91Èȱ¬

the queue outside 'jamies italian' in kingston

American trend forecaster Gereld Celente has been doing this for years, using all sorts of unlikely indicators and has been accurate with many organisations subscribing to his Trends Research Institute journal. His predictions for the coming years though are not looking good he has identified indicators of economic collapse as opposed to green shoots. In America now sales of ammunition and long life foods are soaring, what does that tell you about public confidence? Also I would love to see an Horizon episode looking into the phenomena of 'Web Bots' programs which work like search engines designed to rake the internet looking for repetition of particular phrases. Originally designed to predict market moves, they are now coming up with an alarming amount of doom and gloom coming our way in the near future. The theory being that subconsciously all people are intuitively picking up on micro trends personal to their own daily experiences then when they blog, tweet or communicate in any way online they unknowingly and very subtly pass on their concerns which in turn get read by and ring true in others who in turn subconsciously pick up on the vibe magnifying the feeling that something is afoot. Along comes the web bots acting like high tech divination sniffing out this collective unease. We are being lied to, things cant go on like this, the globalisation game is up, everybody deep down knows it but they want to stay in the dream instead of accepting the inevitable nightmare our consumerism has created. Historically war and or disease follow.

Ask meter readers how many daytime calls get an answer.

More people are at home because they're unemployed or short on funds.

A drop in domestic gas and electricity consumption, seasonally adjusted. When more people are at home more because of recession their domestic bills will inevitably rise no matter how hard they try. A light on here, a kettle boiled there, TV on all the time, more bloggers on the 91Èȱ¬ website. All these activities will reduce, and household bills also as a consequence of this, when more householders return to work.

There'll be less cars about in August 'cos everyone's on holiday and the schools are off...

1) It is impossible to sustain continued growth, so the capitalist model is doomed.
2) During the 4th phase of any civilisation the weight of bureaucracy strangles and kills it. You only have to look around at our western society to realise that this is happening now. We have more pen-pushers than people actually doing something.

Collapse of our civilisation is inevitable.

The M6 toll is a non starter I'm afraid. I cycle over it every day to work (10% paycuts notwithstanding). As far as I can see, it's got more to do with the cost rising in 6 years from £2 to £4.70 each way plus whether there's major congestion on the M6 (or if the M6 has been closed completely). Far better to take note of how busy Birmingham's city centre car parks are (London's are outrageously expensive and not affordable to the common man).

High street coffee sales may be a good one. Another discretionary expense, I calculated I would save over £700pa by foregoing my morning latte and pastry. I could then use these funds to purchase a bicycle and save even more on travel expenses... at this rate I'll be a millionaire by the end of the year!

Flying regularly between Jersey, London and beyond, it has been noted by myself and friends that over the past year there has been a marked reduction in holding times when arriving over the major airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, with many flights actually getting a direct approach. This has also been mirrored across the pond at the likes of Chicago. Assuming this is down to a reduction in the overall number of flights it will be interesting to see, but not necessarily experience, how an economic recovery, or lack of, might continue to influence flight times.

How about sales of ready-made meals? And sales of red wine? Or sales of "finest" or luxury items as opposed to sales of "value" items? sales of sky tv? budget spent on hairdressers or beauticians? There's surely an endless list of things which we all forego in times of economic insecurity... Personally, I've given up TV, to the shock and horror of friends! (Me, I quite like the chance to do other more rewarding stuff...)

Near us there is an Environment Agency office block and recently we had a talk from one of its staff. When I asked him what percentage of the staff travelled to work on bikes, or public transport he wasn't able to answer - the answer should have been zero. He made all sorts of excuses such as "We're not on a bus route" (they are), we were moved from the centre of town (oh, dear). Perhaps a case of "Do as I say, not as I do" but that applies to most government departments and Quangoes - or am I being too cynical?

The comment by Curiousman is not my experience. I work regularly with the Environment Agency. I cannot remember any of the offices which I visited not having a well used cycle shed and even for off site meetings many of the people attending travelled by cycle or public transport. The whole ethos within the Agancy is to encourage people to take the green options.