Friend & Reader Quentin sends me this wonderful video, revealing how the Brits have handled their EVs during the recent cold snap Over There.
Or maybe “not handled” would be more accurate.
I can’t wait to see how people in Minnesoduh and Ill-Annoy are dealing with their EVs in their own oh-so temperate winter climate.
This is an interesting development:
Fewer booze buyers are reaching for the top shelf.
Americans aren’t thirsting for for the high-end tequila that once flowed freely, spirits companies said, as demand for $100 spirits has dropped off. Consumers appear to be trading down—or selecting less expensive versions of their preferred beverage—said Lawson Whiting, CEO of Brown-Forman (BF.A, BF.B), on Thursday, as sales of more affordable bottles fell less.
“We are seeing some weakening, for the first time, in terms of trade down,” Whiting said on a conference call, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. “When you look at $100 and above or $50-to-$100 [segments], those price points have weakened considerably.”
Industrywide, the number of $100-plus bottles sold has fallen 18% in the past three months, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ.
I’m not surprised. All that high-end stuff, at the end of the day, delivers not much more in terms of taste and shall we say “knockdown power”, for a premium price. And that would be okay, in isolation.
But when you have to spend $120,000 for an “economy” car — think I’m joking? see how much you end up paying in total when you finance $45,000 over seven or ten years — and the cost of even the cheapest meal for two in a non-fast food restaurant will set you back well over $60, and your grocery bill rockets from $30 per week to $140… it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict that things are going to change when it comes to spending your money on what is after all an indulgence.
And the change can come with reduced consumption (as above) or simply learning to live with cheaper merchandise.
In earlier, less fucked-up times, I would now have been on my second or maybe even third car after the Tiguan; instead, I now know that barring some kind of miracle, the Tiggy is going to be my lifetime vehicle.
I can’t remember the last time I bought a bottle of single-malt — years, I suspect — and it doesn’t matter because I seldom drink the stuff unless friends show up for dins, and a single after-dinner cocktail is called for.
It’s not just me, either: the Son&Heir drinks maybe 10% of what he used to drink, booze-wise, and even my rowdy friends have cut back.
But spare me the sob stories of what this means for the manufacturers of high-end bling. If ever there’s a case study in ripping people off for the “status” of using their products, vendors like Louis Vuitton, Glenfiddich, Porsche and Swarovski are headed for bleak times; and I care not a fig for their predicament.
In case y’all missed it, today is National Bubble Bath Day.
And for the more sociable among us:
There’s no need to thank me; it’s all part of the service.
Longtime Reader preussenotto writes:
Thanks for maintaining the last interesting thing on the internet.
You are probably 20 years older than I am give or take, but I have a question for you.
We hear a lot of nonsense now about “Someone born in the wrong body” but do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time? That your preferences, tastes, attitudes always seem about 40 years out of step with what is happening now?
It isn’t just a “getting old” thing, I always felt it even when I was a callow yoot. I would read about Victorian England, or Coolidge America, and think… I would fit perfectly into that time, where in the hell did it go? Keep in mind I have no desire to live without electricity, or painless dentistry, but I always mentally fit better into a bygone (often imagined, I grant you) era, and it has never gone away, fifty plus years on. Dunno if there are others of my ilk out there.
Maybe its just inevitable nostalgia, or “O Tempora, O Mores”?
Let me address the primary issue up front.
When presussenotto writes: “Keep in mind I have no desire to live without electricity, or painless dentistry…”
Whenever I talk about preferring to live in another time, some smartass always comes up with “So you want to live in a time before [penicillin, automatic transmissions, antibiotics, take your pick]?” Of course I don’t, and neither does preussenotto.
When we think of earlier times, we speak of the culture of the time, the mood of the time, the manners of the time and the social constructs that were in place then, but are not now.
Using cars as an example of the technology, for instance: I like having the excellent brakes, better wiring, better suspension and such of today; what I don’t like is stupid shit like On*Star, nanny warnings about seatbelts, electronic rather than mechanical handbrakes and all those things that have supposedly improved the driving experience but have really served only to drive the price of cars upwards, for little real or lasting benefit.
