SALFORD ODDITY 5: Global Warning.
I heard a saying the other day: 'If you are finding things tough, it's just because you're playing the game of life on hard'.
I think we all are finding it hard at the minute, but Salford may have things particularly distressing. It seems like there is a bad headline everywhere you look and nothing is relenting. Things are closing down or moving away from Salford. Tescos are springing up all over the land regardless of how close they are to Eccles or Salford Precinct.
Then again, is that what we are progressing towards? Is it merely fate, England becoming more and more Americanised until we just accept things and take our place as the 51st state? There would be advantages - this government would be scrapped for, hopefully, a less idiotic one. America has a lot of things going for it, such as newly acquired oil (we wont go into how they got it) and, like us, they have a deficit too but you don't see any of them going on about it. They just carry on driving their hummers into the sunset.
Over 70% of the world's money does not exist outside of a computer, so where did it go? It's certainly not within Salford Council (maybe their pockets?), Langworthy Road was stripped recently and the council still haven't gotten round to resurfacing it properly. But back to the money rant; did a computer running Windows Vista melt down and take half of Greece with it? And I want to know what has happened to stop it from happening again? What, with all of these countries that have outstanding deficits running into the trillions. Some people put it down to benefits, prisoners and immigration. I know there are some spongers out there but not that many surely?
A worrying prospect occurred to me the other day. I saw a friend of mine from Pendleton College and amongst all the small talk and pleasantries he said to me 'I've finished university now, three years and the only job I could get was behind the counter at McDonalds'.
It begs the question where have all the jobs gone? There are more people in the country than ever but surely that means that there are more people who need goods and services than ever? 'Supply and demand' is how the saying goes. So why is the supply of jobs not meeting demand? Some blame the economy, but why is it that that Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time? And we were supposed to be even poorer in 2009 when that came out!
Something I would also like to address is why are we not being taught about these things in school? I can honestly say that I have never been in a situation where knowing the Pythagorean theorem has come in useful. I would ask the question `Have you ever been in a situation where knowing what the radius of a circle is, has come in handy?' (maths teachers need not answer this question). Back in my day the teachers weren't striking, so I want to know why I was never taught about pension plans, how Isas work and how to not get ripped off at the bureaux de change*.
I don't mind telling you that I went to a rough high school (in my opinion anyway). A school where a student was tied to a tree and left there for six hours; where a girl had a concrete slab thrown at her, and people could be ostracised on a whim. There were some good times but I think my brain has decided to mentally block the whole lot.
Recently someone was telling me that their daughter had gone to their prom (still a disco in my eyes). It brought back memories of my own prom. I decided not to go but my friends said 'If you don't go, you will regret it', to which I replied `I don't want to spend my time with certain people in my year but I have to against my will, so in my free time I certainly don't want to be around them'.
And with this column I think I may have successfully written myself off of the 2050 school reunion.
Until next time…
*A tip is to take only so much foreign currency with you on holiday and the rest in English money and if you need to; exchange it over there. This avoids being ripped off when you bring the foreign money back over here and they give you a much lower exchange rate. That there would have been more useful to me than P.E theory I can tell you.
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