Normally, I avoid news. I have a tendency to overreact to it. When a chicken farmer got bird flu in Thailand, I banned poultry in our house for two years. During the swine flu epidemic, I went to Asda and stockpiled beans and dried chickpeas in the hope that my family would fart its way through Armageddon and come out the other side unscathed, if a bit soiled. You can see the theme here already. I’m a hypochondriac with an overactive imagination.
But news does fight its way through the cake-thoughts into my brain thus: My husband has a dadly Sunday routine. First, he leaves his undercrackers on the floor NEXT to the washing basket. Then he goes for a poo, which involves leaving the toilet door open so we can all enjoy the aroma. And like all men, he sits on his throne, reading the Sunday papers. It took me a good ten years to work out that reading the paper in this way is a form of silent protest for him because when he’s obsessing over the sport section, I am usually stood in his wake, holding my hand over my nose, shouting “CLEAN THE FUCKING WINDOWS!” repeatedly. I’m guessing he thinks that having a large paper barrier between us means that he is immune to my domestic demands. So that is how I absorb news. From a safe distance and vicariously through my crapping husband.
Now, financial meltdown has been in the news a lot this week and I made the mistake of watching this smug turd on YouTube. If you are of a paranoid disposition, look away now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqN3amj6AcE&feature=share
For those of you who can’t be bothered watching his utterly compelling, two minute doom-fest, this independent trader looks like a contemporary Gordon the Gecko and talks about the collapse of the Eurozone and how we should all be investing in treasury bonds and gold and frankincense and a lifetime’s supply of incontinence knickers. I thought to myself, That’s all very nice, Gordon, but what the hell is a treasury bond and apart from stealing and melting down my family’s Elizabeth Duke jewellery, which is possibly only about 0.3% precious metal, where can I get my hands on gold?
I’m already thrifty you see. Everything in my house is second hand crap, ex-display or salvaged from junk yards. I buy food out of the going-off cabinet in Asda. I rugby tackle old ladies to get to the dented tins first. I even buy the really mashed up shitty bananas that they bag separately and sell for -30p a tonne. They make great banana loaf. I would call this thrift rather than greed. Don’t get me wrong: I do admit to having a BMW but I grew up on a council estate and have chav needs. It is also ageing and second hand. By dint of the fact that it contains a fine layer of kid compost, a plastic bag of mystery, rotted thing in the glove box and the obligatory birdshit paint job, this officially relegates the car to the status of a 1986 Lada Riva. And I still don’t have enough spare to invest in gold, even from Argos.
I worried about this for some days. I was literally shitting a brick about my family’s future. I was eyeing up local pets as emergency food sources. Then some existential maths occurred to me: In the event of fiscal meltdown, tinned pulses=hard currency and ensuing farts=renewable energy. Good. I was thinking outside the box. Then I realised that maybe I’m being thrifty in the wrong way. Maybe I should speculate to accumulate; upgrade and aspire to more. And then I had the perfect equation and I’m going to share it with you: Waitrose free range sirloin lobster + organic diamond dusted bran flakes + fair trade saffron infused prunes = shitting gold bricks. Eat posh: get rich. Da daaaaa! Problem solved. And you can take that advice to the bank.
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