The benefit of naught

Seeing beyond the plain offer

What looks like an offer may not necessarily have a benefit, as there can be many variables at play to determine if, in the immediate term, the situation might have some credible participation. In the same terms, a bargain, attractive as it may seem, is also perverse; in that, it presents an opportunity to acquire either what you do not need or more than you need.

The utility of that acquisition is elastic, as it might give you the benefit of longer use or better facility, much as acquiring excess beyond what you need can lead to waste. The balance between the durable and the perishable is somewhat lost as consumption might be sped up or storage presages the loss of quality and usability.

Not all offers should be grabbed and taken advantage of, just as a bargain might not be of any benefit to you as it is to those offering the bargain to shift stuff or get more footfall. To paraphrase an old sales dictum, if you are not paying the going and full price of an offer or a bargain on a product, you have become part of the product.

Thought Picnic: How Much Time Do I Have?

Preparations undone

Almost four years ago, the answer I got was five weeks if it came to the worst that is if the drugs don’t work, else I would have the chance of a good recovery – I did.

However, the question still lingers in the mind and every new result that shows slow but steady progress belies a sense of vulnerability I do well to try and ignore.

Many times, I wonder if I have set things right, I have an idea of where I want to rest but I have not laid out the plans to any detail as to if I will get that wish fulfilled.

Uncertainty needing clarity

It is morbid with all the foreboding that comes with it, but they are thoughts one should entertain just to be sure that what needs to be done gets done and the many other things might well be left unfulfilled - plan, purpose and prioritise seems to be the guiding focus.

In a call this morning, it appears more tests are required, nothing conclusive but enough for me to review, reassess, understand and appreciate that every breath I take, I die a little and at the same time like I have said many times before, if you have life, live it and live it well – until that time when you are no more living, live.

In a few weeks it would be clearer what the situation is, whether there is much to fear to which I mostly respond with a determination not to be overwhelmed and what the prognosis might be in terms of options, choices, decisions and acceptances.

Denial is not a safe haven

Acceptances indeed, I find myself just about to scale the five stages of the Kübler-Ross model again, I have been in denial many times before, never been overcome with the rage of anger, I have bargained but the professionals could not diagnose depression even when all events presented a perfect storm for it, however at the point of acceptance, I was ready to move on with my life – whatever time is left of it.

Knowledge matters and hopefully they will know enough to inform me when I ask the strange and difficult questions – I’ve been there before though I do not know if I have learnt enough to have the strength to face this as I did before – time will tell.

Let’s live

If anything, I keep doing what I know to do, taking each day as it comes, dreaming the dreams of the wonder of man, hoping beyond hope that the uncomfortable will pass and sharing as much as I can dare – maybe it might help others.

There have been pains, I have learnt to live with them, sometimes I ignore their inconvenience for the prospect of getting on – when the truth is manifest, we shall know as we are and wherefore one might dare to peer into an uncertain future – How much time do I have? If we knew, ill or well, we would have lost the very essence of our humanity.

We must live like there is no tomorrow to fulfil what we must today and live like there are tomorrows of endless time that we do not rush to conclusions that require time to understand better.

Incredible India: Selling rags as ermine

Tales to tell

There are many stories to tell of the past day, all bringing some perspective of things in India as a foreigner might experience them.

Friday was a half-day, we covered a topic I was quite familiar with, afterwards I wondered if we had just breezed through something we could have spent more time on, but it did not appear I could be as engaged. I was also beginning to feel that I needed to get out to see a bit of New Delhi, the triangle of hotel, training centre and church hardly offered the picture that makes for Incredible India.

However, in the same vein, one of the elements of my kind of tourism is to understand the people, appreciate how they live and maybe comment on the similarities and differences with my experiences and other observations.

Masks are needed

Having left on the bus after lunch, I got to the hotel literally exhausted; I wanted to get a nap which I did. Then it was time to go to the tailors to fit out the suits being made for me. When in Asia, one must always avail oneself of the luxury of bespoke tailoring with quality materials at a fraction of prices at home.

Since we were going by auto rickshaw, I decided it was wise to get a face mask, from a surgical perspective, they are disposal but in reality, they are reusable. I got a few just in case.

