Good Green Vibes

Two of my referees for my return to Old Mutual were the same two referees when I left the company and ventured overseas 12 years ago. As part of my first day reading, I was going through the Annual Report to Shareholders which referred to the 175-year-old company motto of “a certain friend in uncertain times”. The line between colleague, client, and friend can become very fuzzy given how much time we spend dedicated to work. I like that fuzziness. I like the fluidity which recognises that we are not just cogs in the machine. I think the warmth with which I have been welcomed back reflects well on the company, in a world where we have to acknowledge that wealth is created in containers. That can sometimes lead to excess competition, secrecy, and dehumanisation. Old Mutual is both a 175-year-old institution and a large publicly listed company. It isn’t a human and doesn’t own the humans in it. I don’t want to deify or anthropomorphize it, but I do look forward to seeing the people in it again and working with them, and the various stakeholders affected by buildings with green roofs.

Touched with Green

Navigating Paperwork

Pushing paper is a core part of finding your way in the modern jungle. My friend Karabo wrote a guest post for my blog a few years ago where she talked about the advantages of coming from a family that valued education. The lessons learnt at the feet of gogos and uncles. Overheard conversations and helping hands. Another friend, Tom, is a Polish-British Soutie. Understanding “Rich Country Poverty” was one of the harder things for me to wrap my head around as a South African-British Soutie. Tom told me of how he volunteers to help people fill in forms. Having navigated (and navigating) my way through applying for bursaries, getting passports, fertility treatment, adoption processes, job interviews and all sorts of paper work… this makes sense. Often asking the same question repeatedly in a slightly different way, with confidence, is needed to maintain momentum. Karabo and Tom’s observations remind me of how important believing you deserve to take the steps, and getting guidance, is in a path dependant world.

A job application dated 1913

Soutie Begins

When I moved to London in 2008, there were two main obstacles to overcome. (1) Get a Visa, and (2) Get a Job. For the Visa, I used a company called Voyage Relocations. It is possible to navigate the legalities without support. I had friends who did, but I prefer the comfort of someone telling me I have filled in all the forms correctly. As my British wife and I head back in 2020, we are again using support for her Spousal visa process. It was/is nerve wracking sending original documents (degree certificates, passports, driver’s licences). The container for the opportunity to move was Age, Education, Previous Earnings, and English. For the job, I used a company called Acumen Resources. They arranged some interviews, and gave me some support in “How to do interviews”. Like exam technique and time management are the key to Conspicuous Knowledge (education as a signal), getting a job requires performing well in the lottery of CV sorting. I got interviews at McKinsey and Orbis. McKinsey said no, I wasn’t a creative enough thinker. Orbis gave it a lot of thought, but said yes. When I say McKinsey and Orbis, I mean individuals at those companies. Although we talk of the containers we call Companies as if they are people, it normally comes down to single decision makers.

One Foot in the UK, One Foot in SA

Hopping the Pond

I am navigating all the hoops involved in country and continent hopping. I did it in the other direction in 2008, aged 28, when all I had to do was pack a bag and jump on a plane. That, and get permission. In a world with borders and restricted movement, I had to get a work visa based on qualifications, language, age, and proof that I could self-support. Like borrowing money, where you need to prove you don’t need to borrow it. In the other direction, I am a citizen. This time, the lottery of birth works in my favour. My British wife is going through the process of getting a visa. Thanks to Social Media, in many ways I never “left” South Africa. During Lockdown, does it matter if you are reading Sindile Vabaza’s musings on your computer in the Cotswolds or in Claremont? In other ways, I have been a Scatterling of Africa and am returning home. Everything is temporary. The body regenerates every 7-10 years. We choose what we want to keep, what we want to discard, and what we want to add. Reinventing. Reinvesting. This time, I am “not leaving” the UK. I am not leaving the old colleagues, clients, neighbours, artists, dancers, yogis, family and friends who are not defined by the random location they were dropped on this planet.

