Having just had a credit card bill for, and this is approximate, a lot of pounds, it occurred to me that maybe I could be a little more restrained.
Sure, that bat-detector will be useful, at dusk, and who in this day and age can really do without a goose-peeler, but perhaps there were alternatives to some of the luxuries I have treated myself to in the past year.
I don't mean to deny myself, for I deserve lovely things, but why should I spend hard-earned moolah on goodies just so some fat cat in a corner office can have more fizzy wine and another extra large Ferrero Rocher?
Instead, I intend to use my considerably phat skillz to construct things I need, like a chap of yore.
This is not as fanciful as it at first seems, for I do have previous. Apart from my spoon, which is still talked about in hushed awe-laden tones in the fields of carpentry, ergonomics and aesthetics, I have also made other useful things.
For instance, I made a stylish and practical holder for my Blackberry mobile telephone.Thus saving myself a substantial amount of money yet still ending up with a phone cover.
Below is a pic. One of these is a "genuine" professionally made and marketed cover, soullessly gouged from the back of a cow, machine stitched together and implanted with a harsh magnet, then labelled before being sold on the internet like the symbol of capitalism it so obviously is.
The other was lovingly, tenderly crafted from materials originally used as something else, finding new life, a new purpose, in another guise, the epitome of cyclical regeneration, environmental responsibility and fiscal thrift.
I'll leave it to you to decide which one is better, but I think we all know the answer:
I know!
One might argue that I did not simply make a phone cover out of an old sock, but I took away all of the sock that was not phone cover.
Of course, I did have to buy an official leather Blackberry case so I could take a photo of it next to my homemade one, but this is a philosophical point rather than a economic one.
I now have to consider what items, luxury or otherwise, I can make myself. I have a load of spare nails, coat hangers and squirrel tails so the children are going to be okay for homemade toys, but if you have any other suggestions then I'd be happy to hear them.
Unless, of course, it's for homemade bagpipes, because I'm still wanted in Scotland for assaulting that caber tosser.
