Clampdown

Clampdown © The Clash

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don’t owe nothing, boy, get runnin’
It’s the best years of your life they want to steal

I was called into the work’s conference room today. I was instructed to sit down at the opposite end of table facing the General Manager. It was like one of those film scenes where a rich old man sits at one end of a dining table while his young wife sits at the other. To my right, the Production Manager and number 2. Needless to say we were a minimum of 6 feet apart.

‘Clive, do you have an underlying illness that you feel we should be aware of?’ asked the GM. ‘I have a very small patience thereshold where you’re concerned’, I thought. ‘Yes’, I replied. ‘Yes, I have asthma’, I replied politely. I thought he should have been aware of this as I have missed many days of work with related respiratory illness such as bronchitis. ‘I’m worried about my health during this uncertain period of Coronavirus’, I added.

What followed simply took my breath away.

GM said ‘You may think it’s only jam but if we can’t supply Fortnum and Mason their customers will go to Waitrose, and their customers will go to Sainsburys’ At this point I thought that he might as well been talking in Spock’s native tongue of Vulcanese as I’ve never even set foot inside these stores let alone bought anything from them. ‘Eventually’, he continued down the food chain, ‘the poorest people won’t be able to buy jam’.

‘Do you remember when you were younger and your mum used to make you jam sandwiches when you came home from school?’ he carried on. Vaguely before my mum’s stroke that left her paralysed down her right side and loss of speech and, Ah, those rose tinted days of Tiswas, dehydrated orange juice and playing out late until it got dark. This got me thinking about self isolation and Bruce Springsteen’s track ’57 Channels (and nothin’ on)’ which laments the standards of 20th century television and nothing has changed.

The pain across my shoulders, through the back of my neck and up through my head was excruciating which made me sit even more uncomfortably in my chair. ‘The lowest paid have to do all the working’, GM said. But can the lowest paid do some living before the dying.

That’s pretty much the highlights. I didn’t get to say much more as I wasn’t really allowed to interrupt or dare tell him that I’m as nutty as a fruit cake and been taking meds for nearly 10 years. Maybe he should walk/run a mile or 20 over the muddiest terrain in the South West in my shoes.

I didn’t exercise my right to exercise this evening.

Sorry that’s it’s not really about running but I needed to sound off. Be safe for you, your friends, your family and everybody.