Once, at a stag night, the stripper took me aside and said: ‘You’re not taking this seriously. It makes me nervous.’ She was right about that. Once, as a schoolboy, my report said and I remember exactly: ‘Inclined to take the more serious aspects of [that institution] too flippantly.’
Another way it comes through: If you’ve rubbed up against real money once or twice, you’d know it’s certainly intoxicating. Once, in a hotel lounge in a European capital, I got talking with a chap and one thing led to another, we were whisked away to a location where some sort of party was going on, then to a high rise building I know not where in the night and the thing which struck me most was the hush and the hygiene.
Everything was clean, the carpet was plush, the double doors opening were silent, the leather car seats transported us behind darkened windows and in silence, except for discreet music on the CD, everywhere we were met by big smiles and opened doors. The lift was interminable as a padded cell, nothing was a problem, there was absolutely no fuss.
Then, in clinches of conversation, glass in hand, you were either summed up and marginalized or lifted, raised into some newer echelon. Level by level you went up and up but you had to care. I never cared. But many do and one top blogger recently wrote of this marginalization. He cared and it hurt. Once you've tasted this water, you couldn't bear to think of being parted from it.
… Tony Blair
Another way it comes through: If you’ve rubbed up against real money once or twice, you’d know it’s certainly intoxicating. Once, in a hotel lounge in a European capital, I got talking with a chap and one thing led to another, we were whisked away to a location where some sort of party was going on, then to a high rise building I know not where in the night and the thing which struck me most was the hush and the hygiene.
Everything was clean, the carpet was plush, the double doors opening were silent, the leather car seats transported us behind darkened windows and in silence, except for discreet music on the CD, everywhere we were met by big smiles and opened doors. The lift was interminable as a padded cell, nothing was a problem, there was absolutely no fuss.
Then, in clinches of conversation, glass in hand, you were either summed up and marginalized or lifted, raised into some newer echelon. Level by level you went up and up but you had to care. I never cared. But many do and one top blogger recently wrote of this marginalization. He cared and it hurt. Once you've tasted this water, you couldn't bear to think of being parted from it.
… Tony Blair
Excellent piece. I think exposure to what you cannto have is a huge factor in embittering many people in the world and more or less defines the Left. Of course then they jump aboard when they get the opportunity. How timelessly well observed Animal Farm remains.
ReplyDeleteBeing content with your lot and yet having ambition must be one of the most difficult psychological human challenges of today.
It is, cityunslicker. It is 'clubbability' too. Look at Blogpower. Now imagine one of us being silently offered by an e-mail or a phone call: 'Don't waste your spirit on this lot with their miniscule readerships. Play your cards right and you can ...'
ReplyDeleteWell, it would be almost too good to resist for most people. Guaranteed stats, big blogger, TV spots and so on, the easy cameraderie of the rich and powerful. That's how it begins. That's how it was.