weekly at BROWN GIRL OUTSIDE THE RING but as this piece is more substantive than usual, and like a lot of folk I am entirely overwhelmed by the current state of the world I’ll leave this to brew for a while.
March 18, 2022
FREE chapter
This excerpt is a delicious favourite from The Companion Contract. The full novel will be on offer via amazon in its e-version from midnight this Tuesday 22nd March PST and 8am 23rd March GMT for 1.week. Following this car-crash social encounter with his unpleasant work colleagues, our dysfunctional anti-romantic social disaster R. Avery makes THE decision that will affect the rest of his life and Jennifer's... Enjoy!
A Crack on the Head & a Shovel of Shit -
Rob Avery experienced an uncharacteristic thrill. The buzz was not because he was going out for the evening, nor because he would have a proper non-microwave meal, but… well he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe the fizzing was because he had managed to make something happen or perhaps it was more than that. Rob had got two people to do something they clearly did not want to do and would probably regret until the evening was over and he didn’t care. On Saturday Rob would go to the hair salon and he would have something new to talk to Ricki about. Happy, Rob went back to his work and stayed at his desk until it was time to make his way to the Baelmer’s fashionable out-of-town residence.
Moor Farm Mews was a little horseshoe of smart barn conversions. The old farmhouse was far enough away for the ongoing extensive renovations not to disturb the new residents. The farmhouse had become vacant along with the barns when the tenant farmer had hung himself due to debt. The Baelmers inhabited the end house. In keeping with the tasteful style of the development, their car-parking spaces featured authentic cobblestones. Rob Avery parked his executive silver car with-integral-bumpers-and-air-conditioning next to the other executive cars in silver, black or red. Lyn Farch had a low red sports affair that he had to lever his wife’s ample arse out of from the inside.
Cliff Hardy, who was keen to show off his new girlfriend, greeted Rob enthusiastically at the door. Although Cliff’s figures were down and he had lost two major clients within a fortnight, and his ex-wife was spreading unpleasant private and personal truths about him, and one of the daughters that Cliff could no longer be bothered to visit was bulimic, he was flying high on his own ego, because he was in the heady position that night of being in possession of the youngest blondest woman at the gathering. OK, Cliff’s girlfriend wasn’t really blonde and she wasn’t that young but everything was relative. Cliff introduced his new mate as ‘Biny’. No one bothered to ask what that was short for.
Forewarned was forearmed, and everyone behaved pleasantly when Rob arrived. They treated him as if he were always intended to be a guest. Lyn’s wife Jan said it was nice to see Rob again and she hoped he was getting out socially now, as if it had been one year rather than six since the divorce. But then, Jan said very little else for the rest of the evening, as she’d been socially stung after confiding under the influence of too much sherry to Mrs Gemmel-Smith that if it wasn’t for the children, she would have left Mr Farch long ago. Jan Farch had also let it slip that she overcame other marital shortcomings by keeping a vibrator under the bed. The vibrator story caused great amusement among Mrs. Gemmel-Smith’s circle of designer acquaintances, not the fact of it, but the naivety of admitting it. Who, conjectured Mrs Gemmel-Smith privately, had not imagined their idiotic spouse dead under a bus? Then they/she’d be free to spend his money and take a satisfying lover? But to admit it, oh dear, how foolish!
Viggo Gemmel-Smith was presiding over the fireplace with his well-preserved and perfectly turned-out wife Suzannah. Mrs G-S perched on the edge of the chaise near to her husband’s left knee. Everyone else was arranged decoratively, appropriately and carefully. Rob on the other hand, knocked Suzannah’s drink over the instant he sat down. As he leant over to try to rescue the drink Rob spilt his own glass of beer and the sticky fluid went down his right trouser leg. Suzannah flinched and gasped, before managing to contain herself and restore to her chiselled features to the expression least likely to lead to further wrinkles. As the honey-brown sherry and some of the excess beer slopped onto Suzannah’s camel coloured, understated but obviously expensive and stylish, silk trouser suit, she clenched. Rob apologised profusely, though strangely he felt no embarrassment. Making matters worse, Rob jabbed at the camel trouser suit with a grubby handkerchief. Some of the women said, ‘Oh dear’ but were secretly amused. Cliff Hardy, who thought everything funny, laughed loudly and inappropriately, as did the squeaking Biny. The other partners made various helpful suggestions but didn’t move from their respective positions.
As Suzannah was trying to fend off the Avery handkerchief, Mary Baelmer, as if by magic, flew in from the kitchen two rooms away trailing gaudy gossamer chiffon. Breathlessly Mrs. Baelmer exclaimed that it was nothing and not to worry. The harassed kitchen help who was carrying a cloth, some warm soapy water and a can of Stain Star closely followed her. Liz Jameson offered her husband Andy’s help in the matter. Mary knew that Liz would never have been so disorganised as to allow such a situation to occur in her own well-appointed home with all the senior property partners present. Firmly but politely, Mary declined any offers, much to Andy Jameson’s relief. Having set the kitchen girl to work trying to save the antique rug, Mary gave her husband precise instructions on showing everyone through to the dining room. The hostess threw Suzannah a look of the deepest sympathy as if the woman’s entire family had just been devastated by plague and pestilence. The look was returned by one of sophisticated resignation and the studied wave of a bony hand. Suzannah drawled,
“It’s nothing Mary, really. Fortunately, it’s just an old thing I threw on this evening.”
She had in fact spent three hours trying outfits on in Harvey Nick’s. Never mind, she rationalised, it was a good excuse to go and buy something else. And anyway, the opportunity to be a martyr and insult Mary’s gathering by insinuating that effort on her part was not required was too much for Suzannah Gemmel-Smith to resist.
On the way through to the dining area, Rob was musing that each room seemed just to be a wide corridor masquerading as a room, despite the architect’s best efforts and a bit of open plan cleverness here and there, when he smashed his head against the stone lintel of a low doorway. Rob decided, for good and all, that the best creatures to inhabit barns were cattle and pigs. The impact made a sickening dull crack, a cross between a click and a thud; bone hitting stone, with only the merest amount of skin and flesh to deaden the sound. Most of the other men were short enough to avoid the disaster and Viggo, although as tall as Rob, was far too aware of himself and his surroundings to have done anything so clownish.
The procession continued with Rob tottering slightly, one hand pressed to his head to prevent his brains spilling out and the other to the wall to keep his balance. By the time he was seated on a corner of the now lop-sided table arrangement, Rob had a huge, shiny greyish-blue egg appearing on his forehead and his vision was impaired.
Jeff and his wife sat at each end of the rectangular, inlaid-rosewood dining table. It would have been perfectly balanced if it hadn’t been for the extra, unexpected, undesirable guest. On Mary’s right sat Senior Managing Partner Viggo Gemmel-Smith, next to him Suzannah, then Cliff and Biny. On her left were Lyn Farch, his wife Jane, poor Andy Jameson and, as far away from Viggo as possible, Liz. Viggo made a point of keeping a distance from Liz at social functions. Whilst his flirting was necessary at work, Mrs. Gemmel-Smith would never tolerate it socially, whatever the business rational. To have one’s husband openly flirting with a woman who thought a frilly jade satin blouse with a brown ‘A’ line skirt and buckle shoes were suitable evening attire would be too, too humiliating for Suzannah.
Rob was squashed onto the corner by Jeff’s right elbow with Liz Jameson on his right. It may have been his unusual diagonal position with the table corner in his diaphragm, or the unpleasant shock occasioned by Julia’s reactions or heightened sensitivity caused by his unconventional day or maybe it was the cracking blow to the temple, but whatever it was, Rob felt he had never seen his colleagues as clearly as he saw them right then.