Pressed to dress

As we got to the tailor’s time was wasted on trying to sell us other stuff we did not need; I was firm in my rejection of this distraction asking him to get the suits over for our fitting as there were 2 of us there for the purpose.

We probably spent another 15 minutes there before our urgency made the suits appear, meanwhile I sat with my palm to my forehead and one of the ladies in the shop said it was a bad omen. It was frustrating enough not to care about cultural differences with their lackadaisical attitude to customer service.

For all the luxury in the shop, there was no changing room, the lady attendants had to leave the shop for us to change and check the fit of the clothes.

Not my stripes

The moment I saw my suit I knew it was not the material I had ordered for many reasons. I most wear pin-stripe suits but have never ever liked double pin-stripes of different colours. No matter how bad the lighting was, there was no way I would have missed the second pin-stripe that became obvious on sighting my suit.

I was forcefully vehement enough about it but to insult me the more, the tailor suggested I order another suit to the material I really wanted. Now, my colleagues thought the suit was suits me, maybe it does – it is not all that bad, it is just that it would not have been my choice in so many innumerable instances.

To reinforce the fact that the material had been changed, the receipt booklet was full of samples of cloth for other orders but nothing was ever pinned to my receipt in the book. The simple lesson is, if ordering a bespoke suit from material, always ask for a sample to keep and later compare if disputes arise.

My trainer told me there have been many instances of switching material and underhand practices by tailors trainees have visited, he suggested we ply more sophisticated outlets like Raymonds.

Not ermine by far

This evening I went to pick up my suit and once again, the hard sell started, I wasn’t playing ball as I had my suits packaged with two pairs of trousers as one should always do when buying suits.

A new consignment of material had arrived and it all still in the wrappings, the tailor could not resist another pitch when he suggested he had material very much like my stripped trousers. As he laid the cloth on the counter, my eye caught the original factory markings in chalk-ish ink, as I tried to read the markings the lady assistant began to fluff the cloth in order to conceal the markings.

I allowed her to do her thing as I was being told it was the best material on the market, then, I reach for the side where the markings were, obviously, they could not grab the cloth from me when I turned it over and it read – Polyester & Nylon – I suppose those materials have a way of acting like Kashmir to the eye, to the touch and to the hearing of the trader’s spiel.

Knowledge is power

On seeing the label, I just stepped back and said to my colleague, we had to leave. The tailor also realised I had gained knowledge as he then asked if the material was saleable and I said it could be as we agreed that everyone has their notion of quality – the truth being, quality is not all that it is sold out to be.

Bales of material on the shelves have already had the factory markings cut off, since it is branded in the end of the roll of cloth, the unwitting customer left to read the braided counterfeit markings the line the edges of the cloth pretending to something it is not.

Once again, a bargain in a backwater with the story that they also do it for ambassadors does not mean ambassadors know much about quality material and you are soon sucked into a tale of satisfied customers lured by the vicious circle of word-of-mouth to the confidence trickster’s lair – the silver tongue of selling rags as ermine continues to rake in the bucks, many none the wiser of the fact they have been had.

My consolation, it looks good, it is bespoke and I am not a Nigerian politician dressed up to the nines in every luxury label bought on stolen money.

Incredible India: Usurping Sly Bastards (USB)

These are no deals

I remember writing years ago about deals that people get from hawkers of fake watches and gadgets that roam the social outlets around Gran Canaria commercial centres.

In my view, greed is almost always at play, the hawker looking almost too respectable to be true, sweet-talking patrons about an unmissable deal.

The patrons out for some fun are caught in the trap of viewing what they do not need and depending on how pliable they are will almost always acquire what they do not want.

Weeping in silence

If the deal is struck, the hawker makes away with the cash, a veritable confidence-trickster who has taken advantage of the gullible who have irresistibly allowed they vanity to get the better of them and in so doing acquired a dud with no guarantee but the word of a stranger with no address, shop or traceable from of contact.

When the dust settles, the patron realises they have been taken for fools, though they silently mourn their stupidity and in self-flagellation and self-pity swear to themselves never to be caught in such a scam again, but they do.

