Today we heard about a police visit to a Nottinghamshire cafe. Apparently they were there to make sure everyone was complying with whatever the law is this week.
I once had an interesting conversation with a bloke who was running businesses in Russia, just after it opened to the West. Must have been sometime in the 1990s. He said that one of the biggest surprises for him was that Russia had no culture of pubs, bars, or cafes. Thats why people bought alcohol in shops and invited small groups to their flats where they got hammered.
The Soviets were terrified of places where the public could just sit and talk, over a coffee or a beer. So they didn't allow them. People talking leads to the exchange of dangerous ideas, and to the questioning and ridiculing of authority.
Sam - interesting and strangely puritanical as well as repressive, because informers were everywhere anyway.
George - we seem to be but I'm still not entirely sure why. Maybe people at the top of the political greasy pole enjoy pulling the levers of power now they have actually found one or two.
3 comments:
I once had an interesting conversation with a bloke who was running businesses in Russia, just after it opened to the West. Must have been sometime in the 1990s. He said that one of the biggest surprises for him was that Russia had no culture of pubs, bars, or cafes. Thats why people bought alcohol in shops and invited small groups to their flats where they got hammered.
The Soviets were terrified of places where the public could just sit and talk, over a coffee or a beer. So they didn't allow them. People talking leads to the exchange of dangerous ideas, and to the questioning and ridiculing of authority.
Maybe we are doing this in reverse,
Sam - interesting and strangely puritanical as well as repressive, because informers were everywhere anyway.
George - we seem to be but I'm still not entirely sure why. Maybe people at the top of the political greasy pole enjoy pulling the levers of power now they have actually found one or two.
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