This week I read my meter.
For saving the Gas Board (there's a give away) the cost of sending someone to read my meter I now do that job along with emptying my own dust bin and doing my own recycling.
My reward 100 Nectar Points.
Along side the Nectar Points for which I have sold my soul, my Gas Bill has gone up by £20 a month for the second time since I last read my meter.
I was paying £10 a month in February it's now £50.
Then I went to the Supermarket.
When I got back to the car my in house critic observed that for all the years she did the shopping, raised the children etc she was aware that she spent her days looking harassed now I am the one with the harassed look as I rush back to the car with my bags of shopping.
Not surprising I said, look what I have bought, guess the cost, £40 she said, wrong I replied £63.
I actually think prices were going up as I was filling my basket, it is truly scary.
Now my in-house critic has drawn my attention to the fact that although I claim that this is a wry look at the big society I am becoming both more political and less wry as time passes.
But I say that is not surprising.
Mr Cameron's speech at the Tory Conference was depressingly predictable.
Blame Labour for the debt. Refuse to change your policy. Tell people to pay off their credit cards. All the while keep your fingers crossed behind your back.
Who is going to tell Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne that their plan is not working and will they listen?
Well the newspapers for one and the IMF for another.
It strikes me whenever I hear the speeches, that we have a Government that just seems to be out of its depth.
I imagine them occasionally ducking under their desks to read their economic primers and then sitting back up to repeat the definitions.
But they are not taking part in a debating class at Eton they are supposed to be Governing a country.
The reason that spending is going down and credit card debts are going up is that people are paying for necessities, food, fuel, even mortgages are being paid, by credit card, just stand in any supermarket check out queue and you can't but help noticing what is happening.
When I was at school, I didn't go to Eton, I went to a school in central Manchester, my journey home was by train.
I used to catch the train at the Manchester Central railway station.
The Station was built between 1875 and 1880 by a joint collaboration between the Great Northern Railway, the Midland Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway it was opened on the 1st July 1880.
As a youngster I thought of it as one of the wonders of the world with its huge wrought-iron and glass ceiling with no intermediate supporting pillars, under the single roof the station was a huge dusty dirty space full of people bustling to and from work and school and shopping.
It continued to function as a Station providing local services finally closing to passengers on 5th May 1969, now it is a conference centre and Arena.
Watching the news last night I recognised the background, it somehow seemed to act as a metaphor for how the world has changed and not necessarily for the better, perhaps as he redrafted his speech Mr Cameron might have reflected that the last train to Prosperity has left the station and it is going to be a long wait for the next, if it ever comes.
For saving the Gas Board (there's a give away) the cost of sending someone to read my meter I now do that job along with emptying my own dust bin and doing my own recycling.
My reward 100 Nectar Points.
Along side the Nectar Points for which I have sold my soul, my Gas Bill has gone up by £20 a month for the second time since I last read my meter.
I was paying £10 a month in February it's now £50.
Then I went to the Supermarket.
When I got back to the car my in house critic observed that for all the years she did the shopping, raised the children etc she was aware that she spent her days looking harassed now I am the one with the harassed look as I rush back to the car with my bags of shopping.
Not surprising I said, look what I have bought, guess the cost, £40 she said, wrong I replied £63.
I actually think prices were going up as I was filling my basket, it is truly scary.
Now my in-house critic has drawn my attention to the fact that although I claim that this is a wry look at the big society I am becoming both more political and less wry as time passes.
But I say that is not surprising.
Mr Cameron's speech at the Tory Conference was depressingly predictable.
Blame Labour for the debt. Refuse to change your policy. Tell people to pay off their credit cards. All the while keep your fingers crossed behind your back.
Who is going to tell Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne that their plan is not working and will they listen?
Well the newspapers for one and the IMF for another.
It strikes me whenever I hear the speeches, that we have a Government that just seems to be out of its depth.
I imagine them occasionally ducking under their desks to read their economic primers and then sitting back up to repeat the definitions.
But they are not taking part in a debating class at Eton they are supposed to be Governing a country.
The reason that spending is going down and credit card debts are going up is that people are paying for necessities, food, fuel, even mortgages are being paid, by credit card, just stand in any supermarket check out queue and you can't but help noticing what is happening.
When I was at school, I didn't go to Eton, I went to a school in central Manchester, my journey home was by train.
I used to catch the train at the Manchester Central railway station.
The Station was built between 1875 and 1880 by a joint collaboration between the Great Northern Railway, the Midland Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway it was opened on the 1st July 1880.
As a youngster I thought of it as one of the wonders of the world with its huge wrought-iron and glass ceiling with no intermediate supporting pillars, under the single roof the station was a huge dusty dirty space full of people bustling to and from work and school and shopping.
It continued to function as a Station providing local services finally closing to passengers on 5th May 1969, now it is a conference centre and Arena.
Watching the news last night I recognised the background, it somehow seemed to act as a metaphor for how the world has changed and not necessarily for the better, perhaps as he redrafted his speech Mr Cameron might have reflected that the last train to Prosperity has left the station and it is going to be a long wait for the next, if it ever comes.
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