What a difference seven weeks make

Long time, no blog... seems hard to think that only seven weeks ago, PL (Pre-Lehman), we still wondered if recession might be avoided; I only had a couple of bank accounts and the government only owned a couple of banks; the Tories were leading the polls by miles, and Sarah Brown had yet to make a conference appearance; DECC sounded like a brand of 50s electronic goods or something John Prescott might do to a stroppy voter.

So all this has meant busy times...working out how to disentangle bits of climate change from what we do (and concluding that we need a better way of rearranging government to tackle cross-cutting problems, without having to occupy top departmental brains on merging IT systems, finding buildings and appointing even more HR directors).  And meanwhile completely failing to book tickets to go over to the US to watch the coronation of King Obama which will make a lot of nine year olds very happy indeed and lose me $100 -- and that is now quite serious money in very feeble pounds.

Tempting to see everything as evidence of catalytic behaviour change towards more sustainable habits - and certainly an undercurrent in some of the press that there are silver linings in recessions- people will be nicer, have more time for each other - perhaps too much as they need not be troubled with the boring inconvenience of work, be weaned off debt-driven competitive consumption and rediscover quilting bees (not sure we ever had those in the UK) as sewing machine sales soar, people discover shoes can be mended and that they do not need a new plasma screen every week. There seem to be huge number fo cyclists in the morning at Hyde Park corner - but that may just be that - until tonight - the weather in October has made up in part for the sheer awfulness of the summer.

But perhaps, the responsible thing now - for people with semi-secure jobs and pensions - is to spend rather than wait for forecast deflation next year. So rather than save - and worry about where to put the cash, the time may have come for an out and out countercyclical consumption binge. But deep thrift is a hard habit to break - and not sure yet that I have yet been catalysed into action.