The Religion of Buying Shiny Things

Overheard While Watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers:

Hay: "Who's he then?"

Chairman: "An elf lord - Elrond."

Hay: "What, Hubbard?"

Later:

Hay: "Is Viggo Mortensen Danish?"

Chairman: "As mom's apple pie!"


"Verified by Visa" - bane of my bloody on-line purchasing life! How the hell am I able to remember a 12 symbol password with at least one capital and some numbers in it - and to be able to spontaneously know its 3rd, 8th and 10th letter/digit when I can barely remember what day it is? I invariably have to click the button that says "Dementia Sufferer" and have to create a new one, adding some 10 minutes to the purchase process. I don't get all this hassle with PayPal!

On my recent flight back to Bristol from Berlin (with EasyJet) I was perusing the usual gamut of overpriced, shiny gadgets littering the in-flight magazine, all of which seemed exclusively geared to iPhones. Couldn't understand why this should be when the iPhone doesn't exactly dominate the market. Suddenly it hit me - iPhone owners have this sad affliction that predisposes them to spending money on overpriced crap, whereas the rest of us are a bit more sensible with our money and aren't addicted to expensive shiny things.

The blurb for Simon Schama's new TV program on the history of the Jews got Hay and I talking about how the Catholics, Jews and Protestants were identified when we were at school. Our Jewish school friends (a tiny minority) went to synagogue on Saturdays and ate bacon sandwiches (at least my Jewish friends did), the Catholics (a slightly larger minority) went to church on Sundays and several evenings during the week (and exhibited lots of illogical guilt over trivial things), and our Protestants friends (aka atheists) never went to any church, temple or synagogue at all.

Actually, Hay didn't have any Jewish school friends - the Old Sodbury synagogue and associated congregation obviously never survived the infamous Old Sodbury pogroms of 1425.