The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Twenty Nine

February the 2nd.

Last month it was the undefined 'shirkers' who were the subject of public opprobrium; now it is the turn of the spivs, despite it being nearly impossible to obtain certain things without their pricey help. "Spivving's not a living - it's a crime!" runs the latest official campaign. The slogan appears nearly everywhere you look; as well as being the subject of numerous PushCreds; a constant reminder of the near dominance of the state in all areas of life and its one-way communication with its subjects.

There is bold talk about how "Together we'll smash the spivs!" along with reminders of the many and varied ways of grassing them up. In reality the junior players trying to climb the slippery ladder of the black economy will continue to lurk near store entrances; waiting with practiced patience for the doors to open. They probably don't know what they are going to rush in for the chance of getting; just a rumour of something temporarily available, or even the rumour of a rumour is enough. They gamble the long wait is worth the risk of a speculative shakedown by bored or curious ComPigs; that at the end of it there might be something worth buying and selling-on at a premium.

It's almost become a full-time way of eking out a living. Almost; but not quite yet, though it is bound to become so as the supply chain problems and shortages worsen in what used to be one of the most advanced global economies. We're promised once the OneCard system is in operation it will provide the means to eliminate the practice once and for all; but with the opposition it faces, and the inevitable technical problems I don't see it happening anytime soon. And wasn't ComCred supposed to stop spivving and hoarding? Yeah, right!

Though few people will actually realise it, this campaign is in reality an admission of failure. After all, if the 'temporary' problems with our semi-planned economy have been fixed as has so often been claimed there would be no space or rationale for the black marketeers.

Give it a month and the focus will move on to another marginalised group deemed deserving of the state's focused hatred. Meanwhile the dodgy geezers will continue their business as usual out of sight of the dim-witted pols, if a bit more carefully for a while.

February the 5th.

I always run out of food just when I need it most or feel even more peckish than usual. No, there's no avoiding it; I'll have to go shopping.

I hated shopping before the advent of the Crises; now I dread it. The local Community Co-ops aren't too bad; though they are quite expensive, and my local one knows me well enough to barter if needs be; but it's the larger stores that do my head in.

Shopping, like so much of our lives, is very different now. The majority of the supermarket chains we knew before the Crises survived in some form, but they had to radically alter the way they did business.

As part of the Consensus' unremitting obsession with reducing peoples' non work related travel, they began to pressure the supermarkets to close down their larger, more distant stores and instead continue further along their path of wiping out any independent competition by opening smaller stores in almost every neighbourhood.

At first the mega grocers were reluctant to do so; but given the stick of nationalisation and the carrot of cheap assignee labour, vacant high street or corner shop units at knock down rents, as well as a virtual monopoly they soon came round to the Connies' way of thinking. Besides, they realised that with so many products banned for health reasons, declared to be unnecessary 'luxuries', or likely to be unavailable for the forseeable future due to the ongoing effects of the Crises, their big shed stores were redundant; there would be so little stock left to fill them. So the deals were done, properties swapped, a cosy relationship re-established, and everyone was reasonably happy; apart from the employees who as so many others before them were quietly dismissed and re-employed into the permanence of inescapable benefit slavery, and we the consumers who - as usual - had been stitched up.