Saturday 29th November

You have to hand it to Big Business, they always come up with another wheeze.  And we, stupid consumers fall for it every time.  The latest nonsense is “Black Friday”.  The last Friday in November, which for many will be the last pay-day before Christmas, is seen as the perfect time to loosen the purse-strings of the great public, whose only true function is to oil the wheels of Capitalism by spending more than they earn,  increasing those credit card debts and to buy stuff they really have no need for and yet simply must have.  There have even been riots at some large Supermarkets as bargain-crazed idiots who have queued all night fought each other for that PS5 or TV or even clothes and toys.

In some ways one can understand it, people’s wages have been squeezed, that ever-increasing Standard of Living index has taken a knock in the last few years, and Christmas is just around the corner.  The phenomenon started in America and has come over here this year with a bang.  Drip-fed by the internet and TV and the Press it has become a scrum, one of those must attend events, how terrible if one missed out on a bargain.

But a bargain is only a bargain if you were going to buy it anyway.  And look around you for a moment.  Look at all the clothes in your wardrobe, all the junk in your house, do you really need anymore?  Not that that is likely to save anyone from this latest feeding frenzy.  Actually I bought hardly anything yesterday, because I had already bought nearly all my Christmas presents anyway.  I have only succumbed to Boxing Day sales once, and that by accident really, we were bored and went to Canary Wharf and I bought two tops in Next, supposedly reduced from £50 to £25.  And I deliberately did not look at any internet sites yesterday, just in case I would be tempted too by all those sparkling goodies….