I'm John Matthew with my colleague Joseph Sternberg. He's in London and we're looking at life in London.

My memory of London during hard times is the Christmas of 1973-74 remembered as the OPEC embargo

when the lights of London were turned down if not off.

Those were rough days.

Labor was dominant in the Parliament as I recall.

Margaret Thatcher was years away.

And we had a situation of retreat and want and rationing all the

anxieties because the greatest generation was senior then but still

remembered the bad times.

That is not the case in 2024, but there are moments that you think, what?

The occasion was the London Times today talking about, this odd but it's there British Airways

cutting back on its food services one less meal and maybe a half a bun as opposed to two buns with your breakfast. I don't know what

cutback looks like. Joe you have measures of the British Airways. Is this a

national pride place that cutting back on food is a way of telling everybody

you know cinch up your belt there going to be hard times ahead?

Well so the story here is that apparently as part of a

cost-cutting drive they're scaling back on some of the meal service especially

for people in their business class and their first class. So we're talking about a very small

segment but a very profitable segment of their customer base, relatively

speaking here. And somehow this has erupted in the media.

I mean, it was in the times.

I think it's been in several other newspapers lately.

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