13 Suggestions for Handling #MeToo

#MeToo. The USA is a little behind the curve on this, as the UK went over the reputations of its beloved old entertainers a couple of years ago.

Very little of this is actually relevant to daily life. Most of us spend most of our days on a sleep-commute-work-gym-commute cycle during which we see exactly zero attractive women or like-minded men, and meet even fewer. The streets of London or any other large town may as well be thronged with ghosts. However, if you’re worried, here is a 13-point guide to avoiding becoming a hashtag victim.

1. These #MeToo allegations come and go. Some of it is because the guys were pretty much pigs. Over-reacting to this stuff is un-manly and unseemly. However, that said, it’s time to invoke the Pence Rule for a while, so…

2. No closed-door meetings with women. ‘Closed-door’ here includes suppers- or lunches-for-two, interviews, taxi rides, chats in a side room at a party - anywhere where there are no witnesses or the witnesses could plausibly have missed the alleged incident. ‘Closed-doors’ includes private telephone calls. Records and witnesses at all times.

Most of these complaints are coming from women who gave in to advances from a man in a position to influence their careers. We’ll not ask why those women didn’t simply step away and go back to being supply teachers, and acknowledge that it is kinda low-class to swap sex for a promotion, so...

3. No relationships with women in any profession where any eminence you may posses might be construed as ‘power’ or ‘advantage’. So if you’re a producer, actresses are off-limits.

4. Should you have any eminence, accomplishment, position of power or authority, never mention it to make you seem more attractive. Your aura should come from you, not an organisation chart.

And while we’re talking about work…

5. Do not work in the public sector or any private sector department that employs a lot of women. Aside from anything else, this means your career is way off the right track.

The next two are fundamental. Like it or not...

6. Most men are not supposed to have casual sex and/or flirtations with women. They are supposed to wait until spoken to and summoned. No this is not a joke. Women are very particular about who can flirt with them, and most men don’t make the cut. But see Suggestion 10.

The other side of this is that you won’t have many opportunities for behaving inappropriately, since...

7. Most women are not suitable subjects for flirtation or casual sex. This is because, for a multitude of reasons that don’t matter, most women aren’t really attractive, nor are they playful or pleasant. If you think otherwise, you’re confusing ‘I met one last week’ with ‘most’.

The following are also true:

8. You will know if you’re attractive to women. If you don’t, you aren’t.

9. You will know if she is attracted to you. If you don’t, she isn’t.

Does this mean that men should not approach women? No. It means that socially clueless men, men who are neither Pretty Boys not Bad Boys, or who are out of shape, lack humour or have no charm, or are otherwise bereft of Game, should not approach women. Which sounds harsh, until you recall that men do not want to be approached by women who lack social graces and a decent figure. Sauce for geese is sauce for ganders. So it’s time to get on The Programme...

10. Work hard. Lift weights. Eat right and get five sleep cycles a night. Don't drink too much and leave the drugs alone. Only buy things you need with money you have. Learn some Game, travel, and read non-fiction. Turn off the TV, dump the junk culture, and screw political correctness.

Okay. Now you don’t look like a gunny sack of doorknobs and have cleaned the crap out of your head...

11. You have about thirty seconds in an opening to generate interest. If you can’t, and persist, you are becoming creepy.

Pretty boys and Bad Boys know the next one, so believe us when we say...

12. If she is attracted to you, she will make it easy to have sex with her. If she makes it easy to take her on dates and difficult to take her to bed, apply the three-date rule.

Finally...

13. You will know if you can trust a woman enough to set aside Suggestion 2 and 3. If you don’t, you can’t.

Pete Atkin and Clive James - the 1970's Work

No musical couple are more 1970’s than Clive James and Pete Atkin. James wrote the lyrics, which are therefore preposterously literate, and Atkin found the music. It was an odd pairing liked by odd people. Like me. The first album, Beware of the Beautiful Stranger, was my favourite, and there isn’t a duff track on it. This the essence of 1970’s Daydreaming Teenage Boy-ness


The later albums had attempts at being rock-y and jazzy, and really Atkin couldn’t carry it off. Occasionally it worked when it shouldn’t, such as this wonderfully silly track


Secret Drinker is my second favourite of his albums, and this is my favourite track from that album


None of his 1970’s catalogue seems to be on Tidal. I say an enquiry is called for.

Alderman's Walk, City of London

Alderman's Walk is a passage between Bishopsgate and Old Broad Street and is a way of avoiding Liverpool Street itself as a way of getting to or from Old Broad Street. In the middle of the passage is the square. It was very windy the day I took these, hence the utterly clear air - click on the bottom photograph and you can see the details of the exposed floors of the building on the right. The City never stops building. It's almost as if somebody knows something the rest of us don't. It could also be that there's a lot of office space in the rest of London that's getting old, tired and towards the end of its lease. On the right day, against a pure blue sky, it all looks bleeding magnificent, even half-finished.

