Neglected toys

Once again we reach the end of one more week where nothing at all has happened or been said on any subject whatever. This business of me being the invisible man isn't all that far from fact - I might as well not be here. Come to think on it, that's not a bad idea. I'm working on it.

Of course all of that gives me little scope for news - no scope at all really - so I'll just have to fall back on something either esoteric, philosophical or just downright pointless but semi-amusing.

The other day, as I sat here sweltering in the heat, I decided to get the mail order catalogue and buy myself an electric fan - it is allowed these days. In fact, on the enhanced wing, cons are given free electric fans. Mind, they are given a lot of stuff which we lesser creatures do not get even though we too are of enchanted status. They get free duvets, bedside lights and so on. I had to buy my own duvet, just as I am buying my own little fan to stave off heat-induced heart attacks.

So, I got the catalogue and, as I perused the pages, I saw soft pillows at a tenner for two, so I got them as well. Then I just browsed, and it is quite amazing how many gadgets and little toys are on sale these days - toys for the boys. This got me to looking around my cell and checking to see what utterly pointless toys I have bought over the years to play with and keep myself amused, bought for no other reason other than it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Let me see...

I've got a portable personal CD player which has never had the batteries in it. It's brand spanking new and I've had it a couple of years. There is an extremely sophisticated calculator, which I don't even know how to use, and an electronic spell-checker which is still sitting there in its little velvet presentation bag. I've got an electric shaver which I've had a couple of years but can't use because it makes my face sore, me being a tender-skinned fellow with a hide like a numb rhino.

What else have I got?

Playstation of course, but I use that. Fancy stereo, but I use that a lot too. Hair clippers, electric alarm clock, transformer and charger and, the pride of any idiot's collection, a watch which does just about everything, including tell the time in Australia. I can't actually work it, don't know how to set it despite the fact that I've got the instruction booklet which makes no sense to me at all. I think it must be translated from Chinese. Of course I have the ubiquitous transistor radio which never gets turned on, hasn't been for years - we are on the mains these days.

There is more but I've made my point - toys to play with and utterly useless. Why then have I decided to buy yet another one? By the time I get it, summer will be over and it will sit in its box under the bed, neglected and ignored. I know how it feels - I've felt like that for a long time.

Some fellows have more than me of course - and that's just the electrical stuff. What about the mechanical stuff such as the very typewriter I am bashing away at with great abandon?

I think it all comes down to two things - modern living and the fact that none of us ever really grows up. We like our toys no matter how old and silly we are.

Bloody watch! Cost an arm and a leg, and it is sitting there on the shelf an hour slow because I don't know how to work it to put it onto BST - all those little buttons to push, it's very confusing to a fellow like me. Let's have it right - I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

So, the end of another week and all I've got to report is that I have ordered another toy for my collection. I'm not telling Lesley - she just takes the piss.

The Voice in the Wilderness