Putney, London, United Kingdom, 2008

Hiding in the Shire

One big shift for me to become a true Soutie is getting used to the seasons. I grew up in Durban where Winters are warm enough for beach weather, and Summers are boiling. The seasons here on Mud Island are distinct, and there are very much four of them. Gardens that disappear completely and burst into life. Particularly where Gem and I have set up home in the Shire. Straight out of the story books, there are hobbits everywhere gardening and farming. Endless Summers have their appeal, but I love the changing character of this corner of the globe that makes weather so topical. It has strengthened its hold on my heart during the Covid Lockdown, when we are all cut off from each other. By ocean, border, or car being immaterial. The lessons of Autumn and Winter seem apt. Unlearning and stillness. Creative destruction. Reskilling. Survival. Time to reflect on what truly matters and what is permanent. Moments when we can’t do anything, because there is nothing to be done. Moments to acknowledge those who have to do, because they have no other choice. Moments to be grateful for our ability to survive challenges and connect seasons. Till we can hold each other once again.

Gem Sketches the Shire

Made in Containers

Money is made in containers. Four key barriers to entry are nations, schools, universities, and businesses. You mostly don’t get selected for your Nation. That is primarily race and luck of the draw based. There are however countries that let you in based on selection criteria. I was born South African, did all my schooling in Westville (Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal) and worked at three Companies. In 2008, I moved to London on a points-based visa (salary, language, education, age). I renewed, then got indefinite leave to remain, then got a British Passport to add to my South African one. The whole (expensive) process took 7 years. After school, there were plenty of “sortings”. Times when other people had to decide whether I was good enough. With enough ambiguity in the process, and enough supply of applicants, to try hide the politics and hereditary privilege reinforcement. I mostly made it through, and was fortunate, but also got annoyed at the balance of power. For markets to work, the negotiation has to be between peers. With transparency, and the ability to walk away. The market for labour is lopsided. Containers aren’t people, even though we speak of them like they are. We’ll only see real meritocracy when containers are competing for people, rather than people for containers.

Pay Deep Attention

All lives don’t have the same options. The challenge with reading books, watching movies, and spending time with outliers and heroes is their realities are likely vastly different. I went to watch a play about homelessness in the UK. Something as a Soutie, I had been skeptical about (“You don’t know what poverty is. Come to South Africa.”). The Actors took suggestions from the audience, and then played it out. The lesson? We have no idea how to live other people’s lives. We just think we do. The best generic advice is to pay deep attention to your options. Talk to people whose lives resonate with yours. Find mentors who have walked the path from where you are. Friends one page ahead. Don’t underestimate what you can learn from very average people. What you can learn from, rather than teach, people less fortunate than you. Don’t spend so much time trying to surround yourself with successful people that you lose yourself. Meritocracy can hide what we have under what we want.

UK National Charity for Homelessness

Dismantling Apartheid

Financial Security is a team sport. The former Mayor of South-Central Durban, Theresa Mthembu, invited me to her home in 1996. It was the first time I had been to Umlazi. I grew up along the route of the Comrades Marathon which winds its way from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. I was in the White bits. The other bits were further from the main artery. I spent two years in the UK in ‘98/’99 and moved here again in 2008. To me, in my “English Speaking World” bubble, it is irrelevant whether what separates me from poverty is the valley of a thousand hills or the hills of Oxfordshire and then the Atlantic Ocean. Racism was never a “South Africa Problem”. Apartheid was never a South Africa problem. We are all connected. We just create artificial divisions that allow us to live in bubbles of self-determination. I can’t unsee that visit as a 16-year-old. But the system we live in didn’t change that day. Just my personal practice of dismantling it. Starting the only way I can. With myself. Every day. For the rest of my life.

Dismantling Apartheid is a Marathon

Team Player

The harder you hold onto something, the more likely you are to lose it. I am a Scatterling of Africa. A Soutie. A Vagabond. One who has no fixed home. There were 147 boys in my Matric class. A group of them had been with me for 12 years. Not by choice. Some were very glad to see the back of others they had been trapped with. I was at University for 4 years, and at the three companies I worked at for 4.5 years, 5 years, and a year respectively. I was always a “Team Player”. Throwing myself in wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. But cynicism has grown to replace my romantic side. I am wary of Trusts, Legal People, and groups who we use the language of Ordinary People for. Speaking of Countries, Companies, and Teams as if they are a flesh and blood someone we owe our allegiance to. Teams change. Those groups I was at, no longer exist. The real group we owe our allegiance to is bigger. And smaller. To the real people we meet. The real people who move. To the expansion. To the connection. Time is a one-way door. I can’t move home. It does not exist. Yet I am home. If I loosen my grip.