What we are talking about is a time when you could leave your car unlocked in the parking lot at the supermarket, or your house unlocked during the day, or talk to people without worrying about triggering their ultra-sensitive emotional antennae, or visit decent public libraries with thousands of worthwhile books to take out.
When politicians didn’t try to “improve” or “safeguard” your life, and didn’t take over a third of your salary in taxes.
When the next generation would come along with at least a decent chance of living a better life than their parents.
When capitalism was the way to a better future, and Communism was actually illegal or at least frowned upon.
When you could work at a company for a long time, maybe for life, and wouldn’t be fired just because some accountant thought he could find someone else who could do the same job for less, with fewer benefits.
When your kid could take his air rifle or .22 to school and just leave it in his locker so he could go shooting in the woods with his buddies, unsupervised, at the end of the school day.
When raising a family was seen as the primary duty of a married couple, with the man earning the salary and the woman staying at home to look after the kids and the household — and she wasn’t forced into the workplace because even a modest house had suddenly become unaffordable on only one salary.
When a family outing was a picnic in the park, and not a trip to Disneyland that costs thousands of dollars.
When girls showed modesty in their attitude, their behavior and their clothing, and boys embraced their masculinity while understanding the duties of citizenship and responsibility.
When people could still be shocked by bad language in public.
To return to the question: “Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong time? That your preferences, tastes, attitudes always seem about 40 years out of step with what is happening now?”
I feel that way every single day. And it’s not just nostalgia, where your memory saves only the good parts and never the bad parts. The fact of the matter is that I do remember the bad parts, but in almost every case the good parts back then were far better than the best of times now — and the bad parts back then were not even close to the horrors of everyday life today.
I try to live my life today as close as I can to the way people lived their lives a long time ago — and at every turn I’m laughed at, patronized and dismissed as just some old fart living in the past.
Well, guess what? I want to live in the past. I don’t care which time, particularly: it could even be a mixture of some parts of the 1910s all the way to the early 1960s. I wasn’t alive back before 1954, but even without having lived back then, I feel far closer to those earlier decades than I do to the bloody shambles of our so-called “civilization” of today. The people of, say, 1960 lived lives with a philosophy far closer to the civilization of 1900 than the people of today do compared to the people of 1965.
When I say despairingly, as I often do, that I don’t want to live in this world anymore, I’m not being suicidal: I just feel so damn hopeless. because everything that was once so wonderful has disappeared completely, leaving no joy behind.
And so does Reader preussenotto, and so, I suspect, do many of my Readers.
The tempora have changed, and not for the better; and the mores have disappeared completely.
Update: Here’s what I mean:
And here’s the thing: I know that not all men today dress like the the loon on the RHS, and that some men still dress today like the one on the LHS.
However, back in 1950, not a single man dressed like the RHS twerp.
Now ask me the question again…
Seems as though a few areas in the U.S. have seen large growth in real estate values since the Covid thing. Mostly, it should be said, this is because property in the area was relatively inexpensive — i.e. the growth is off a low base. Some of the towns, though, are inexplicable.
Top 10 cities and how much the value of their homes has increased since 2019:
See any on the list where you’d care to live? Your comments are welcome.
…to the above QOTD: I wonder whether this irritation towards the modern world’s increasing (and likely over-) complexity is just a generational thing?
I have no idea as to the age of the commenter in this case, but I know that this disenchantment and hankering after a simpler life seems fairly common among people of my age, for the simple reason that it’s a common factor of life among my friends and, lest we forget, Readers of this here website.
But do the various “Gen” types feel the same way? I mean, we Olde Pharttes can remember (a bit) how much earlier times were less complicated and simpler. But in the case of Teh Youngins, are they even aware that life can be simpler, given that all they’ve ever experienced is Smartphones, the Internet, self-drive cars and refrigerators that can tell you when you’re running low on milk?
And considering that most Millennials, let alone the Gen X/Y/Z tribe don’t know how to change a flat tire, cook a meal from scratch and drive a stick shift, would they embrace a simpler world when so much of their daily life is smoothed by technology?
I suspect not, for the same reason that people of my generation would have no idea how to drive a horse-drawn carriage or be able to transmit a telegraph message in Morse code.
So our final few years of life on this planet seem doomed to be techno-centric instead of simple. What joy awaits us.