Friday, April 20, 2012

HBH 282

There's nothing but drink:
No work, no love, no purpose -
End of the world blues.


I have no work at the moment. And, since it seems that I am to be forced out of the country next month, I have very little incentive to try to find any. The weather is too miserable, the atmosphere too poisonous to step outside. I don't really have the spare cash to go travelling, since I must hoard my meagre savings to see me through a projected three months of homelessness. There is absolutely bugger-all to do except get wrecked every night.

When I was about 12, I very much enjoyed reading Nevil Shute's On The Beach, one of the greatest of post-apocalyptic novels, in which the people of the southern hemisphere have been initially untouched by the nuclear war between the superpowers which has destroyed the northern half of the world, but are now dying by inches as the radioactive fallout gradually spreads southward. Many of the characters, realising their days are numbered, indulge their wildest whims - racing cars recklessly or drinking their way through their wine cellar in a month. I used to think that might be kind of fun. And it is, up to a point; but you can't forget the dire circumstances underlying it; it is, on balance, mostly just miserable and desperate.

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