Class 1 - 1986

Bit of a Wet

I was a bit of a wet as a kid. At the tail end of Apartheid, we still had Corporal Punishment (which ended with the birth of Democracy). There were two occasions when I almost got caned, but waterworks saved me from Mr Pike and Mr Ash (not making the names up). This was the same culture that had the 2003 Springboks naked in a foxhole while having ice-cold water poured over their heads. The complicated bit is the "my parents beat me and look how I turned out" justification given. Often people who had it hard become the hardest opponents of stopping it from being hard in the first place. Like people who have made it against the odds objecting the loudest to those in poverty being given "handouts". I am still a bit of a wet. I don't regard basic foundations of kindness and respect as handouts. I don't believe in fear as an incentive.

Caning stand from British Prison in Hong Kong

Basic Flexibility

One noticeable difference as a Soutie is how get togethers are organised in my UK bubble relative to my SA bubble. Down South… Nice weather? Braai? Everyone magically arrives with meat and drinks. Up North… enter the logistic nightmare of matching up calendars. Add a month to when the event can occur for every additional person invited. Planning too far ahead means full calendars swallow you whole. Inflexibility is contagious. Financial Flexibility is similar. The more fixed, recurring expenses you have, the less you can adapt and adjust to the weather. If you spend too far ahead. More isn’t the core goal of Financial Security. The Foundation should be very aware of the expenses over which you don’t have control. Which are short-term, regular, and insistent. Again, the lack of flexibility to cover the basics when storms hit is contagious. If we don’t all have the basics covered, it becomes difficult to see people.

Through the Seasons

I am a Soutie. One foot in South Africa and one foot in the UK. I grew up in Durban where winters are warm, summers are hot, and it is mostly green all year round. I married an English Rose and now live in the middle of the Shire, where I am learning the ways of the Hobbit (slowly). The seasons are distinct. From short days to long. From leafless trees and bare gardens to overflow. “Endless Summers” have their appeal, but the idea of seasons as a foundation for growth makes a lot of sense. Creative Destruction requires broad framing. Busyness is a form of laziness. We need to step back and identify what is really important. Unlearn the distractions. Invest in the foundations. See the connections that matter, and prune cross branches and sucker growth. Sustainable Growth isn’t always up. Tough times will come repeatedly. The key is making sure the winters don’t kill the roots, and tending potential. Springs come repeatedly too.

Hard Thing First

When I finished school, I didn’t know what I wanted to “be”. Top of the list were Teacher or Architect because I thought they combined my interest in Learning, Art, and Mathematics. Both my brothers were at Medical School, and three sets of fees was too much of a push for my parents. The UK offered a two-year working holiday visa. I worked as a waiter to save for the plane ticket, and then got a job as a gap student at a prep school in Chichester. While there, I saved my Pounds like a hamster, and plotted what to study. On trips to London, I felt “poor”. Look, but don’t touch. I decided to be deeply pragmatic. It was easier to make a career out of Maths skills, and a hobby of Art, than vice versa. I chose Actuarial Science, which topped the list of many surveys of the best professions. Hard, but safe. If I busted a gut for a few years, then I could do the stuff I wanted. Do the hard things first was very much the way I had been deep soaked growing up. Gratefully, Old Mutual also had a bursary scheme. This meant the money issue was taken off the table, in exchange for working for them after my studies.

Working as a Porter in the English School Holidays

Bigger World

I moved to the UK in 2008 partly for family reasons, and partly for the increased opportunity set of working in a Global City. I never “left South Africa”. I just thought that earning Pounds, gave me a better chance of squirreling away some acorns for the winter. Like investment returns, opportunity compounds. I got the chance to work in the UK based on my age, income, education level, and ability to speak English. It isn’t an opportunity open to everyone. By 2014, still thinking in Rands, I felt I had sufficient acorns to stop worrying about squirreling if I was good at controlling my expenses. Acorns grown by the Pound go further in cheaper areas. Working is expensive. Many who work in London earn more, but still live hand-to-mouth. The living can be done cheaper elsewhere if your hand and mouth can look up and see a bigger world.

