Everyone knows, no one intends to be at Jimmy Allen’s – that’s why we interviewed Sarah, an undergraduate Sport Science student having a drunk ciggy to see what she had to say.

“I guess it all started with the birth of agriculture […] which necessitated notetaking and quantification on a societal level…” She said. We caught her outside in the smoking area, Cuba Libre in hand, police officer hat thrown over her head and sparkling birthday sash over her shoulders. When asked, she said it was not her birthday.

“[This] ideology of abstraction – taking things and reducing them to values and signifiers – contains within it the necessary parts for perpetual growth […] Capital, in layman’s terms.”

“This cybernetic entity – this techno-ideological machine – took control of our food first so that we had no escape, and then developed the state to protect itself. The dialectical process which grew from the entity materialised in the form of governmental institutions, designed to smooth over its internal contradictions […] empire building was almost a direct result of the agricultural process, which within less than 7000 years, grew to dominate the world.”

The Bubble interviewers understood her points, but were confused as to the relevance of the question: “What brings you to Jimmy’s?”

She shrugged and her birthday sash fell off, “Well, in England, this reduction ad infinitum of multifaceted experience into values and images came to prominence in the 15th century. The advent of private property began a chain of events leading to the Industrial Revolution […] because, the natural next step after assetisation is profit-seeking.”

“I’m not sure I quite understand how this is relevant?” Our notetaker interjected.

Sarah moved from her reclined position, uncrossing her legs and moving her cigarette away from her face. Her tone lowered and she looked our Bubble interviewers in the eyes. She smelt of booze.

“These same profit innovations that once propelled the Western world outwards in resource accumulation and dominance, since the 19th century have propelled it to find new resources to exploit.-”

        “-What?”

“When all the land is owned, what does the land accumulator do?”

        “…”

“Make new lands.”

Our Bubble notetaker tried to shuffle backwards on their seat, notepad in hand. Sarah followed to maintain distance.

“When all markets are fenced off, the marketeer makes new markets to fence off. And now we have Finance, Cyberspace, Internet Banking and Pinterest. Cultural-references built on cultural-references, with no trace of the original to be seen.”

After one last drag, she lent back slightly, flicking her cigarette into the wind, and sipping her Rum and Coke.

“You have to understand, the value-form was always destined to increase. Like a fertile soil, we can’t be surprised that within the ideology of crop-and-harvest, the ideology of growth self-seeded. I guess we didn’t realise we’d be the ones getting harvested.”

She scoffed. Plop! The bud of her cigarette landed in someone’s Tequila.

“That took a long time.” It’s because it was taken by the wind.

“The West spearheaded this new operation, like it did the last. Exported industry globally and took financialism by the bollocks. This same process coincided with an autocannibalism of the state […] leaving public institutions such as the NHS a disorganised shell hiding private ventures. Where previously we lived in an age of mediators between ourselves and the market – our bosses, our managers, the state – neoliberalism made us all entrepreneurs – directly wired in.”

Our microphone guy cut in, “Lady, we asked you why you’re in Jimmy’s-”

         “-I’m getting there”, she waved him away. 

“By the 1980s, a clear disjunction between the state and welfare had risen – it wasn’t the government’s problem anymore – the death of society as loudly proclaimed by Margaret Thatcher. Neoliberalism was in full bloom, propagating a new type of hedonic social nihilism – as exhibited by the rise of party drugs like MDMA – a counter-culture of apathy.”

“From the 1980s to the 1990s the government cracked down on the party scene, and specifically the emerging free party scene […] opening the door for private establishments, much like Jimmy Allen’s. And with the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which forbade the emission of ‘repetitive beats in gatherings of 20 or more people’ the club and rave scene had all but fenced in by private businesses… Absolute and meaningless freedom confined between these four walls. Condensed…”

She tailed off. The Bubble interviewer asked her one last question, “Okay… that’s why Jimmy’s is here… Why are you at Jimmy’s?”

As the words left our interviewer’s mouth, Sarah’s eyes closed, her head drifting to one side. She lay there, unconscious, to the driving beat of Charlie XCX. Her police hat slowly slid off.

Even if she was not able to accurately tell us why she was at Jimmy’s on that fateful night, at least she answered the age-old question: “If everything can be blamed on Margaret Thatcher, what can Margaret Thatcher be blamed on?”

Pretentiousness is a student’s game…