But until then...

Apologies for the light blogging. Next week, I'll be looking at a report showing that the smoking ban has had a very damaging effect on the pub trade, some new insanity about thirdhand smoke from that priceless old crank Georg Matt and the baffling desire of British drinks industry to go like lambs towards the temperance slaughter-house.

Getting to the bottom of all this will take some time. Until then, let me point you towards a discussion of sustainability from the always entertaining Counting Cats:

Essentially what “The Good Life” shows is “sustainable” living is only sustainable if it ponces off genuinely sustainable living. Tom and Barbara couldn’t manage without Jerry and Margot. Moreover it demonstrates that such poncing about is only really doable for the middle-class and higher (I wonder if Prince Chuckles reads this?) and that living “sustainably” is essentially living as a parasite. And fundamentally that is what I mean by true decadence.

I read an interview a bit back with Brian May, the guitarist from Queen, and he mentioned parties in the ’70s where dwarfs were employed to wonder around with saucers on their heads with cocaine for the guests. Just the right height for a snort you see. Now that could be seen as decadence but is it really? Queen got up to such stunts because they were enormously successful. I mean they were packing out stadia and shifting vinyl at industrial rates. That’s sustainable in the genuine sense and it isn’t decadence because real decadence is adopting a business model that doesn’t actually bring home the corn without government subsidy.

I have railed here and elsewhere about the theft of the word “liberal” from us but “sustainable” is another they have stolen from us. Let’s talk about sustainable business. Sustainable doesn’t mean poncing off genuinely profitable business in order to worship Gaia in a cack-handed manner.