Mrs & Mr John

Marriage is a joint commitment to share life. It is a public statement of intent to our communities that we want to build our home and family. It is a promise to hold a space of kindness and respect for each other. To gradually, and curiously, gain a deep understanding of our stories, and values, as they mingle to create a strong foundation. Marriage is a practice. Something we learn through and from. It will challenge and stretch us, but also provide a place of retreat, reflection, and reinvigoration. Marriage is a second perspective that adds depth and meaning, through trust and love.

Gemma John & Trevor John

Stretched Soutie

As a Soutie, I can't move home. Home isn't a place. It feels more like a state of mind. Of heart. One of my feet sits on a muddy island that was once a magical and scary place beyond the Empire. Then briefly the head of an Empire. The other sits in a country on the southern tip of a vast continent that is waiting to roar. Both are having raw identity crises. I don't want to be defined by a place. Anger rises at the thought of being defined by borders and separateness. Born in Apartheid, the boiling point of my blood is division, suppression, and disempowerment. I will never be defined by a team. For me, home isn't the edges. It is the engine. Home doesn't contain me. Home releases me. I can't move home. Home can only move me. Home doesn't contain us. It empowers us.

Moving Home

Finding Roots in a Global World

I have been writing my blog almost daily for about 4.5 years now. A form of stream of consciousness, where I think aloud and then my ideas get fired in the public kiln till the bubbles crack the badly formed ones. 

One tool that I find useful is consistency. How can you believe A, and B, if B is not A. You have to choose. The problem is consistency has its limits. Our beliefs and preferences tend to be narrow, and dependant. I used to think you couldn't be racist and intelligent. Then I learned about Wouter Basson ("Dr. Death"). There are plenty of examples of people who are persecuted and persecutors. There are examples of people who are one person at work, another at home, and another at play. Whose beliefs depend on the group they are in, and who like multiple groups.

We layer meaning on top of facts. We think in categories and stories. This means we can be reading two books as we look at the same situation. Our response depends.

A theme of my writing has been the homelessness of my circle of friends and family, in a world that is battling with Globalisation and Localisation. Home has had to become a collection of my favourite competing stories. To maintain my mental health, I have to switch between worlds. To learn to let go of things that really matter to me... temporarily.

I am a Soutie. I have one foot in the UK and one foot in South Africa. I have good friends in the US, China, Brazil, and New Zealand. My family is all over. Even when people are in the same place physically, they are often not available. Everyone is so busy, it becomes near impossible to arrange events when groups get bigger than two or three. It isn't that they don't care. They are just reading something else. So there isn't actually an option of "moving home". My home is always moving.

As someone who loves seeking out patterns and layering meaning, I have had to develop a lighter touch. A half-hearted detachment. Not everything means something. Not everything is consistent.

I would love to figure out how you can build community in this brave new world. How do you develop roots that are oceans apart? Letting go is required just as much as digging in.

Be the Tree-v

Open Houseparty

The following conversation is fictional

Melusi:

I read one of your conversations. I could relate to the post, but was thrown off by the lack of black characters. Where are the fictional Siphos and Nthabisengs?

Trev:

I feel uber self-conscious about being accused of "blackface" and putting words in the mouths of people. Perhaps I could take on the challenge, addressing my own fears. You don't think I will be hung, drawn, and quartered if Zolani speaks up?

Melusi:

No. I don't think you would be black facing.

Trev:

I quite like the idea of dismantling identity. I love the work you are doing with Melusi's Everyday Zulu. Especially the catchphrase "There is um'zulu in all of us". I am currently working quite hard at snapping my monotongue. I only speak English fluently. Then Durban Boy Afrikaans and a long tail of other failed attempts. I would love to be able to have these conversations with characters from outside my bubble. It feels like I would be talking out my Donkey though. The voices in my head disagree with me, but presumably, see the world in the only way I have been able to. I can understand how someone could disagree with me, but only a me disagreeing with me if that makes sense. How can I speak for someone whose experiences are so different from mine?

There is um'Zulu in all of us

Melusi:

Well, you are speaking for me now aren't you? We never actually had this conversation. Sure it started in reality. But you must have some idea of where it would go.