He surveyed Gemmel-Smith with his ridiculous lank floppy hair. Maybe Gemmel-Smith thought his hairstyle, boyish. The guy certainly thought he was something to be admired physically. That was the odd thing about some men, thought Rob, they could go flabby round the jowls, get a paunch and a saggy arse and still think themselves no end of a devil. A woman in the same condition probably wouldn’t leave the house without surgery. From perhaps the age of eighteen to just before his nineteenth birthday, Gemmel-Smith would have been what a lot of college girls thought was attractive. Youthful good looks, coupled with confidence should be enough to keep him going the rest of his life. The Gemmel-Smiths of this world never actually see in the mirror what other people saw. Gemmel-Smith had never been much of a solicitor but he had an arrogance that convinced others that he knew more than he did. The cleverest thing Gemmel-Smith had ever done, as far as Rob could judge, was to be made managing partner so that his expected income targets were reduced, and then employ a partnership manager. The man was an appalling snob and Rob knew that if he hadn’t been responsible for a significant proportion of the firm’s wealth the pompous twit wouldn’t have given Rob the time of day.
Cliff just lived in another world with an unreality postcode. Rob could almost forgive the man his idiocy. But then, did he then have to flaunt his latest saggy-titted slattern at every opportunity. Even Rob, who could sympathise, was sick to death of the sexual innuendo and broad unsubtle hints at unbelievable nights of steamy exhausting erotic athleticism that would have killed off a twenty-year-old.
Liz would have been OK if she hadn’t had to cultivate a cast iron demeanour to keep her place among the men. Liz had bought her husband, Andy, at a second hand, second-rate husband auction and got him to impregnate her just before her eggs dried up but it wasn’t truly what she’d wanted. What Liz craved and needed was a real man, and there seemed to be none around. Liz was jealous of Cliff, even if she didn’t fully believe his ludicrous sexual claims. She was also keenly aware that if she had performed as poorly as Cliff had financially, there would be difficult questions being asked at board meetings by now, and she resented that. If she wanted poor Andy to do anything remotely passionate or energetic in the bedroom, Liz would have to send him a letter of explanation and written permission before she could expect action.
Jeff was harmless enough, if you could excuse greed and lasciviousness and his appalling attitude to the junior staff as being an after-effect of his own insecurity at not actually having a law degree. Jeff had the ability to string work out longer than any solicitor Rob knew, and that was no mean achievement. Jeff lived for his retirement. Rob wondered at what age you started doing that, living for the day when you did not have to get out of bed. Rob had met few people who had so little notion of the existence of others than Jeff Baelmer. On the day that Jeff’s secretary of twenty-five years retired he went out of the office without uttering so much as goodbye. Jeff had simply left an envelope on his desk with a cheque in it for the secretary to pick up after she had finished his letters. Perhaps his head had been already too full of the new young secretary that would be his to play with for the couple of remaining years he was at Dunston & Brough. The poor discarded secretary had cried for three hours, whilst clicking out the last few letters of her working life.
Under different circumstances, Lyn could have been a genuinely nasty piece of work. As it was Lyn’s financial success really did make up, in his mind, for his short legs and red cheeks. He felt big inside. All Lyn Farch had to do to augment his financial triumphs each day was to bully the junior staff at work, and his wife at home, and drive a very expensive car (with a raised driver’s seat). Lyn had produced two sons who looked as if they might reach average height, one of them smoked, drank, got into trouble at school, spent his father’s money, was rude and arrogant and regularly smashed up the family car. What more could a real father ask for?
Biny interrupted Rob’s reveries, asking if the swelling was painful and then tittering inanely, the kind of tin-foil titter that would make you want to slit her throat after half an hour. Biny dug Cliff in the ribs. Mary, who then decided that it was an awful omission of hers not to have offered some assistance to Rob Avery, suggested a cold compress. Everyone could see that it was too late for that, and they really wanted to get on with their salmon mousse.
The evening didn’t show any encouraging signs of thawing out. Unbeknownst to Rob, he was often how the ice was broken. As all the partners had their individual superiority complexes, Rob Avery was usually the butt of their jokes and sarcastic comments. Now they would have to think of something else to lampoon. Rob felt more than a little light-headed. The blow and the alcohol on an empty stomach made him feel both strangely lucid and lacking in inhibitions. In an odd way, he was enjoying the evening. Not caring what impression you made, was quite liberating. And he didn’t care, certainly not about the people sitting round the inlaid rosewood table.
For want of another topic, Lyn Farch decided to kick off the evening with an account of his eldest son’s latest smash. It had been a new car bought for Mrs Farch that the boy, Lance, had taken without permission. Jan Farch murmured weakly that her son could have been killed, but the assembled company, mindful that that was not the point of the story ignored her. Lyn grew animated and loquacious as he described the excessive speed, the loss of control, the angle of the crash, the conversation with the police sergeant (who happened to belong to the same branch of the Masons as himself). The cost of repairs was also impressively high and if anyone cared to drive down the particular road in question, the smashed bollards and hole in the fence could still be observed; such was the laxity of council workmen. Jeff Baelmer was almost at the ready with the jovial ‘boys will be boys’ response, which was expected, but just at the wrong moment he thrust a generous fork full of mousse in his mouth completely messing up his timing.
From Jeff’s elbow Rob Avery enunciated slowly, clearly, maybe even a little loudly, “Perhaps the boy is mentally ill.”
Jeff Baelmer started to choke on the salmon, Biny giggled, Jan bit her lip and Suzannah looked in exasperation at her husband. It was up to Viggo to save the situation, but while he was trying to think of something that would redeem Lyn, Rob continued helpfully, “No seriously! I was listening to Radio Four in the car the other day and there was a fascinating item on about a newly diagnosed form of mental illness that affects boys. It’s a kind of extreme version of an inferiority complex that is manifested in arrogant and mindless behaviour. If I remember correctly, it can often be associated with failure to establish appropriate boundaries in the home, lack of achievement at school or even, small genitals.” Rob paused. “I must say, I’m not a big fan of what Emma used to call ‘mucked about food’ but this salmon mousse is alright.”
Belatedly Jeff began his ‘boys will be boys’ talk, but the comments sounded hollow. Lyn’s eyes were pinpricks in his doughy face.
Suzannah, who was sitting opposite Lyn said, “They talk a lot of nonsense on these lefty programmes. Young people aren’t allowed good healthy fun these days.”
But it was all too little too late. People started praising Mary on the food and the improvements to the house, then the conversations disintegrated into twos and awkward threes.
The quail was unacceptably overcooked due to Mary’s lapse in concentration but appetites were flagging anyway. Rob allowed himself free reign with the wine even though he was driving home. There was a pleasant zinging, whizzing sensation in his head now and if he raised his eyebrows, he got a sharp pain across his temple that made him feel alive. With a half-chewed piece of the disastrous quail’s breast in his mouth, Rob leaned over Liz Jameson and said, in an audible stage whisper, “The colour of that blouse is very fetching. It suits you. I often think that it’s amazing how… different a woman can look in her evening clothes.” Rob sucked quail juice enthusiastically from his lips.
Liz said, ‘thank you,’ and flashed a triumphant grin around the table. As the receiver of the only overt personal compliment of the evening so far, she was miles ahead in brownie points over all the other women. Liz gave poor Andy a withering sneer and then smiled warmly at the talented commercial property solicitor to her left who worked so hard and contributed so much to the coffers of Dunston & Brough.
Viggo coughed but failed to draw Liz’s otherwise engaged attentions so he was not able to execute a surreptitious wink. As a compliment had been made, and Jeff was the host, he was under an absolute duty to second it so he added, after noisily clearing further food particles from his puffy mouth, “Yes, yes Liz it really is very fetching.”
