{"id":61815,"date":"2024-03-29T14:57:03","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T14:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/?p=61815"},"modified":"2024-03-29T14:57:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T14:57:03","slug":"a-sting-in-the-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/a-sting-in-the-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"A sting in the tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Verity<\/strong> discovers that when the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thomas, my husband of forty years, has a new project. It keeps him occupied and out of my hair, but he does so like to talk about his projects, which can be vexing.\u00a0It all began with him spending too much time with Robena Fitzwell, our ex-resident clairvoyant.<\/p>\n

Robena had been expelled from our residential complex last year<\/a> after she took to wandering the passages of the building chanting and smoking pot and apparently warning everyone about scorpions. This was not a good look while Ash Court was up for sale following the disgrace of its owner Crispin McDonal.\u00a0Robena had not gone away though and following the failure of her attempt to introduce early morning yoga enlightenment into our complex<\/a>, she had taken to hanging out in our local caf\u00e9 and explaining why the world was ending to the very few who would listen to her.<\/p>\n

It turned out that Thomas had listened and been galvanised into action. She convinced him that all the trends suggested we were heading for societal collapse of some sort and there weren\u2019t any people with special powers lining up to steer the world in a different direction. His answer: grow food.<\/p>\n

Getting our small gang of geriatrics on board to start a community fruit-and-veg patch remains quite a hill to climb. Thomas has learnt about \u201cno dig\u201d cultivation, so it may not be a total non-starter.\u00a0He tells me that the other residents he has managed to talk to seem to be equally pessimistic once the subject was raised as their grandchildren are all suffering from eco-anxiety.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Demand for drugs is not going to be the problem, he told me, because as instability grows more people will want to escape reality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Still Prinz Charlz, my old friend and addictive economy entrepreneur, has a more convincing project I think, which he explained to me over a fine glass of Marmalade Kombucha, which he brought for me to taste. His narcotic economics training and gut health projects<\/a> are going well, but he also doesn\u2019t think the world outlook is looking great.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Demand for drugs is not going to be the problem, he told me, because as instability grows more people will want to escape reality. Right on cue Robena interrupted our conversation asking if he could get her some \u201cTony.\u201d I was confused enough (Prinz wasn\u2019t, but he explained he couldn\u2019t help her just at that moment) but I was utterly baffled when she delivered her parting comment: \u201cwatch out for the scorpion\u201d.\u00a0Prinz tried to reassure me: \u201cIt\u2019s what is goin\u2019 \u2018round just now\u2026astrological yeah.\u201d I wasn\u2019t convinced he knew what he was talking about.<\/p>\n

He went on to explain how obtaining supplies for his business was going to be a lot trickier. He was, it seems, quite badly hit when the Taliban chose to put an end to the growing of opium in Afghanistan. So he is busy onshoring drug production with the latest in artificial opioids \u201clike Tony yeah\u201d (I smiled and nodded) while also upping his marijuana production. I imagine that will all certainly see him out.<\/p>\n

Broderick Munnings then dropped in for a chat. We met recently on an economic growth advisory panel, and if he cannot create an opportunity out of a crisis I am not sure who can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As if it wasn\u2019t enough to have both Thomas and Prinz Charlz both talking at me about doom and gloom, Broderick Munnings then dropped in for a chat.\u00a0 We met recently on an economic growth advisory panel, and if he cannot create an opportunity out of a crisis I am not sure who can. (It was so unfortunate that the press made such a meal of him driving to the Isle of Wight during lockdown for a hearing test).\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was just starting to explain how innovative hedging could make his fortune as instability increased, when he suddenly bellowed \u201cOwww!\u201d And started flapping at his ear, sending his \u00a33k, invisible hearing aid flying never to be seen again. It turned out that Robena\u2019s pet scorpion had escaped Thomas\u2019 biodiverse patch in the garden and found its way into Broderick\u2019s ear and stung him.\u00a0 Good thing he had his ear specialist on speed dial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Verity discovers that when the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger.\u00a0 Thomas, my husband of forty years, has a new project. It keeps him … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,56],"tags":[1521,1153,2595,221],"class_list":["post-61815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-food-farming","tag-drug-trade","tag-economic-collapse","tag-mar-2024","tag-verity-bastion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}