Trev:

The only way I can explain my hesitance is the shared experience in the post you read. It was about being a guy and the various reactions to the Toxic Masculinity ad that Gillette put out. In it, I did voice some female characters. Even that was hard. I have a sense of what many of my friends and family may have thought, but it feels difficult to venture into any areas where the character looks bad. If I call someone Stuart, I can make them look bad and not feel bad myself. All I have to say is, "It's not really Stuart". In the same way I can tell a good mate that he looks like he has eaten all the pies. But I can't tell an acquaintance that they are packing on the pounds.

Sipho:

Actually, it is not cool that I had to wait until Melusi asked you to give me a voice hey. Your think you are all high and mighty. You fear of looking bad looks bad. Perhaps if you actually made an effort to learn another language, and experience other cultures, then you wouldn't feel so bad? Maybe the point at which you were comfortable criticising others would have been earned, because you have clearly demonstrated that you have built the relationships necessary. That the criticism isn't from your perspective.

Nthabiseng:

I don't know. I don't feel comfortable with some white boy speaking for me. What do you know of what I would say? It wouldn't be convincing. Our worlds hardly overlap. There is too much pain. You have been holding the microphone way too long anyway. Sipho, do you really think they are going to make the effort to learn stuff they don't have to? English dominates the world anyway. There is no need. Nothing is going to change. We are all just being forced to jump on board.

Zolani:

Hold on. I am trying. My name is Zolani, but that was given to me in the same way as others were given "Christian names" when the schools started transitioning two decades ago. Except this time, it was me asking for an isiXhosa name. The Freds, Patricias, Jimmys and various other names given because we didn't bother learning peoples real names. The challenge is that the tools aren't there to learn in the way other languages are. The Memrise app has a community version of isiXhosa, but it is limited. With other languages, there are Audible books, Netflix series, and it is possible to go to places where you can immerse yourself. I just make lots of false starts. I want to learn. I just don't know how.

Nthabiseng:

If you really wanted to learn, you would find a way. The rest is noise. People have been promising to learn for years. What I also don't what is a bunch of poverty tourism. Some of you treat us like we are a Show. You come into where I live to have a drink and see how "the others" live. You buy a trinket and go home. You aren't genuinely learning. You are "helping". We don't need your handouts, observation, and general condescension. Save us the civilizing mission.

Trev:

I get that it sounds a bit whiny. It is just genuinely hard to have an action plan for improving things. Most of us are too busy just paying the mortgage, taxiing the kids, and responding to emails. I have found Facebook quite useful as an Open Houseparty of sorts. I still haven't got to engage with lots of people face to face, because I live in the UK. But I do have daily conversations now with people outside my bubble. I feel like my bubble is becoming more holey. The interesting thing is the people don't fit the stereotypes. You can't assume anybody's political, religious, or social views from their names. Even from accents. Gradually, we are getting to the point where people can choose who they want to be.

Sipho:

You are the one who goes on about daily practices. If it is something you really value, you will find a way to do it every day. It is just like getting fit. If you only do something once a week, you stay interested but not much more. If you do something twice a week, you can maintain the level you are at. You need to be doing it at least three times a week to improve. But if you really care, you'll do something every day. Even if it is just a little. Your bubble is a mirror of what you do every day. Stop talking about talking and talk.

[Melusi is kind of fictional, Nthabiseng, Sipho and Zolani are fictional]

Last Man Standing

The struggle for Financial Security often focuses on Income. That is only half the battle, and it is the half most people have far less control of. The Outs tend to control us more than the Ins. Particularly the ones we don't choose. It is very easy when there is breathing space between the Ins and the Outs to dish out advice as an example of success. Except the real learnings need to come from the heroes making do. The ones who are capable of surviving on very little. The fighter who can get punched again and again, and get up. The first step of gaining Financial Security is finding a source of income. In South Africa, there is structural Great Depression-level unemployment. There are no jobs. The trick then becomes creating something from nothing. 

This is not something I know very much about at all. I come from a "suck it up" culture. Do the hard work first, and the play can come later. Life owes you nothing. There has always been something on the menu though. When I first came to the UK, for two years between school and university, I started to feel the grip of the Outs on my throat. Every pound I spent (multiplied into rands) gave me a klein bietjie kots in my mond.

A friend of mine also took a gap year, and was doing construction work in London. I was working as a teacher' assistant, and took a job as a Waiter and Night Porter at a local hotel during the holidays to get a little more. This was us "roughing" it... We knew university was around the corner, and that was the path to some financial breathing space. Both of us were on two-year working-holiday visas that gave us the chance to come to the UK. We could find work. We still felt like we were really struggling. Despite not having anyone we had to support.