And whether it was or not was irrelevant. In fact, whether the blouse made Liz resemble an oversized pantomime pixie could not have mattered less, she had the adulation, the flattery and no one else did. Any attempt now to admire the other women would appear as afterthoughts. Suzannah was almost ill with suppressed vitriol. Mary, mindful of Suzannah’s insult earlier in the evening, and secure in the knowledge that Rob Avery had no taste whatsoever, was pleased by Suzannah’s emotional injury.
Recovering slightly, Suzannah looked directly at the vivid green of Liz’s blouse, and said in a rather sharp voice, “I must admit, I do think soft colours add a certain grace to a classic evening outfit.”
“Yes,” agreed Rob innocently, “According to an article I read at the barbers, when the skin is ageing, the more mature woman is wise not to risk strong colours, that’s why you see so many of them in beige.”
Even the more controlled guests found themselves glancing at Suzannah’s camel-beige outfit before they realised what they were doing. Mary and Jan and Liz could have kissed Rob. Biny might have, if she had understood. Viggo, who was caught between a rock and a hard place, knew he was in for a roasting when he got home.
The evening was turning out rather well Rob thought.
“How are you getting on with Jemma?” Rob directed this startling question at his host.
“Fine, fine,” Jeff responded amiably but in a tone he hoped would discourage that line of enquiry.
“We were very sorry to lose Penny,” said Mary. Mary had been close to Jeff’s old secretary and between them, the two women had managed to get Jeff to and from work on time for the last twenty-five years, while making sure he was wearing the right clothes and signing the correct documents. Jeff had assured his wife that the replacement was very similar to Penny, although Mary could never get hold of the new secretary when she rang her husband at work.
“Dot says she can’t type, doesn’t know anything about property law and can’t communicate intelligently with clients,” Rob sympathised.
Jeff smiled nervously at Mary who was listening with every fibre of her being.
“Mind you,” continued Rob, “Seeing as she was only an office junior a year ago I suppose you can’t expect too much. I thought you might have taken that applicant from Mowbers. She seemed very experienced and competent and had an excellent CV and references. Didn’t you say that the Mowbers’ girl had great communication skills Cliff?”
Cliff was caught on the hop, but this time Viggo had his wits about him and interjected, “Sometimes it really is better to train staff to do things just the way you want them done. It can save a lot of hassle in the long run.”
But it was a badly placed defence, as everyone knew there wasn’t going to be a long run in this scenario. However, Jeff and Lyn and Cliff nodded sagely, mumbling their approval of this helpful point of view, but they were relieved when the kitchen help appeared to clear away the still quail-laden plates.
Over the meat course Rob renewed his flirting with Liz. It was quite enjoyable. Not because he fancied her, but he just couldn’t remember the last time he’d flirted with anyone socially. You couldn’t really call what he did with Shaz, flirting. This evening his flirtation was immoderate, bold. Viggo experienced an uncharacteristic anxiety. Cliff felt inexplicably overshadowed. When he could stand it no more, Cliff squeezed Biny’s thigh under the table a trifle too hard in order to get her to perform more satisfactorily. After what he’d given up for a woman with zero personality, no brains and no qualifications, Cliff wasn’t going to be sexually eclipsed by the partnership-saddo and the battle-axe. Biny squealed and turned a hurt kitten face towards Cliff. The pressure on her upper leg would be enough to leave a bruise in the morning. “Sweetheart, you’re being a bit rough,” she whined.
“I thought that’s how you preferred it, he he he he.” Cliff addressed his remarks to the assembled gathering. Biny finally got the message and moved her chair closer to Cliff’s in order to do a bit of draping. The problem was that Rob and Liz hadn’t noticed because at that point Rob was reaching the climax of a scandalously vulgar joke that Ricki had once told him. Liz was spluttering into her plate. Rob and Liz suddenly roared with laughter that was not shared by anyone else around the table. A couple of pieces of half chewed red meat flew from Liz’s mouth across the table towards Cliff’s plate.
“Now, now you two share the joke,” said Mary, who was beginning to think Rob Avery must have had some sort of a nervous breakdown.
“Ooooh I couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly. It was just terrible. Really Rob I am shocked, shocked,” spluttered Liz doing a good impression of a convent schoolgirl who has just accidentally opened a copy of the Karma Sutra in place of her Latin textbook.
Cliff and Biny weren’t just eclipsed they were obliterated.
“Now that’s not very polite is it, whispering at dinner,” whined Biny, who was beginning to get irritated by the scruffy lumpy headed man who was unsettling her meal ticket.
Rob Avery turned to Biny as if seeing her for the first time and let his gaze fall on the naked scraggy area commonly described as a chest. Biny wore a very low cut shimmery red dress displaying jutting angular shoulders, each individual bone of her upper rib cage, sunken clavicles and a shadow each side where thin strips of breast hung down. Biny had grown up believing that thinness equalled sexy and blonde was the same as beauty. As she was both thin and blonde, Biny had spent most of her adult life with the majority of her body on display, never questioning or doubting her allure. Biny tanned every week and had a very strict dress code, which was to wear whatever was in fashion. One would have said she had a hide rather than skin. As if a thought had suddenly come to him Rob blurted out, “One of my new clients is a re-constructive plastic surgeon.”
The cavernous silence, which followed, was broken eventually by Biny saying in a high voice, “Aaaand?”
“Well,” said Rob hesitantly as if surprised by the intensely focused interest in what he had to say, “It’s just interesting. The guy, this new client, can build things up, you know plump them back out,” he said looking at her vacant chest. “He can round things off,” he said glancing at her bony shoulders. “He can smooth things out”, he said looking at her deep crow’s feet. “Add a few curves etc.” He paused, then looked down at his plate, prodding the red meat experimentally with the tip of his silver knife. “I just think it’s rather clever and not as expensive as you might think. Of course, some people,” here he gazed appreciatively at Liz, “are curvy enough as it is.”
Liz rocked on ample hips and almost crowed with delight.
Mary was wondering whether to pretend that there was no pudding or cheese board or liqueurs or even to feign a migraine. It was hard to believe she was presiding over such an utterly atrocious evening. What might be said if people stayed much longer under her roof? She began to dread people staying longer. Jeff was dreading people leaving. Viggo was calculating whether he should risk an overt sexual innuendo to Liz and trust that Suzannah would understand that it was a tactical business emergency. Lyn wished he’d bought the Porsche rather than being persuaded by Mrs Farch to settle for the Audi. Liz decided that if Andy didn’t perform satisfactorily that night she was going to invest in a cattle prod. As for Cliff, he imagined, for the first time since leaving his family for Biny, his wife’s swaying hips. He thought sentimentally of Mrs Hardy’s plump, round, womanly breasts and realised that he might never see them again. Cliff remembered how he had liked to place his balding pate between Mrs Hardy’s breasts and make a cosy threesome.
Rob studied the figures around the table. Without knowing where the notion sprang from, he didn’t want to be in their company anymore, not for a second longer. He spent precious waking hours with them, now Rob wanted to leave. It would have been nice to go home to a family, but failing that he would put up with his own company one more time. With no concern for etiquette Rob stood up, nearly tipping over his chair and announced that he had to go. He had not realised how the time had flown. No one proposed a reason for Rob to stay. Suzannah hacked at her food as Rob almost fell onto the table in his eagerness to get to the door. Once he attained a standing position, Rob thanked the startled but relieved Mary for her generous hospitality, edged closely behind Liz’s chair and wished them all a good evening and he’d see them Monday bright and early.