Autumn Leaves, Plate Glass: Bishopsgate

My current lunchtime walk - wearing a Fitbit does this to me - takes me down Bishopsgate and back round the other side of Liverpool Street station. I glanced right down the alley after the re-branded RBS, excuse me, NatWest building at 135 Bishopsgate and saw the tree in the square, it up in gold and red.

Get closer and there's this, which is all kinds of more pleasantly abstract. 

Who's Going To Ride Your Wild Horses?

I bought Achtung Baby on cassette when cassette was a thing, and then my tastes changed and I cleared out a lot of stuff (I do that about every ten or so years) and U2 was one of them. Recently I wanted some new train music, remembered how much I had liked this album, and downloaded it from Amazon. Here's what happened on the train the first time: yep, Zoo Station is as good as I remember, so are the other tracks, and then I lost track of time, and could not help silently singing

Don't turn around / don't turn around again / don't turn around your gypsy heart
Don't turn around / don't turn around again / don't turn around your gypsy heart
And don't look back

Check the lyrics, which are about an affair with a wild girl (You stole it, 'cause I needed the cash / and you killed him, 'cause I wanted revenge) who he has to leave. And it might not be a girl, but a part of himself.

It's possibly Bono's finest vocal performance, which is saying a lot, The Edge's unique guitar style provides an hypnotic background, and the song doesn't so much drip emotion as drench you in it.

I think it took me a couple of hearings before I understood what was there: you have to surrender yourself to this song, and when you do it rewards you every time.

Autumn Sunset Over The Air Park

You are, of course, also subscribed to Sis' blog and you will notice that she has a line in photographs that consist of a lot of very dark bits contrasted with patches of intense light. I was out for an afternoon constitutional in the Air Park the other day, with a cold and clear autumn sunset and the strong yellow light which is quite unusual. So I tried a few of Sis' hi-contrast specials. Double-click for more details because these are all about the sky. What I really do, is take pictures of blue skies.

Student Debt Isn't - In The UK

Recently I had to look at Student Loans. The UK version. I went to university when students got grants, so I don’t really grok Student Loans the way my younger colleagues do. I had read phrases like ‘burdened by student debt’ and stories about rising fees increasing student debt and assumed that, well, students had to pay these loans off. In the USA they sure do, and in ten years. So I read up at the Student Loan Company’s website, and was astonished by what I learned, and then puzzled that anyone who one might think would know this stuff by virtue of being a journalist, banker or politician would be concerned by how many people had Student Loans to what degree.

My first surprise was that the credit rating agencies do not count Student Loans as part of anyone’s indebtedness. I suspect this is built into the legislation. It follows that no British bank or other lender can take account of a graduate’s “student debt” when making lending decisions.

My next surprise was how student debt is repaid. Over a threshold amount, which varies by the year the course started, a student pays 9% of their salary to the Student Loan Company, and continues to do so until the account is cleared, until the debt is thirty years old, when the outstanding account balance is written off. It follows that the only thing that the ‘debt’ affects is the length of time the graduate pays this 9%-over-threshold amount. At top decile incomes it amounts to around 6% of pre-tax salary, and under 1% at the third decile. It’s a progressive Graduate Tax by another name and method.

A regular loan, such as a mortgage, has a monthly repayment that, if made throughout the term of the loan, will settle the original advance and the accrued interest. If you miss payments, a real lender makes helpful-but-firm noises about how you might carry on repaying. If it’s an unsecured loan, they will hand you off to a debt collection agency after three months or so. If it’s a secured loan, they might throw you out of your house, repossess the car and otherwise send in bailiffs to seize assets and sell them to settle the debt. You have not lived until you’ve had the bailiffs knock on the door.

A Student Loan has no such conditions and consequences. HMRC garnish the 9%-over-the-threshold payment at source, so you can’t miss payments, and if you aren’t earning for some reason, no-one is going to seize and sell your laptop. After thirty years, the SLC writes off the loan. (I mentioned that before, but it bears repetition.) It has none of the characteristics of real debt.

The SLC is not a commercial company: it is owned by the UK Government. It’s not a real company that does anything, it’s the site of an accounting fiction, like a Cayman Islands company but without the bronze plaque. The Government pays the universities, just like it always did. But it does so via some double-entry book-keeping that assigns amounts to individual students. The debt is not intended to be repaid, but serves as the basis of a calculation that determines how long the student will pay the Graduate Tax.

Do the calculations in real terms (I have) and it is clear that for graduates starting in 2018 all but the top earners will reach the 30-year limit with some outstanding debt, which will be written off. Add in some mild salary inflation, and because the threshold is not adjusted for inflation, all but the lower earners will repay their ‘debt’ at some point over the thirty years. If there is not enough wage inflation, the SLC will be writing off at least £2bn a year and everyone will have to go through the farce of pretending it is real money that the taxpayer must provide. (Whereas it isn’t. It’s fiat money invented by the Band of England and hidden by specious double-entry book-keeping.)

The smart student takes all the money they can get, and pays the Graduate Tax. In their early-50’s the balance, whatever it is, will be written off. Only a fool would use real money repay their Student Loan any earlier. The smart investor would no more provide or buy UK student debt than they would a lottery ticket.