City workers

The oppressive heat continues. Sorry to keep harping on about the subject, but it has become a major factor of life at the moment. The word “sweltering” comes from the Middle English “swelten” meaning to die from heat exhaustion. Normally I like the Summer heat but in this latest heatwave I have been experiencing headaches and pains in my chest (the office doesn’t have air conditioning). Early afternoon there was a brief thunderstorm with a torrential downpour of rain, but that soon passed over. August is forecast to be even hotter than July.



Above: in the City a finance broker or commodities broker or similar (I can’t use the word “yuppie” since the expression has become archaic) takes shelter behind the war memorial at the Royal Exchange whilst making a call on his mobile phone. The term “City” relates to the square mile financial district of London within the boundaries of the old medieval walls (and covering roughly the area of the Roman city of Londinium). The standard of living of City workers is tremendous – in a good year when bonuses are high they rate among the most highest-paid salaried employees anywhere in the world. Curiously their tastes are not plutocratic. A few will show off with bouts of conspicuous consumption but most are sober, modest and dull (betraying their lower-middle-class C2 origins, when thrift was instilled in them as a necessity). The wealth generated in the City washes out across the whole south east of England (usually in gentle persistent ripples, quite often in giant tsunamis of ready cash) and the economy is more dependant on the City for its buoyancy than the Chancellor cares to acknowledge.



Above: a PA sits out on a ledge to have her morning coffee and check through her personal organiser. The bonuses of even quite humble City workers can be substantial (Gary Spencer has clients who are very junior office assistants in the Broadgate area and get annual bonuses of between five and ten thousand pounds). Very few City workers can afford to live near their offices – most will commute in from the outer suburbs (Edgware, Clapham, Ealing) or even further afield.



Above: construction worker sitting out his lunch break in front of the Bank of England. On any one day the City contains tens of thousands of construction workers, working on the buildings that perpetually seem to be going up and coming down. Builders, plasterers, electricians, scaffolders, plumbers, painters etc. They dress in casual sportswear (always grimy by the end of the day when they catch the tube home) that often exhibits expensive labels. Because they can’t afford anything from the City shops (a sandwich and coffee in the Royal Exchange can cost £22 – I speak from experience!) they have nothing to do in their breaks except sit around looking bored. A hazard of construction work in the City is that an archaeological discovery can delay progress for months.



Above: oblivious to the money that is pulsating all around them, tourists sit out on the steps of St Paul’s cathedral as the sun goes down and the heat finally begins to ease. All the money in the world will at some point pass through London’s financial institutions, and usually this carousel of globalised currencies spins around endlessly, from London to New York to Tokyo to Frankfurt and back to London again. Every rotation of wealth results in a tiny sliver of commission accruing to the City, these commissions swiftly accumulating to staggering, mind-boggling proportions.