Wednesday 10 September. Big Bang Day. As I write the process has started, but quite when we disappear into a black hole, I don’t know.
If that does happen it will come as a surprise to a man who is the pub most days, scribbling in a small notebook. He assured me that the world will be sucked into a black hole – not one of our own making – in 2012. I forget the precise day and month, but I do remember it’s the year that my mortgage is due to be paid off.
Be that as it may, I expressed a little scepticism of his theory, but was generous enough to come and see me when it happens and I will feel very silly.
He reminds me of another pub Einstein who explained to me that our plans to colonise Mars – yes, it came as a surprise to me too – were misguided. He proposed going to Venus, ‘because it’s downhill.’ The sun’s gravity, you see. I thought Venus was too hot and gaseous, but large greenhouses will solve that problem. So now I know.
As for CERN, I don’t understand it at all. The figures for gigabytes, amps and temperatures – the boiling point of helium is 4 degrees above Absolute Zero – are beyond my comprehension.
But even less easy to grasp is how to stick to my budget of £60 a week. My first week was a complete failure. I went 50% over-budget.
It’s obvious where the money is going. Into the coffers of J D Wetherspoon. But it’s so bloody boring sitting at home drinking cheap cider and watching daytime TV.
Of course, I could become teetotal, but that’s a silly thought.
Before I go on let me draw attention to this article from The Times, which tells of a Bristol woman who managed to live on a pound a day for a year. The pound included everything except rent and utilities. So that means food, toiletries, transport; everything.
She did all the things I do anyway, but more regularly. She bought supermarkets’ own brand goods and ‘reduced to clear’ items; she got her bread for next to nothing at closing time; same thing with market vegetables and cooked chickens, reject pies, etc.
What she didn’t do was buy in bulk, something I like to do when possible, and surely a good economy even if only for a week at a time.
I’m fortunate to have friends with allotments and gardens – stuffed marrow, apple pie and rhubarb crumble on the menu this week - and one who works in a wholesale warehouse and has access to out-of-date delicacies like bacon and cheese.
No, food isn’t the problem; whatever those silly TV items would have us believe with their images of struggling families, crying onto their pizzas because the price of pot noodles has risen out of reach, it’s quite possible to eat a healthy diet on a pound a day. Smoking and drinking, unfortunately, require a fiver a day at least. Who am I kidding? Let’s call it a tenner.
If that does happen it will come as a surprise to a man who is the pub most days, scribbling in a small notebook. He assured me that the world will be sucked into a black hole – not one of our own making – in 2012. I forget the precise day and month, but I do remember it’s the year that my mortgage is due to be paid off.
Be that as it may, I expressed a little scepticism of his theory, but was generous enough to come and see me when it happens and I will feel very silly.
He reminds me of another pub Einstein who explained to me that our plans to colonise Mars – yes, it came as a surprise to me too – were misguided. He proposed going to Venus, ‘because it’s downhill.’ The sun’s gravity, you see. I thought Venus was too hot and gaseous, but large greenhouses will solve that problem. So now I know.
As for CERN, I don’t understand it at all. The figures for gigabytes, amps and temperatures – the boiling point of helium is 4 degrees above Absolute Zero – are beyond my comprehension.
But even less easy to grasp is how to stick to my budget of £60 a week. My first week was a complete failure. I went 50% over-budget.
It’s obvious where the money is going. Into the coffers of J D Wetherspoon. But it’s so bloody boring sitting at home drinking cheap cider and watching daytime TV.
Of course, I could become teetotal, but that’s a silly thought.
Before I go on let me draw attention to this article from The Times, which tells of a Bristol woman who managed to live on a pound a day for a year. The pound included everything except rent and utilities. So that means food, toiletries, transport; everything.
She did all the things I do anyway, but more regularly. She bought supermarkets’ own brand goods and ‘reduced to clear’ items; she got her bread for next to nothing at closing time; same thing with market vegetables and cooked chickens, reject pies, etc.
What she didn’t do was buy in bulk, something I like to do when possible, and surely a good economy even if only for a week at a time.
I’m fortunate to have friends with allotments and gardens – stuffed marrow, apple pie and rhubarb crumble on the menu this week - and one who works in a wholesale warehouse and has access to out-of-date delicacies like bacon and cheese.
No, food isn’t the problem; whatever those silly TV items would have us believe with their images of struggling families, crying onto their pizzas because the price of pot noodles has risen out of reach, it’s quite possible to eat a healthy diet on a pound a day. Smoking and drinking, unfortunately, require a fiver a day at least. Who am I kidding? Let’s call it a tenner.
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