DUMB INSOLENCE #9

 DUMB INSOLENCE #9

Set aside world changing events such as the on-going military imbroglios and various bellicose standoffs in Libya,Syria,Yemen,oh and let's not forget Afghanistan.

Schools are set to re-open across England in a few weeks time.You know,those institutions which at the behest of this govt. cancelled their exams the last academic year.The schools re-opening are reckoned to be a bellwether for the national situation as a whole.More like the proverbial canary down the coalmine.

All kinds of partial and peripheral economic indicators are getting trotted out stage front and centre as indicators of some kind of nascent resurgence in the general economy. In psychology it's called being delusional.

More online home shopping? more use of local convenience stores? or the govt's own subsidised pig out at the taxpayers' expense ,Mon-Wed during August.scheme to rejuvenate the comatose hospitality sector.

I think that other great exponent of fiction,Raymond Chandler had it down pat with this snippet of dialogue from "The Big Sleep". "The blind don't get to see,the lame don't get to walk and the dead stay that way." With lines like that,Chandler was probably a latent Calvinist.

Okay,so let's take another random,peripheral metric of consumption,of disposable income.

Last week's official UK Cinema takings were published as follows:- The Top Ten grossing films amassed £800k. usually at this time of year,Cinemas expect around £24m.in the week for the top ten grossing films across the UK.

Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" has been heralded as the coming "saviour" of mass cinema going when it's long delayed and much postponed is finally released in another week or so.

No chance.Cinema is one dead canary.