I always have monkey's wrestling in my mind over money issues. I wish they didn't control us. Part of the gap I took was to figure out the answer to the "what are you going to do?" question. The glorious luxury of choice. Except I didn't want to choose. I love learning new things, and spending time with people. That doesn't pay. Doing stuff pays. 

I was working in Chichester, which is the South of England. I got to hide from the Outs partly by doing very little, and partly because I was mostly paid in Board & Lodging. This is a little like the luxury children have when they get to live off the BOMAD (Bank of Mom & Dad), and under their roof. London was a decent reality check provider. A "you can look, but you can't touch", display of all the options available.

That must be a little like what it feels to live in South Africa in areas where there is no work, and then popping into where there is lots of money - Sandton, Umhlanga, the Waterfront in Cape Town. "A little like" because I cracked. I decided to pick from the set menu. I chose to study Actuarial Science. Literally by looking at the options and picking the one that paid the most which best suited my skills. I didn't solve my problems by thinking outside the box. I climbed deep into the box and knuckled down.

I saved really aggressively and invested that money to build an Engine that could do the work for me. Eventually, I was able to tap out. I actually enjoyed my work a lot, and had some incredible colleagues. My greatest challenge was my distaste for hierarchy, and being managed. In the same way, as I didn't like the Outs controlling me, I really hated the idea that other people's subjective opinions would have so much impact on my success or failure. I wanted to feel like I was living life, not that life was living me. Like I cracked and chose something from the menu the first time, there was a degree of cracking and choosing from another menu. A belligerent middle finger to the idea that I wasn't the one driving my life. You can't. You don't have enough yet. Really? Watch me.

I hate answerless questions. Like people who look at those in poverty, and say "Why don't they sort themselves out?". This implies that there is a menu they can choose from and they are just being lazy. There is a path... and they just aren't following it. That is absolute rubbish. I am sure they, just like me, would love to take responsibility for their choices. We just happen to live in a menu dependent world, where we aren't all given the same menus.

And most do take responsibility. I am in awe of those still standing despite the menus they have received. Some of the biggest push back I get when I talk about Engine-building to improve your ability to "Just Say No", is from people who are well beyond Step 1 (find a source of income). Often the best place to learn, is from those with less. The ones for whom "No" wasn't a choice. The last man standing is normally the one who can take the punches.

A pre-selfy selfy

More Than a Whisper

Trev:

I got my British Passport a year before the Brexit Referendum. As someone who believes the C20th introduction of passport control was simply the physical role out of Global Apartheid, getting another passport has its ironies. Rather than burning Dompas like Madiba, I was collecting another one of the things I don't believe in. I came on a Migrants Program that gave me the opportunity because of my education, salary, language, age and work experiences. Kind of like a lottery for those who have previously won the lottery. Still, I was proud. Like a recovering Alcoholic, the description of Britain at my Citizenship Ceremony reminded me of the scene of Marcus Aurelius in the Gladiator. "There was a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile." There were people from all over the world becoming citizens of a country that seemed to stand for so many things I believed in. Then 2016 happened and whispers became shouts.

More Than a Whisper

Alex:
The way you pitch it is as if the primary reason behind Brexit was closing the borders. You and I have very similar beliefs. We both want this "Rome" with an open society that is inclusive. We both believe in Freedom of Trade, Movement, Services, and People. I didn't see the Referendum as anything other than a vote of no confidence in the INSTITUTION of the EU. Not Europe. Britain can't physically leave Europe. It is a part of it. All the crying and gnashing of teeth makes out as if all Brexiteers are racists and xenophobes. What about the European border in Ceuta? You can't paint the EU as this Liberal Democracy. I was voting against a Brussels run by technocrats.

Paul: 
I didn't actually think the vote would go through. I have just been a Eurosceptic for years. I was undecided when I stepped into the voting booth, but I didn't feel it would be right to moan about the EU and then vote for them. I have business in Europe, but the European regulations make my life an absolute nightmare. I prefer hiring Brits. I really didn't think Brexit would actually happen, and even when it did, I didn't think there wouldn't be some sort of deal that allowed life to carry on pretty much as normal. It doesn't make sense for anybody for us to not be able to keep on doing what we do. Anyway, if things don't work out, I am okay. I'll just close up shop and go traveling.

