So there is to be a ‘bloodbath in the city’. Wandsworth Reservoir Dogs? – is Tarantino in town? Perhaps there’s a Charles Bronson convention in Liverpool Street? Or a Grand Theft Auto 5 tournament at the Barbican? God forbid, but maybe we’re talking the real tragic McCoy – some loonie with a shot gun or another dumb terrorist.
But no: the tabloids and even some of the more respectable titles are referring to job losses. JOB LOSS BLOODBATH scream the headlines.
Hmm. We mean to say, it’s all very upsetting if some awfully well paid executives lose their jobs, and if the merchant banks have to cross a zero off their squillions in profit. And we are not so shallow that we don’t realise that the prognosis for the national economy isn’t looking very good either. We will all have to tighten our belts, and some of us may have to change our plans. But bloodbath it ain’t.
And the cause of this dreadful journalese cliché? Well, there are going to be job losses. Merrill Lynch (Londonist is appalled that Microsoft spellcheck recognises those words) are ‘culling’ (bloodbath, remember) 400 of their staff, UBS up to 900, and the cudgels are out at Citigroup too.
In fact, that reliable barometer of financial health, the cabbie, reckons that things ain’t all that peachy either. Apparently, according to Manganese Bronze (who, um, make black cabs) orders for new black cabs are down. Drivers are twitchy on account of the hordes of miserable passengers they’re picking up.
Anyway, yes, so it looks like there be a bit of economic rough and tumble ahead. But nothing to excuse such hyperbolic reaction by the press.
Offices from Eleven Eight’s flickr stream.