Surprisingly the evening didn’t take a sudden turn for the better when Robert Avery made his exit. Each party secretly wished they too could run away but here were three more courses to survive.
Backing out of the drive Rob clipped Lyn’s wing mirror: what the hell. On the way out, Rob scraped his door against the gatepost. He didn’t care. Dizzy from the bizarre evening, and drink, and mild concussion Rob weaved home with his chin practically on his executive steering wheel along the country lanes in the general direction of town and away from Damascus. As he pulled into the garage assigned to his apartment, Rob could not decide whether he felt intensely euphoric or deeply mind numbingly depressed. Though he saw them all for what they were he also saw himself, lit from behind and in front, in perfect focus. He, Robert Avery was one of them and no one, bar his bank manager, would give a shovel of shit whether he lived or died.
A Crack on the Head & a Shovel of Shit -
Rob Avery experienced an uncharacteristic thrill. The buzz was not because he was going out for the evening, nor because he would have a proper non-microwave meal, but… well he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe the fizzing was because he had managed to make something happen or perhaps it was more than that. Rob had got two people to do something they clearly did not want to do and would probably regret until the evening was over and he didn’t care. On Saturday Rob would go to the hair salon and he would have something new to talk to Ricki about. Happy, Rob went back to his work and stayed at his desk until it was time to make his way to the Baelmer’s fashionable out-of-town residence.
Moor Farm Mews was a little horseshoe of smart barn conversions. The old farmhouse was far enough away for the ongoing extensive renovations not to disturb the new residents. The farmhouse had become vacant along with the barns when the tenant farmer had hung himself due to debt. The Baelmers inhabited the end house. In keeping with the tasteful style of the development, their car-parking spaces featured authentic cobblestones. Rob Avery parked his executive silver car with-integral-bumpers-and-air-conditioning next to the other executive cars in silver, black or red. Lyn Farch had a low red sports affair that he had to lever his wife’s ample arse out of from the inside.
Cliff Hardy, who was keen to show off his new girlfriend, greeted Rob enthusiastically at the door. Although Cliff’s figures were down and he had lost two major clients within a fortnight, and his ex-wife was spreading unpleasant private and personal truths about him, and one of the daughters that Cliff could no longer be bothered to visit was bulimic, he was flying high on his own ego, because he was in the heady position that night of being in possession of the youngest blondest woman at the gathering. OK, Cliff’s girlfriend wasn’t really blonde and she wasn’t that young but everything was relative. Cliff introduced his new mate as ‘Biny’. No one bothered to ask what that was short for.
Forewarned was forearmed, and everyone behaved pleasantly when Rob arrived. They treated him as if he were always intended to be a guest. Lyn’s wife Jan said it was nice to see Rob again and she hoped he was getting out socially now, as if it had been one year rather than six since the divorce. But then, Jan said very little else for the rest of the evening, as she’d been socially stung after confiding under the influence of too much sherry to Mrs Gemmel-Smith that if it wasn’t for the children, she would have left Mr Farch long ago. Jan Farch had also let it slip that she overcame other marital shortcomings by keeping a vibrator under the bed. The vibrator story caused great amusement among Mrs. Gemmel-Smith’s circle of designer acquaintances, not the fact of it, but the naivety of admitting it. Who, conjectured Mrs Gemmel-Smith privately, had not imagined their idiotic spouse dead under a bus? Then they/she’d be free to spend his money and take a satisfying lover? But to admit it, oh dear, how foolish!
Viggo Gemmel-Smith was presiding over the fireplace with his well-preserved and perfectly turned-out wife Suzannah. Mrs G-S perched on the edge of the chaise near to her husband’s left knee. Everyone else was arranged decoratively, appropriately and carefully. Rob on the other hand, knocked Suzannah’s drink over the instant he sat down. As he leant over to try to rescue the drink Rob spilt his own glass of beer and the sticky fluid went down his right trouser leg. Suzannah flinched and gasped, before managing to contain herself and restore to her chiselled features to the expression least likely to lead to further wrinkles. As the honey-brown sherry and some of the excess beer slopped onto Suzannah’s camel coloured, understated but obviously expensive and stylish, silk trouser suit, she clenched. Rob apologised profusely, though strangely he felt no embarrassment. Making matters worse, Rob jabbed at the camel trouser suit with a grubby handkerchief. Some of the women said, ‘Oh dear’ but were secretly amused. Cliff Hardy, who thought everything funny, laughed loudly and inappropriately, as did the squeaking Biny. The other partners made various helpful suggestions but didn’t move from their respective positions.
As Suzannah was trying to fend off the Avery handkerchief, Mary Baelmer, as if by magic, flew in from the kitchen two rooms away trailing gaudy gossamer chiffon. Breathlessly Mrs. Baelmer exclaimed that it was nothing and not to worry. The harassed kitchen help who was carrying a cloth, some warm soapy water and a can of Stain Star closely followed her. Liz Jameson offered her husband Andy’s help in the matter. Mary knew that Liz would never have been so disorganised as to allow such a situation to occur in her own well-appointed home with all the senior property partners present. Firmly but politely, Mary declined any offers, much to Andy Jameson’s relief. Having set the kitchen girl to work trying to save the antique rug, Mary gave her husband precise instructions on showing everyone through to the dining room. The hostess threw Suzannah a look of the deepest sympathy as if the woman’s entire family had just been devastated by plague and pestilence. The look was returned by one of sophisticated resignation and the studied wave of a bony hand. Suzannah drawled,
“It’s nothing Mary, really. Fortunately, it’s just an old thing I threw on this evening.”
She had in fact spent three hours trying outfits on in Harvey Nick’s. Never mind, she rationalised, it was a good excuse to go and buy something else. And anyway, the opportunity to be a martyr and insult Mary’s gathering by insinuating that effort on her part was not required was too much for Suzannah Gemmel-Smith to resist.
On the way through to the dining area, Rob was musing that each room seemed just to be a wide corridor masquerading as a room, despite the architect’s best efforts and a bit of open plan cleverness here and there, when he smashed his head against the stone lintel of a low doorway. Rob decided, for good and all, that the best creatures to inhabit barns were cattle and pigs. The impact made a sickening dull crack, a cross between a click and a thud; bone hitting stone, with only the merest amount of skin and flesh to deaden the sound. Most of the other men were short enough to avoid the disaster and Viggo, although as tall as Rob, was far too aware of himself and his surroundings to have done anything so clownish.
The procession continued with Rob tottering slightly, one hand pressed to his head to prevent his brains spilling out and the other to the wall to keep his balance. By the time he was seated on a corner of the now lop-sided table arrangement, Rob had a huge, shiny greyish-blue egg appearing on his forehead and his vision was impaired.
Jeff and his wife sat at each end of the rectangular, inlaid-rosewood dining table. It would have been perfectly balanced if it hadn’t been for the extra, unexpected, undesirable guest. On Mary’s right sat Senior Managing Partner Viggo Gemmel-Smith, next to him Suzannah, then Cliff and Biny. On her left were Lyn Farch, his wife Jane, poor Andy Jameson and, as far away from Viggo as possible, Liz. Viggo made a point of keeping a distance from Liz at social functions. Whilst his flirting was necessary at work, Mrs. Gemmel-Smith would never tolerate it socially, whatever the business rational. To have one’s husband openly flirting with a woman who thought a frilly jade satin blouse with a brown ‘A’ line skirt and buckle shoes were suitable evening attire would be too, too humiliating for Suzannah.
Rob was squashed onto the corner by Jeff’s right elbow with Liz Jameson on his right. It may have been his unusual diagonal position with the table corner in his diaphragm, or the unpleasant shock occasioned by Julia’s reactions or heightened sensitivity caused by his unconventional day or maybe it was the cracking blow to the temple, but whatever it was, Rob felt he had never seen his colleagues as clearly as he saw them right then.