Stewart:
I don't really follow all this nonsense. I have my own stuff to worry about. There is no point in worrying anyway. The people in London will do what they do and life will go on. It is not going to affect me. I voted for Brexit because the NHS is creaking at the seams with all the immigrants in the waiting rooms, and the jobs going to people who aren't even from here. Look after your own first I say. Don't have guests until you can afford to keep your house in order. You have to choose. If you want to have a Welfare State that looks after people, it is simple maths that you can't afford to look after everybody else too. Get rid of that stuff, and then sure... people who can afford to look after themselves are welcome to come.

Angela:
The reality is we are a small island. Environmentally, we can't afford to have more people here. 60 million plus is probably too many already. There aren't enough houses, which is why housing is unaffordable for the people who were born here. I am all for being accommodating to others, but there is the question of sustainability. The roads are clogged. The trains are clogged. The Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are being filled with new housing that doesn't have the necessary schools and facilities. We may be a rich country in theory, but there are lots of problems we need to sort out. Leaving the EU is the only way we can do that.

Michelle:
There are fundamental political differences between the UK and the EU. You either believe in central decision-making technocrats, or you believe in devolved responsibility. In the UK, you hire and fire your political representatives directly. I can meet with my Member of Parliament, and it doesn't matter how much of a big wig they are, they have to serve their constituency. Nigel Farage certainly doesn't represent my views, and I resent being associated with him because I am against the EU. There is some irony that he has never ever won a seat in the UK, and his voice has been handed to him by Europe. Nigel is not the voice of Leave.

Trev:
The problem I have with these views is that they are mostly ideological. Much like my "I don't believe in Passports". The problem is Passports are a real thing. It doesn't matter if I believe in them or not. At the end of the day, I have to use them to move around. I am a deep pragmatist. What we do matters. Results matter. Yes, beliefs matter, but in the real world, we have to work with other people. The EU may have chosen Proportional Representation over "First Past The Post" seats. That has advantages and disadvantages. South Africa made the same choice. The inability of minority parties to get a voice in the UK is one of the disadvantages. Sustainability, Resource Allocation, and Regulatory Simplicity are all important... but we can't just vote for everyone to agree with us. The EU is much more likely to reform from within. It is better with the UK in it.

Andrew:
I have severe Brexit Fatigue. There are more important issues that which club different Rich countries belong or don't belong to. "Meanwhile in China" the world is carrying on while the Government of the UK grinds to a halt in this big talk shop. Whatever happens, won't change that much anyway. Like the Y2K "Crisis", the Global Financial "Crisis", the news always needs some Armageddon event to keep it entertained. Proper Crises like the World Wars, the resulting global flu pandemics, and the starvations in China and (now) Venezuela are proper things worth worrying about. Not how long it takes to fill in some bloody forms so you can sell your stuff or have to put another sticker on it. Britain "exiting" Europe is like a divorce where the spouses stay living in the same house. It's ridiculous, and we talk about it too much.

Alex:
I would probably change my vote now. I still believe I voted in good conscience the specific question that was asked. I wanted to leave the EU. I didn't want to end Freedom of Movement or any of the other nastinesses that get attributed to me because I think the EU is a bullying Leviathon. I think we have handled the negotiations terribly. Other politicians could have done a better job at negotiating with the EU instead of pandering to them. All the political parties are pretty weak at the moment, at a time when we needed strong leadership.

Trev:
I worry that the price of Brexit is simply a dismantling of the United Kingdom. The real world price of Britain leaving the EU, in my view, is that the UK will be dismantled. Ireland will reunify (I can't see any other solution to the "Backstop" issue) and stay in the EU. Scotland will then be left with a choice between the UK and the EU, and politically I think Scotland is more aligned with the EU. Andrew is probably right that "all will be fine". Relatively speaking, I do think there are bigger issues to worry about. It just makes me sad. I certainly feel that the first few sparks of seeing Britain as an "X years sober" alcoholic are at real risk of quite a few years of falling off the wagon. I am positive. I do think we can sober up again. It just didn't need to be this hard. 

[Alex, Paul, Angela, Stewart, Michelle and Andrew are fictional]