Ongoing gardening

Yesterday we cut back the holly tree so that I can walk underneath it without bending double. It will need a more serious cut if I'm going to get the wooden shed (which is taller than me) into the corner where the plastic Shed will have been, but enough is enough for one day. We're still not sure what to do about the apple tree--we missed the window for cutting it back because I am a lazy slob and it's now bursting with blossom, but it desperately needs it.

Jan started to use her new computer yesterday morning and discovered that while it's been on an ad for Norton Online Backup has appeared which we couldn't get rid of without shutting down and restarting. On advice from Currys we downloaded the Norton Removal Tool to get rid of the trial version that came with it (which is the apparent source of the ad) and lo, the NRT window was massively too big for the screen and we couldn't use it. Eventually I found the Win 7 equivalent of "Add or Remove Programmes" and we got rid of it that way, but it provided the usual half hour of panic and frustration that happens whenever Jan first tries to use something new and nice. We've emailed Norton, but I'm not expecting a useful answer.

Today we are expecting a plumber to fix the leaky valve in the downstairs loo, and then I plan to cart away the sacks of rubble left over from previous gardening efforts which have been cluttering up the place for years. My back and legs are now sending me rude messages on a regular basis, but there's nobody else to do this stuff--if we lived closer to London I might dare to ask friends to come and help, but a two hundred mile drive each way plus heavy lifting in between is a serious proposition, and my spaghetti boggle plus our sparkling company doesn't cut it as recompense. Even if I had any mushrooms in the house.

The point of being a husband--the main point--is to be useful. I can't understand any man who doesn't get that, who doesn't understand that the ineffable gift of being allowed to share the life of the one you love comes with responsibilities. As it is I've shirked and goofed off and failed far too often--if I'd done more of this stuff when I was relatively able-bodied there wouldn't be so much to do now when I'm less so. Since it seems unlikely that I'll ever be in better shape than I am now, the prospects aren't good.

The rest of the Shed will be gone by the weekend. Thor hast spoken.

Plumber is here. Off we go.

I am now declaring UKKS

Unilateral Knackered Knyrond Situation.

One of those bags of rubble was heavy. I got it through the house and into the car all right, but a woman half my size had to help me get it into the skip, which was embarrassing. Another one split as I was trying to wheel it along the back path on the Useless Sack Trolley, and I found I'd gravelled ten feet of path and had to sweep it all up again.

Fortunately Jan is also knackered, so I'm guilt-free as well, at least in relation to this.

The Grip Of Death

Prompted by my "financial entropy" post a while back, I've started re-reading this book, and am finding it excellent, readable and still (unsurprisingly) horrifyingly relevant.

Some of my commenters invoked the "liquidity ratio"; the rule that a bank can only lend a certain fraction of its assets. Rowbotham says that that was abolished in 1981 by Guess Who's government, as part of the removal of any regulation that would interfere with bankers making absurdly colossal amounts of money (literally, in fact, as well as enriching themselves).

I'm not going to say that anyone *should* read this book, because that's never a good idea. But I think it tells the truth about what is going on, quotes and names its sources, and is neither politically partisan nor as rabidly opposed to big business as I am; for example, he makes a point of not blaming industry for the fact that we are locked in a spiral of insufficient purchasing power chasing ever more goods manufactured to ever lower standards, because more and more of everybody's money--consumers and businesses alike--is swallowed up in an attempt to service constantly multiplying personal and corporate debt. And therefore I think it's worth reading whatever your opinion may be about the current political or economic climate. Besides, it's fun to read, which I never thought I'd say about an economics textbook.

I have been rethinking my entropy post, and I think I can explain it it terms of the Laws of Money Dynamics, which can be stated in the following simple terms (after me, Donald);

The First Law Of Money Dynamics:

Wealth is debt and debt is wealth.
Wealth is debt and debt is wealth.

Very good. The Second Law Of Money Dynamics:

Wealth cannot of itself pass from one body to a poorer body.
Wealth cannot of itself pass from one body to a poorer body.
Wealth can't pass from a richer to a poorer.
Wealth can't pass from a richer to a poorer.
You can try it if you like, but you'll only get sorer.
You can try it if you like, but you'll only get sorer.
'Cause the wealth of the richer is a bottomless pitcher.
'Cause the wealth of the richer is a bottomless pitcher.
So the poorer body's wealth will pass to the richer.
So the poorer body's wealth will pass to the richer. (First Law!)
Wealth is debt and debt is wealth and debt is wealth and wealth is debt...

Obviously, this formulation still needs some work, and I have been very conscious of some local exceptions to the Second Law which have enabled us to keep, you know, eating and living and so on, but in the macroeconomic sphere it seems to hold up remarkably well. It's notable that money behaves in exactly the opposite way to heat, and thus the end result of financial entropy would in fact be all the money concentrated in one place (e.g. Rupert Murdoch's Cayman Islands bank account) and none anywhere else. Whether this would then result in a financial Big Bang is for abler researchers than I to determine.

So. The Grip Of Death. Michael Rowbotham, Jon Carpenter Publishing. £12.05 new from Amazon, or a tenner used (plus shipping, of course). Worth every penny.

RIP Elisabeth Sladen

If anyone could have bridged the intergalactic gulf between realWho and nuWho for me, it would have been her. I'm sorry she's gone.