He surveyed Gemmel-Smith with his ridiculous lank floppy hair. Maybe Gemmel-Smith thought his hairstyle, boyish. The guy certainly thought he was something to be admired physically. That was the odd thing about some men, thought Rob, they could go flabby round the jowls, get a paunch and a saggy arse and still think themselves no end of a devil. A woman in the same condition probably wouldn’t leave the house without surgery. From perhaps the age of eighteen to just before his nineteenth birthday, Gemmel-Smith would have been what a lot of college girls thought was attractive. Youthful good looks, coupled with confidence should be enough to keep him going the rest of his life. The Gemmel-Smiths of this world never actually see in the mirror what other people saw. Gemmel-Smith had never been much of a solicitor but he had an arrogance that convinced others that he knew more than he did. The cleverest thing Gemmel-Smith had ever done, as far as Rob could judge, was to be made managing partner so that his expected income targets were reduced, and then employ a partnership manager. The man was an appalling snob and Rob knew that if he hadn’t been responsible for a significant proportion of the firm’s wealth the pompous twit wouldn’t have given Rob the time of day.
Cliff just lived in another world with an unreality postcode. Rob could almost forgive the man his idiocy. But then, did he then have to flaunt his latest saggy-titted slattern at every opportunity. Even Rob, who could sympathise, was sick to death of the sexual innuendo and broad unsubtle hints at unbelievable nights of steamy exhausting erotic athleticism that would have killed off a twenty-year-old.
Liz would have been OK if she hadn’t had to cultivate a cast iron demeanour to keep her place among the men. Liz had bought her husband, Andy, at a second hand, second-rate husband auction and got him to impregnate her just before her eggs dried up but it wasn’t truly what she’d wanted. What Liz craved and needed was a real man, and there seemed to be none around. Liz was jealous of Cliff, even if she didn’t fully believe his ludicrous sexual claims. She was also keenly aware that if she had performed as poorly as Cliff had financially, there would be difficult questions being asked at board meetings by now, and she resented that. If she wanted poor Andy to do anything remotely passionate or energetic in the bedroom, Liz would have to send him a letter of explanation and written permission before she could expect action.
Jeff was harmless enough, if you could excuse greed and lasciviousness and his appalling attitude to the junior staff as being an after-effect of his own insecurity at not actually having a law degree. Jeff had the ability to string work out longer than any solicitor Rob knew, and that was no mean achievement. Jeff lived for his retirement. Rob wondered at what age you started doing that, living for the day when you did not have to get out of bed. Rob had met few people who had so little notion of the existence of others than Jeff Baelmer. On the day that Jeff’s secretary of twenty-five years retired he went out of the office without uttering so much as goodbye. Jeff had simply left an envelope on his desk with a cheque in it for the secretary to pick up after she had finished his letters. Perhaps his head had been already too full of the new young secretary that would be his to play with for the couple of remaining years he was at Dunston & Brough. The poor discarded secretary had cried for three hours, whilst clicking out the last few letters of her working life.
Under different circumstances, Lyn could have been a genuinely nasty piece of work. As it was Lyn’s financial success really did make up, in his mind, for his short legs and red cheeks. He felt big inside. All Lyn Farch had to do to augment his financial triumphs each day was to bully the junior staff at work, and his wife at home, and drive a very expensive car (with a raised driver’s seat). Lyn had produced two sons who looked as if they might reach average height, one of them smoked, drank, got into trouble at school, spent his father’s money, was rude and arrogant and regularly smashed up the family car. What more could a real father ask for?
Biny interrupted Rob’s reveries, asking if the swelling was painful and then tittering inanely, the kind of tin-foil titter that would make you want to slit her throat after half an hour. Biny dug Cliff in the ribs. Mary, who then decided that it was an awful omission of hers not to have offered some assistance to Rob Avery, suggested a cold compress. Everyone could see that it was too late for that, and they really wanted to get on with their salmon mousse.
The evening didn’t show any encouraging signs of thawing out. Unbeknownst to Rob, he was often how the ice was broken. As all the partners had their individual superiority complexes, Rob Avery was usually the butt of their jokes and sarcastic comments. Now they would have to think of something else to lampoon. Rob felt more than a little light-headed. The blow and the alcohol on an empty stomach made him feel both strangely lucid and lacking in inhibitions. In an odd way, he was enjoying the evening. Not caring what impression you made, was quite liberating. And he didn’t care, certainly not about the people sitting round the inlaid rosewood table.
For want of another topic, Lyn Farch decided to kick off the evening with an account of his eldest son’s latest smash. It had been a new car bought for Mrs Farch that the boy, Lance, had taken without permission. Jan Farch murmured weakly that her son could have been killed, but the assembled company, mindful that that was not the point of the story ignored her. Lyn grew animated and loquacious as he described the excessive speed, the loss of control, the angle of the crash, the conversation with the police sergeant (who happened to belong to the same branch of the Masons as himself). The cost of repairs was also impressively high and if anyone cared to drive down the particular road in question, the smashed bollards and hole in the fence could still be observed; such was the laxity of council workmen. Jeff Baelmer was almost at the ready with the jovial ‘boys will be boys’ response, which was expected, but just at the wrong moment he thrust a generous fork full of mousse in his mouth completely messing up his timing.
From Jeff’s elbow Rob Avery enunciated slowly, clearly, maybe even a little loudly, “Perhaps the boy is mentally ill.”
Jeff Baelmer started to choke on the salmon, Biny giggled, Jan bit her lip and Suzannah looked in exasperation at her husband. It was up to Viggo to save the situation, but while he was trying to think of something that would redeem Lyn, Rob continued helpfully, “No seriously! I was listening to Radio Four in the car the other day and there was a fascinating item on about a newly diagnosed form of mental illness that affects boys. It’s a kind of extreme version of an inferiority complex that is manifested in arrogant and mindless behaviour. If I remember correctly, it can often be associated with failure to establish appropriate boundaries in the home, lack of achievement at school or even, small genitals.” Rob paused. “I must say, I’m not a big fan of what Emma used to call ‘mucked about food’ but this salmon mousse is alright.”
Belatedly Jeff began his ‘boys will be boys’ talk, but the comments sounded hollow. Lyn’s eyes were pinpricks in his doughy face.
Suzannah, who was sitting opposite Lyn said, “They talk a lot of nonsense on these lefty programmes. Young people aren’t allowed good healthy fun these days.”
But it was all too little too late. People started praising Mary on the food and the improvements to the house, then the conversations disintegrated into twos and awkward threes.
The quail was unacceptably overcooked due to Mary’s lapse in concentration but appetites were flagging anyway. Rob allowed himself free reign with the wine even though he was driving home. There was a pleasant zinging, whizzing sensation in his head now and if he raised his eyebrows, he got a sharp pain across his temple that made him feel alive. With a half-chewed piece of the disastrous quail’s breast in his mouth, Rob leaned over Liz Jameson and said, in an audible stage whisper, “The colour of that blouse is very fetching. It suits you. I often think that it’s amazing how… different a woman can look in her evening clothes.” Rob sucked quail juice enthusiastically from his lips.
Liz said, ‘thank you,’ and flashed a triumphant grin around the table. As the receiver of the only overt personal compliment of the evening so far, she was miles ahead in brownie points over all the other women. Liz gave poor Andy a withering sneer and then smiled warmly at the talented commercial property solicitor to her left who worked so hard and contributed so much to the coffers of Dunston & Brough.
