Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Brokers Roaring Like Beasts

As the markets plunge, the wise and the cultivated will, of course, be reading this Auden poem. In particular, they will, with a wry smile, be noting these lines:
'But in the importance and noise of tomorrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse.
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.'
Yeats died 70 years ago on the eve of an earlier apocalypse.

22 comments:

  1. Yes, what a poem! Once read never forgotten. Imho, Auden has such a knack for going straight in under the skin faster than almost any other poet.

    I wonder, though, whether information isn't our Bourse these days. Auden's Bourse is from a long-gone era. We live by public relations, marketing, media, googledom, celebrity. It's the brokers of information who roar, and boy are they roaring now.

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  2. Christ Bryan (I've been in Australia) even my blog isn't this depressing. Bankers hanging from lamposts?

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  3. i don't find it depressing so much as interesting, but then i have nothing bound up with the present system. A return to Stone Age tribalism or just total bloodthirsty anarchy would be quite interesting, in many ways, and we seemed to be heading there anyway, before the Great Cataclysm.

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  4. How the Media Would Cover the Apocalypse:

    The Sun: WE'RE DEAD.

    The FT: FTSE PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS.

    Playboy: GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE.

    Microsoft: APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE.

    Sports Illustrated: GAME OVER.

    Wired: THE LAST NEW THING.

    Rolling Stone: THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR.

    Discover Magazine: HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?

    Woman's Own: LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW "ARMAGEDDON" DIET!

    Investor magazine: TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE.

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  5. Heat: Posh Spice and 6 Billion Others Perish

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  6. Bryan Appleyard: TOLD YOU SO.

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  7. Watchmakers Weekly: We told you it was five minutes to midnight

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  8. The Buddhist Times: Frantic Search as End of the World Goes Missing. "There's nothing there," says Dalai Lama.

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  9. Top Gear: Some say he has a hairy intestine and has to swallow razor blades. We say he's called The St....

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  10. From 'The Wanderer':

    A wise man will understand
    how unearthly it will seem
    when all the wealth of this world stands devastated--
    as even now stand various walls in this world,
    blown upon by the winds,
    covered with rime-frost, ruined dwellings.
    Wine-halls crumble; kings lie deprived of happiness;
    al the proud host fall by the wall:
    war destroyed some of them, took them far away;
    a raven carried one far-off over the high sea;
    the hoary wolf gave over another to death;
    a sad-faced man hid another in a chamber of earth--
    thus did the Creator of men destroy this world,
    until, free from the noise of citizens,
    the old works of giants stood idle.

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  11. The Economist: THE APOCALYPSE: CAN EUROPE ADJUST?

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  12. The front page of the Hexham Courant when the Titanic went down was:
    "Hexham man feared lost at sea."

    Any suggestions for the Apocalypse?

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  13. It does seem that D.H. Lawrence may have been on to something when, in Apocalypse, he suggested that those who preach apocalypse secretly desire it. The last line of that book, though, is rather hopeful: "Start with the sun, and the rest will slowly, slowly happen."

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  14. Pace DHL, is their desire even all that secret?

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  15. Today's editorial in The Watchtower magazine was brief and to the point....

    We f...ing told you !

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  16. Anyway, enough of this cracker barrel theorising, today is GMs 100th birthday, many happy returns fellas and congratulations on your successfully negotiated government loan, psst.. I hear Ford wants one.

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  17. Blimey everyones a comedian! Am I the only one to have got past sixth form humour ?

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  18. How about some Housman Bryan?

    And down in lovely muck I've lain, Happy till I woke again.
    Then I saw the morning sky: Heigho, the tale was all a lie; The world, it was the old world yet

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  19. Yeah, I admit your post but I think if they do not do it then how they sale? Its also true they are making noise nice beasts and so dangerous for any person. I appreciate your article and want to share more comments but I am busy in exam 642-642 Quality of Service Exam. Thank you for sharing this interesting article.

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