Walking Through Bethnal Green I Thought About the Strait of Hormuz and Also About My Gas Bill
Jack
Handey,
East
London,
on
the
Iran
war’s
inflation
reach,
the
Hormuz
chokepoint,
and
very
good
samosas
By
Jack
Handey
for
Bohiney
Magazine
and
The
London
Prat.
Deep
Thoughts,
Bethnal
Green,
mid-April
Sometimes,
when
I
am
walking
through
Bethnal
Green
and
I
pass
the
kebab
shop
and
I
see
the
new
price
board
which
I
check
every
Thursday
the
way
ship
navigators
checked
stars,
as
a
fixed
point
by
which
to
measure
drift
I
think
about
the
Strait
of
Hormuz.
Not
because
the
kebab
shop
has
a
sign
about
the
Strait
of
Hormuz.
It
does
not.
It
has
a
sign
about
the
lamb
wrap.
But
the
price
of
the
lamb
wrap
connects
to
the
price
of
fuel
which
connects
to
the
supply
chain
which
connects,
eventually,
to
twenty-one
miles
of
water
in
the
Persian
Gulf
through
which
twenty
percent
of
the
world’s
oil
passes.
This
is
what
globalisation
actually
means,
lived
at
street
level
in
E2.
It
means
that
a
ceasefire
described
as
“very
fragile”
by
a
Chinese
foreign
minister
affects
the
cost
of
a
Thursday
lamb
wrap
in
Bethnal
Green.
The
wrap
is
now
£1.20
more
than
it
was
in
January.
January
feels
like
a
different
geopolitical
era.
It
mostly
was.
The
East
End
Reading
of
Distant
Events
People
in
Bethnal
Green
do
not
spend
a
lot
of
time
talking
about
the
Strait
of
Hormuz
by
name.
They
talk
about
energy
bills.
They
talk
about
the
shop
prices.
They
talk
about
whether
it
is
worth
getting
the
van
out
for
a
job
that
pays
the
same
as
last
year
but
costs
more
in
diesel
to
get
to.
These
are
the
same
conversation
as
the
Strait
of
Hormuz
conversation.
They
are
just
in
a
different
language,
which
is
the
language
of
people
for
whom
geopolitics
arrives
as
a
bill
rather
than
a
briefing.
I
had
a
samosa
from
the
market
and
thought
about
this.
It
was
a
very
good
samosa.
According
to
BBC
Business,
UK
inflation
remains
elevated.
The
samosa
was
worth
it.
The
Hormuz
situation
was
less
clearly
worth
it.
I
finished
the
samosa
and
moved
on.
SOURCE:
https://bohiney.com