Viggo coughed but failed to draw Liz’s otherwise engaged attentions so he was not able to execute a surreptitious wink. As a compliment had been made, and Jeff was the host, he was under an absolute duty to second it so he added, after noisily clearing further food particles from his puffy mouth, “Yes, yes Liz it really is very fetching.”
And whether it was or not was irrelevant. In fact, whether the blouse made Liz resemble an oversized pantomime pixie could not have mattered less, she had the adulation, the flattery and no one else did. Any attempt now to admire the other women would appear as afterthoughts. Suzannah was almost ill with suppressed vitriol. Mary, mindful of Suzannah’s insult earlier in the evening, and secure in the knowledge that Rob Avery had no taste whatsoever, was pleased by Suzannah’s emotional injury.
Recovering slightly, Suzannah looked directly at the vivid green of Liz’s blouse, and said in a rather sharp voice, “I must admit, I do think soft colours add a certain grace to a classic evening outfit.”
“Yes,” agreed Rob innocently, “According to an article I read at the barbers, when the skin is ageing, the more mature woman is wise not to risk strong colours, that’s why you see so many of them in beige.”
Even the more controlled guests found themselves glancing at Suzannah’s camel-beige outfit before they realised what they were doing. Mary and Jan and Liz could have kissed Rob. Biny might have, if she had understood. Viggo, who was caught between a rock and a hard place, knew he was in for a roasting when he got home.
The evening was turning out rather well Rob thought.
“How are you getting on with Jemma?” Rob directed this startling question at his host.
“Fine, fine,” Jeff responded amiably but in a tone he hoped would discourage that line of enquiry.
“We were very sorry to lose Penny,” said Mary. Mary had been close to Jeff’s old secretary and between them, the two women had managed to get Jeff to and from work on time for the last twenty-five years, while making sure he was wearing the right clothes and signing the correct documents. Jeff had assured his wife that the replacement was very similar to Penny, although Mary could never get hold of the new secretary when she rang her husband at work.
“Dot says she can’t type, doesn’t know anything about property law and can’t communicate intelligently with clients,” Rob sympathised.
Jeff smiled nervously at Mary who was listening with every fibre of her being.
“Mind you,” continued Rob, “Seeing as she was only an office junior a year ago I suppose you can’t expect too much. I thought you might have taken that applicant from Mowbers. She seemed very experienced and competent and had an excellent CV and references. Didn’t you say that the Mowbers’ girl had great communication skills Cliff?”
Cliff was caught on the hop, but this time Viggo had his wits about him and interjected, “Sometimes it really is better to train staff to do things just the way you want them done. It can save a lot of hassle in the long run.”
But it was a badly placed defence, as everyone knew there wasn’t going to be a long run in this scenario. However, Jeff and Lyn and Cliff nodded sagely, mumbling their approval of this helpful point of view, but they were relieved when the kitchen help appeared to clear away the still quail-laden plates.
Over the meat course Rob renewed his flirting with Liz. It was quite enjoyable. Not because he fancied her, but he just couldn’t remember the last time he’d flirted with anyone socially. You couldn’t really call what he did with Shaz, flirting. This evening his flirtation was immoderate, bold. Viggo experienced an uncharacteristic anxiety. Cliff felt inexplicably overshadowed. When he could stand it no more, Cliff squeezed Biny’s thigh under the table a trifle too hard in order to get her to perform more satisfactorily. After what he’d given up for a woman with zero personality, no brains and no qualifications, Cliff wasn’t going to be sexually eclipsed by the partnership-saddo and the battle-axe. Biny squealed and turned a hurt kitten face towards Cliff. The pressure on her upper leg would be enough to leave a bruise in the morning. “Sweetheart, you’re being a bit rough,” she whined.
“I thought that’s how you preferred it, he he he he.” Cliff addressed his remarks to the assembled gathering. Biny finally got the message and moved her chair closer to Cliff’s in order to do a bit of draping. The problem was that Rob and Liz hadn’t noticed because at that point Rob was reaching the climax of a scandalously vulgar joke that Ricki had once told him. Liz was spluttering into her plate. Rob and Liz suddenly roared with laughter that was not shared by anyone else around the table. A couple of pieces of half chewed red meat flew from Liz’s mouth across the table towards Cliff’s plate.
“Now, now you two share the joke,” said Mary, who was beginning to think Rob Avery must have had some sort of a nervous breakdown.
“Ooooh I couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly. It was just terrible. Really Rob I am shocked, shocked,” spluttered Liz doing a good impression of a convent schoolgirl who has just accidentally opened a copy of the Karma Sutra in place of her Latin textbook.
Cliff and Biny weren’t just eclipsed they were obliterated.
“Now that’s not very polite is it, whispering at dinner,” whined Biny, who was beginning to get irritated by the scruffy lumpy headed man who was unsettling her meal ticket.
Rob Avery turned to Biny as if seeing her for the first time and let his gaze fall on the naked scraggy area commonly described as a chest. Biny wore a very low cut shimmery red dress displaying jutting angular shoulders, each individual bone of her upper rib cage, sunken clavicles and a shadow each side where thin strips of breast hung down. Biny had grown up believing that thinness equalled sexy and blonde was the same as beauty. As she was both thin and blonde, Biny had spent most of her adult life with the majority of her body on display, never questioning or doubting her allure. Biny tanned every week and had a very strict dress code, which was to wear whatever was in fashion. One would have said she had a hide rather than skin. As if a thought had suddenly come to him Rob blurted out, “One of my new clients is a re-constructive plastic surgeon.”
The cavernous silence, which followed, was broken eventually by Biny saying in a high voice, “Aaaand?”
“Well,” said Rob hesitantly as if surprised by the intensely focused interest in what he had to say, “It’s just interesting. The guy, this new client, can build things up, you know plump them back out,” he said looking at her vacant chest. “He can round things off,” he said glancing at her bony shoulders. “He can smooth things out”, he said looking at her deep crow’s feet. “Add a few curves etc.” He paused, then looked down at his plate, prodding the red meat experimentally with the tip of his silver knife. “I just think it’s rather clever and not as expensive as you might think. Of course, some people,” here he gazed appreciatively at Liz, “are curvy enough as it is.”
Liz rocked on ample hips and almost crowed with delight.
Mary was wondering whether to pretend that there was no pudding or cheese board or liqueurs or even to feign a migraine. It was hard to believe she was presiding over such an utterly atrocious evening. What might be said if people stayed much longer under her roof? She began to dread people staying longer. Jeff was dreading people leaving. Viggo was calculating whether he should risk an overt sexual innuendo to Liz and trust that Suzannah would understand that it was a tactical business emergency. Lyn wished he’d bought the Porsche rather than being persuaded by Mrs Farch to settle for the Audi. Liz decided that if Andy didn’t perform satisfactorily that night she was going to invest in a cattle prod. As for Cliff, he imagined, for the first time since leaving his family for Biny, his wife’s swaying hips. He thought sentimentally of Mrs Hardy’s plump, round, womanly breasts and realised that he might never see them again. Cliff remembered how he had liked to place his balding pate between Mrs Hardy’s breasts and make a cosy threesome.
Rob studied the figures around the table. Without knowing where the notion sprang from, he didn’t want to be in their company anymore, not for a second longer. He spent precious waking hours with them, now Rob wanted to leave. It would have been nice to go home to a family, but failing that he would put up with his own company one more time. With no concern for etiquette Rob stood up, nearly tipping over his chair and announced that he had to go. He had not realised how the time had flown. No one proposed a reason for Rob to stay. Suzannah hacked at her food as Rob almost fell onto the table in his eagerness to get to the door. Once he attained a standing position, Rob thanked the startled but relieved Mary for her generous hospitality, edged closely behind Liz’s chair and wished them all a good evening and he’d see them Monday bright and early.
