Monday 16 April 2007

Ivy Compton-Burnett and anonymous commenting

Ivy C-B is the very first blogger. She had no internet but her whole mode of communication is by the spoken word alone. Every persona, every place, every emotion, every crisis, dilemma, horridness, kindness, disaster is told by speech, no description of gesture and scarcely any landscape at all.

Take Parents and Children,

"I suppose my thoughts are nothing to be proud of"
"Then they are different from the rest of you my dear".

We know at once we have a woman and her husband, a dissatisfied woman, and a husband fending off (with skill from experience) her dissatisfaction. Within a half dozen lines she has nine children, a very large house which belongs to her husband's parents, a mother -in -law not yielding position.....

Much of the art of blogging is the creation of persona, and position without any of the tools used in real social exchange.

That's part of why to comment as anonymous is to empty a comment of interest, a random shout from the darkness, an interjection from a non- person.

All of Ivy's commentors are bursting with life and reality.

8 comments:

Newmania said...

I agree anons are a waste of time .

Anonymous said...

Who's Ivy Compton-Burnett? Does everyone else know? Am I just stupid? Just asking...

hatfield girl said...

As she blogs mostly on power and wealth between family generations I supposed she has one of the hot political topics at the moment.

It is kind of you to to call because I wanted to say your Lilith makeover is memorable... but you seem to have reverted to your old picture.

Newmania said...

HG I did something on wealth between generations quite recently

hatfield girl said...

Found it N, and the terrific photo just above that post. When I've stopped smiling at the picture I'll read the ageist post.

Newmania said...

Oh thats very kind of you , I have to scarmble things down around work and family so it does tend to be a bit of a mess.There are some good bits in it though I hope

Newmania said...

Aha I see the picture you mean . No this was what i had to say about age. No need to read it there are a few good stats ina mongst my usual old nonsense



I do not like young people much they have far to good a time. I shuffle to work everyday like a miserable Monk, being harvested by the State for my life force, while they skip and cavort with sexy new media projects ,and have ,“ vibrant “ web communities of smarmy Conservative Future members .

I see them laughing in that revoltingly carefree way and the bile rises in my throat ,the bitter acrid fumes sting my nostrils. I crush a paper cup with silent disgust. Oh bugger off and have a ,“Crave” ,or whatever it is you do, I shout , waving an imaginary stick ,and expectorating vilely multicoloured mucus ….well not quite but you get the picture. Cull them!

So today is a good schadenfreude day for me ,for what do I discover ,but that I am stealing their money. Excellent news ,and here’s how I do it .

Firstly, I may have lost it now, but at least for goodly while I was on a superb final salary pension, and as at that time, I was earning some pretty sweet action , that is still a nice thing to have tucked into your back pocket. Secondly , again , its all gone now with having to move ,but for years I had free dental care, and most of all, I was able to get into the property ladder. Badly , to late and to timidly ,true, but yes the famille Newmania are”in property”, and we regularly dance little jigs of joy at the latest news ,that a single London Brick is actually worth more than the equivalent amount of gold .

They, the young , get pies in the face from all angles. Poor them ,a typical 22 year old graduate may leave, “ Uni”, with about £22,000 of debt at a time when I degree is hardly worth having anyway. What a superb twist of the knife that should be ,asked to voluntarily give back any cash they do make, in contributions to their alma mater. The next thing they do, is hop off and pay rent with their groovy chums , and I love this bit . They are probably paying of the Mortageg of an older buyer ,and actually sending the first rung of the property ladder further away with their own money . Oh Sweet sweet sweet ;Oh brave new world that has such ( stupid) people in it.

The average age for buying that first property is now 34 only ten years ago it was 26. In fact with Mortgages now extending to 50 years ,even if they got on the ladder it is far from clear that they themselves, will ever benefit. They will be just in time to hand over the Capital to their children. Oh dear , I cannot contain my mirth.

Excuse me while I get comfy ah yes that’s better. I just want to lean a little harder on the young ,and I can do it politically. You see the demographic has turned on its head. Instead of a large young population supporting a small old one it’s the other way round . Now heres where I start to have a concern. I lost my super pension paid through the nose for property and ¸ I am, certainly not one of the leisured class of grey wasters. I am in the working population and do not therefore qualify from mist of the freebies.

I am 43 and it is older folk than me who are rally riding the gravy train

FACT: At the time of the 2005 election MORI calculated that the over 55s had 4.2 times the voting power of the 18 to 34 years olds.

FACT:In the UK the number of people over 40 will overtake the under forties by 2021 …
..and this voting power is really biting The oldies .and I `m, getting less and less happy , are hogging all the wealth and I mean ,the really old .

FACT: On average 55 to 69 year old s have £109,000 of amassed assets ,

That’s the average , but anecdotally ,every old person I ever meet is planning a SKI holiday( spend kid`s inheritance ), which very much includes my parents. Now its true, that there is a large minority of pensioners, say 17 % classified as poor, that have not got property or private pensions. They are hit badly by Council tax fuel and other bills but they are a minority.

FACT: 70% of those worth over £500,000 in this country are over 55

…and let not forget it . Blimey more and more I begin to think I `v got more in common with the young. I `m certainly with them on this half the absurd taxes I pay for which I get pretty much nothing goes on pensions , ,healthcare and social services and a great deal of this is for the old . They , having spent all their property doubloons, relax onto the warm duvet provided by the state courtesy of the long suffering working population.

Sod it; I `m not quite old enough after all .The thing to be is a teenager in the 60s then you vote for loads of state control when you are young , low taxes when you are really earning , in the 80s and then now you are an old wreck you turn the state taps back on again. Well that’s lovely isn`t it and I `m one of the ones being eaten not ,,as I thought , visa versa.
So perhaps I should join hands with my new young chums and we can all go to a “Grave” ..or something together. I am one of the exploited by these greedy oldsters.

CONSERVATIVE FUTURE ARE STILL GUILTY

One problem. Most of the ghastly glib shiny faced members of Conservative Future are not suffering at all. They have the huge advantage I did not, of being around when people are actually looking for young people, so have high earning power. They are usually the recipients of generational wealth ,that cascades down from property allowing them not to work ,so they can be a nuisance in politics ,and cash in on property themselves. They are in fact the lottery of life winners

For all you other young people though. Tough luck, I `m basically in the same boat. We are being sucked dry, by the thin mean wizened lips of the old. So in the end, it turns out I hate the old and the young.

That what’s called a mid life crisis

Anonymous said...

Oh. I still have no idea what you are on about.