Monday, January 05, 2009

..The Yellow Leaf..*

So it's back to work this morning for lots of people, and anything more depressing would be hard to find.
Not only will the date on which we start to keep some of our money be further away ( Last year it was, I think,towards the end of June - it'll be well into July this year) but everyone you speak to was either ill over the festive ( Ha!) period or is trying to borrow money from you.
Perhaps now is a time to rethink one's life. Out with the 9 to 5, in with the Yoga teacher, the second hand book dealer, the Gypsy rover, or the writer, whatever.
People talk of women undergoing the " change", I'm sure we all need change to develop and grow.
I was at a dinner party recently where the talk was all entirely banal, until one of the other men present started quoting poetry - and French poetry at that. I wish I could say it lit up the party. Unfortunately, most of the people there couldn't speak French, didn't understand poetry or, in some cases, read more than the headlines in the local paper - and the deaths' column of course. Don't want to miss a good feed do we?
Anyway, the French speaker and I were able to have a jolly conversation, out of which came the view that he wouldn't be the person he was had he not done an Open University course some years ago, which had opened his eyes to poetry for the first time.
Not too sure what I shall be doing to branch off in a new direction. Perhaps work as an elderly rent collector? Oh, yes, I'm doing that already....
* In case you don't know this is a Shakespearean quote .Macbeth Act 5, scene 3, lines 22-23. But then, maybe this might set you on a new path.....

6 comments:

Neil @ DNALogic said...

Yes, but someone has to work the 9-5 (or 8 til 4) to pay the Yoga teacher, or for the second-hand books or even the bailiffs to get the bloody gypsy rovers dragged off your land. The question is, as Seyton might ask:

"What is your gracious pleasure?"

kinglear said...

Ah - my point ( perhaps not well made) was that I/you become the Yogi, the book dealer etc etc, ditching the day job of spy, Banker ( enforced) or even house painter...

Neil @ DNALogic said...

Hmmm, perhaps if the Bard had a character who was a banker forced into early retirement?

Of course, my point, badly made is that 'nobody makes anything these days.'

kinglear said...

Banker into early retirement? Surely Shylock.....

Neil @ DNALogic said...

Yes, but one can't depict Shylock like that in today's modern Europe - for centuries the poor soul has been portrayed as a banker. Nowadays, we have to teach the children that he's a typical, money-grabbing Jew. It's political correctness gone mad, of course....

kinglear said...

I've always thought of Shylock as the archetypal banker - charging outrageous interest, then, when he's threatened, calling for mercy from the government - er is that not what's happened jsut now??