Surprisingly the evening didn’t take a sudden turn for the better when Robert Avery made his exit. Each party secretly wished they too could run away but here were three more courses to survive.
Backing out of the drive Rob clipped Lyn’s wing mirror: what the hell. On the way out, Rob scraped his door against the gatepost. He didn’t care. Dizzy from the bizarre evening, and drink, and mild concussion Rob weaved home with his chin practically on his executive steering wheel along the country lanes in the general direction of town and away from Damascus. As he pulled into the garage assigned to his apartment, Rob could not decide whether he felt intensely euphoric or deeply mind numbingly depressed. Though he saw them all for what they were he also saw himself, lit from behind and in front, in perfect focus. He, Robert Avery was one of them and no one, bar his bank manager, would give a shovel of shit whether he lived or died.
March 5, 2022
The Point
For Women's History month I've again dug into Zero One Zero Two. I'd not really considered before that this is a very women centred book - apart from the main protagonist being a 200 yr old female :) - anyhow - this piece is called The Point - and as I previously explained - in this novella the forward narrative is in prose but there are a handful of reflective pieces that are poetry. Here is The Point.
I used to sew
What joy there was
A needle has a point
In and out
It holds disparate parts
Together
A woman’s job
Not tailoring
Which suggests fashioning to make fit
Sewing
Holding things together
Making something useful
Mending
Darning
Quilting
Hemming
Letting out
Tucking in
Padding, patching, unpicking,
In fifteenth century Europe
On discovering she was pregnant
A woman would sew her shroud
Shrewd
She understood fate’s thread
And the point
Of life
The Bayeux tapestry shows a tale
The only tale
Of death
In stiches
Apt
I loved to sort through buttons
I kept them in a jar
As had my grandmother
Like sweets
Encapsulated
Each button for a garment
Each garment for a person
So much time to sew each disc
Pearl or plastic
Wood or bone
Thank heavens for zips
Velcro
Elastic
But, the button…
Butterflies on a bodice
Pearls on a jacket
Sequins on a gown
Missing on a school cardigan
Home-made clothes - a loved child
A stitch in time
But time unravels
I sewed a wedding dress
And the stiches held
Though the marriage did not
I sewed party frocks
With the steady thrum of a machine
Wheel spinning
Reminiscent of
The spinning Jenny
Poor girl
The calm concentration of the hand-held needle
Occasional miss
Prick
Blood
Suck
Continue
Love is in that garment
But later mothers did not sew
Children stitched
Their childhoods spent in shadow
Crouched
Hunched
Prick
Blood
Cry
Continue
Sewing no longer held things together
Cheap production
Cheap lives
Mocked wasted efforts
Still I mended
A meagre substitute
For making
There was a needle but
No point
*
Next time I hope to post a comedic excerpt from my novel The Companion Contract to coincide with the e-version being on offer on Amazon from March 22nd.
I used to sew
What joy there was
A needle has a point
In and out
It holds disparate parts
Together
A woman’s job
Not tailoring
Which suggests fashioning to make fit
Sewing
Holding things together
Making something useful
Mending
Darning
Quilting
Hemming
Letting out
Tucking in
Padding, patching, unpicking,
In fifteenth century Europe
On discovering she was pregnant
A woman would sew her shroud
Shrewd
She understood fate’s thread
And the point
Of life
The Bayeux tapestry shows a tale
The only tale
Of death
In stiches
Apt
I loved to sort through buttons
I kept them in a jar
As had my grandmother
Like sweets
Encapsulated
Each button for a garment
Each garment for a person
So much time to sew each disc
Pearl or plastic
Wood or bone
Thank heavens for zips
Velcro
Elastic
But, the button…
Butterflies on a bodice
Pearls on a jacket
Sequins on a gown
Missing on a school cardigan
Home-made clothes - a loved child
A stitch in time
But time unravels
I sewed a wedding dress
And the stiches held
Though the marriage did not
I sewed party frocks
With the steady thrum of a machine
Wheel spinning
Reminiscent of
The spinning Jenny
Poor girl
The calm concentration of the hand-held needle
Occasional miss
Prick
Blood
Suck
Continue
Love is in that garment
But later mothers did not sew
Children stitched
Their childhoods spent in shadow
Crouched
Hunched
Prick
Blood
Cry
Continue
Sewing no longer held things together
Cheap production
Cheap lives
Mocked wasted efforts
Still I mended
A meagre substitute
For making
There was a needle but
No point
*
Next time I hope to post a comedic excerpt from my novel The Companion Contract to coincide with the e-version being on offer on Amazon from March 22nd.
February 23, 2022
Does The Sun Still Shine
This extract is from my dystopian novella 'Zero One Zero Two'. In this short hallucinogenic story, the forward narrative about a 200 year old woman and the end of life on earth following environmental destruction, is in prose and the reflective pieces remembering earth are in contemporary poetry.
This particular piece was also published in the 2021 anthology 'Summer Anywhere' by Dreich books. Enjoy.
*
Does the sun still shine
Do rivers still dance
Do breezes caress the trees
Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere
Do flowers still flirt with bees
Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears
Does the Okavango delta still wash with Africa’s tears
Do elephant bones lie bleached and broken
Are shorelines kissed by the sea
Are dead cities shadowed with ghosts and regret
The great whales just a memory
Is there a footprint left by me
Does a white moon glow where nobody sees
Could cathedral sunsets still bring me to my knees
Does the kestrel cruise with a predator’s grace
While a vole marks his shadow, beware
Are the turrets and towers toppled and gone
Are the Great Plains stripped and bare
Is there anything there
Does rippling heat flatten the desert dust
Where scorpions arch and cacti pose and camels have wanderlust
Are mountains still dappled by giddy cloud
Is my memory only a dusty store
Pale pretty pictures of paradise
Images of things that are no more
An empty room without a door
Our plundering and ravaging bore malformed fruit
Are the oceans and skies forlorn are forests blind and mute
Or
Does the sun still shine
Do rivers still dance
Do breezes caress the trees
Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere
Do flowers still flirt with bees
Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears
Does the Okavango delta still wash with Africa’s tears
This particular piece was also published in the 2021 anthology 'Summer Anywhere' by Dreich books. Enjoy.
*
Does the sun still shine
Do rivers still dance
Do breezes caress the trees
Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere
Do flowers still flirt with bees
Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears
Does the Okavango delta still wash with Africa’s tears
Do elephant bones lie bleached and broken
Are shorelines kissed by the sea
Are dead cities shadowed with ghosts and regret
The great whales just a memory
Is there a footprint left by me
Does a white moon glow where nobody sees
Could cathedral sunsets still bring me to my knees
Does the kestrel cruise with a predator’s grace
While a vole marks his shadow, beware
Are the turrets and towers toppled and gone
Are the Great Plains stripped and bare
Is there anything there
Does rippling heat flatten the desert dust
Where scorpions arch and cacti pose and camels have wanderlust
Are mountains still dappled by giddy cloud
Is my memory only a dusty store
Pale pretty pictures of paradise
Images of things that are no more
An empty room without a door
Our plundering and ravaging bore malformed fruit
Are the oceans and skies forlorn are forests blind and mute
Or
Does the sun still shine
Do rivers still dance
Do breezes caress the trees
Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere
Do flowers still flirt with bees
Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears
Does the Okavango delta still wash with Africa’s tears
February 13, 2022
3 weird things a writer’s life taught me.
1. The place you are most likely to get someone elses excrement on your hand in a public toilet is as you try and fish out the disappearing loo roll from the ridiculous dispenser. Yes – as part of my efforts to keep body and soul together as a writer I’ve done some interesting things to pay the bills. Many of them far less glamorous than people might expect of the creative life. One of these was cleaner in a public building during lockdown. And that was one of the many many disgusting things I discovered…
2. There are lots of very odd family set ups that would make soap operas look tame. Yes – another short term income stream was childminding. I’ve looked after lots of lovely children for super families. In fact the child of one of the families I really loved becomes a character in my pre-pandemic comedy Sex Violence and the Wrong Mobility Scooter. But I digress. I did childminding where it turned out it was the guy’s ‘secret’ family. And actually what he wanted was not so much childcare for the toddler – whose mum was home with him all day every day anyhow – but some company for his bit on the side. I didn’t last long.
3. I discovered that we waste so much STUFF – so so so much that I could earn enough to pay my council tax just by taking home random stuff folk dumped on the pavements. Often buggies that just needed cleaning. And then other folk who bought what are now referred to as TRAVEL SYSTEMS (pram/buggies to you and me – and frankly those hybrid things that cost the earth and are neither use nor ornament) because when they went on their 3 or 4 ecologically disastrous holiday’s abroad each year – they wanted a cheap buggy – and a lighter one that the airport baggage staff could trash without too much financial damage.
OF course there is glamorous stuff too. When I think of some I’ll let you know.
2. There are lots of very odd family set ups that would make soap operas look tame. Yes – another short term income stream was childminding. I’ve looked after lots of lovely children for super families. In fact the child of one of the families I really loved becomes a character in my pre-pandemic comedy Sex Violence and the Wrong Mobility Scooter. But I digress. I did childminding where it turned out it was the guy’s ‘secret’ family. And actually what he wanted was not so much childcare for the toddler – whose mum was home with him all day every day anyhow – but some company for his bit on the side. I didn’t last long.
3. I discovered that we waste so much STUFF – so so so much that I could earn enough to pay my council tax just by taking home random stuff folk dumped on the pavements. Often buggies that just needed cleaning. And then other folk who bought what are now referred to as TRAVEL SYSTEMS (pram/buggies to you and me – and frankly those hybrid things that cost the earth and are neither use nor ornament) because when they went on their 3 or 4 ecologically disastrous holiday’s abroad each year – they wanted a cheap buggy – and a lighter one that the airport baggage staff could trash without too much financial damage.
OF course there is glamorous stuff too. When I think of some I’ll let you know.
February 9, 2022
When should you give up?
I first knew I wanted to be a writer when I was 6. With several diversions en route – a failed marriage – 3 beautiful children – a brief political career (local) even briefer legal career - I returned to my heart’s desire officially at the turn of the century.
Naive beyond belief about what the world of professional writing and the brutal horrors of publishing, I launched in.
Like many hopefuls I endured the rejections – the half responses. My top rejects included a full two page A4 closely typed letter from an agent who went to great lengths and considerable time to explain to me how she was far too busy to read my very short submission.
I had one ‘acceptance’ fulsome, glowing – the only problem was it was from a publisher who was writing to someone else. Not a black woman writing the sort of adult pithy stuff I’d submitted but someone submitting a lovely twee novel set in the 1950s - all chintz, whiteness and rose tinted specs. She showed no remorse. IN fact she was so spiteful in her response I did wonder if it was a deliberate ‘mistake’.
At one point I had a prestigious agent in New York – which sounds grand but for the year I was contracted to them for two novels – I was treated so appallingly I nearly gave up writing.
Like a lot of writers who don’t fall into the category of knowing folk in the publishing industry – or being a celebrity or have royal connections or released a sex tape so already famous on social media yada yada yada – I eventually – apart from my short stories and poems published by small publishers – went down the route of indy-publishing. It’s no party. And the main issue – is that you have zero muscle behind you.
In mainstream publishing you will often notice a glowing review on the cover of a book and find that the book does not live up to any of the expectations and yet you know the lead name and they seem to know what they are talking about. Check which publisher THEY are with by and you will often find they come from the same stable as the author they are praising. Draw your own conclusions.
You don’t have the resources.
You don’t have the contacts.
You do learn to be a brutal self-critic – you learn to slap yourself around a bit. Then you plough on.
I ploughed on, buoyed occasionally by some small success despite the odds. A shortlist in the Bridport International Poetry Prize (the Oscars of the poetry world) a nice review of one of the children’s adventure books from Readers Digest. Some surprise sales - usually after a gig (in the 2009 – pre pandemic – I did a lot of performance poetry/spoken word events and even stand-up comedy. For some reason I’ve yet to fathom – if folk like what they see on stage they BUY YOUR BOOKS even if there is no connection.
Anyhow – covid put an end to all that and the world has moved on even further so that if you do not exist in the nightmare of social media (which I do not) you may as well not exist anywhere. And that brings me to the point of today’s blog.
My eldest grandson is now just 6 months younger than I was when I decided I would be a writer. And – yes – I am that thing. I am a writer. I write. But writing is not a solo activity. If a tree falls in the woods etc etc – Well – if a writer cannot yell loud enough above the hubbub to reach readers – tis the same thing.
How do you know when it’s time to give up?
Naive beyond belief about what the world of professional writing and the brutal horrors of publishing, I launched in.
Like many hopefuls I endured the rejections – the half responses. My top rejects included a full two page A4 closely typed letter from an agent who went to great lengths and considerable time to explain to me how she was far too busy to read my very short submission.
I had one ‘acceptance’ fulsome, glowing – the only problem was it was from a publisher who was writing to someone else. Not a black woman writing the sort of adult pithy stuff I’d submitted but someone submitting a lovely twee novel set in the 1950s - all chintz, whiteness and rose tinted specs. She showed no remorse. IN fact she was so spiteful in her response I did wonder if it was a deliberate ‘mistake’.
At one point I had a prestigious agent in New York – which sounds grand but for the year I was contracted to them for two novels – I was treated so appallingly I nearly gave up writing.
Like a lot of writers who don’t fall into the category of knowing folk in the publishing industry – or being a celebrity or have royal connections or released a sex tape so already famous on social media yada yada yada – I eventually – apart from my short stories and poems published by small publishers – went down the route of indy-publishing. It’s no party. And the main issue – is that you have zero muscle behind you.
In mainstream publishing you will often notice a glowing review on the cover of a book and find that the book does not live up to any of the expectations and yet you know the lead name and they seem to know what they are talking about. Check which publisher THEY are with by and you will often find they come from the same stable as the author they are praising. Draw your own conclusions.
You don’t have the resources.
You don’t have the contacts.
You do learn to be a brutal self-critic – you learn to slap yourself around a bit. Then you plough on.
I ploughed on, buoyed occasionally by some small success despite the odds. A shortlist in the Bridport International Poetry Prize (the Oscars of the poetry world) a nice review of one of the children’s adventure books from Readers Digest. Some surprise sales - usually after a gig (in the 2009 – pre pandemic – I did a lot of performance poetry/spoken word events and even stand-up comedy. For some reason I’ve yet to fathom – if folk like what they see on stage they BUY YOUR BOOKS even if there is no connection.
Anyhow – covid put an end to all that and the world has moved on even further so that if you do not exist in the nightmare of social media (which I do not) you may as well not exist anywhere. And that brings me to the point of today’s blog.
My eldest grandson is now just 6 months younger than I was when I decided I would be a writer. And – yes – I am that thing. I am a writer. I write. But writing is not a solo activity. If a tree falls in the woods etc etc – Well – if a writer cannot yell loud enough above the hubbub to reach readers – tis the same thing.
How do you know when it’s time to give up?