Usurping Sly Bastards

Now, in New Delhi, as I went for a walk, I was accosted by persons hawking off 64GB USB sticks for prices that made your eyes pop – surely, those goods must have fallen off a lorry.

I did not need a USB stick and there was no reason to add to my collection of sticks just because it looked like a deal. The best deal is one where you can return it if you are not satisfied.

A few days ago, I was told those USB sticks were duds, now, I did not know how dud they were until this afternoon after lunch, a trainee colleague showed off his bargain buy.

Another colleague took it off him and prised it open to show an empty cavity – that blew me away, I expected some circuitry, at least – nothing but a USB connector and a plastic case pretending to be a product of Kingston Technology, one of the market leaders in memory and storage products.

Bang them up

It is one thing to sell counterfeit products, maybe another to sell stolen goods but to be a purveyor of goods where the hawker deliberately sets out to cajole, deceive, extort and dishonestly con unsuspecting tourists on the streets of New Delhi, one is well advised of the need to walk with caution and offer no acknowledgement to persons unknown, no matter how attractive their wares.

One would hope these people are taken off the streets but it probably is part of the mystique of Incredible India to which some have unwittingly become the fool soon parted from their money and left holding a dud for a souvenir of their dumbness.

The draw of decorated toilet paper

The haze of laze

I finally escaped the grasp of laziness to do some shopping that I should have done soon after I returned from holiday on Monday.

The convenience of just going downstairs where the supermarket is on the ground floor sometimes breeds a sense of slothful procrastination that begets a sour realisation that the store is close when a cursory glance is cast at the clock.

Without my visit today, I would not have known that all the while when I thought the shop was closed at 21:00 hours, from the beginning of the month the opening hours had been extended to 22:00 hours.

Soft and decorated

In any case, I took the empty glass bottles to the recycling bin and made for the supermarket, hitching a large trolley for my sweep of goods, foods, materials and drinks.

When I got to the aisle with toilet paper I was met with all sorts of choices and the options for comfort; 2-ply, 3-ply, 4-ply, soft, strong, firm, scented and decorated. What on earth would you need decorated toilet paper for?

Meanwhile, the quilted ones that had that fluffy feel were no more on sale, the balance of tender over the profligacy had to be met in the lightly decorated 3-ply option – I will just have to take a deep breath and hope for the best.

Little or large?

My mathematical head got the better of me as I thought about getting the tubs of Natural Greek Yoghurt, the large tub was 500g going for EUR 2.65 and the 170g tubs going for 85 Euro cents. The label for the 170g tubs listed them as 150g tubs which would have turned out dearer than the larger tub if I got 3 small tubs, but with the real weight of the tubs I had 510g for EUR 2.55.

Not that it would have really mattered but it meant, I have space the times between the consumption of each small tub than having to finish the large tub within a number of days.

The fuzzy logic that informs the whole process might turn out into a thesis but my trolley was full and it meant I was going to wheel the trolley upstairs than attempt to carry all that stuff the 150 metres to the main entrance and 7 floors up.

One of the fringe benefits of living above a supermarket and long may that be.

Christmas is today, the feast of thieves

Between God and mammon

One is almost driven to distraction about the way Christmas is so yoked to retailing to the complete exclusion of the Christmas story in the United Kingdom.

Originally, as varied historians assert, what became the Christmas [1] feast was once a pagan feast, not that it so matters now, but the contemporary message of Christmas should for all intents and purposes retain a link to what gives rise to the celebration.

What I see on the English channels on my hotel television is the great lament about retailers, shopping, bargains and profits – Baby Jesus cannot seem to get in edge-ways.

Buying at every cost

Materialism has pervaded the atmosphere, even customers are rushing into the upscale Selfridges, it really makes you wonder as people queue up for shopping in the winter cold just to grab a cheaper handbag, shirt or dress.

In my view, what you cannot afford at the full price you probably should not have, the victory of a bargain or a price reduction by omission or commission rely belies a poverty of spirit that people fail to understand. However, sometimes shops have deals or promotions but we should not be waiting for the stirring of the water by angels [2] for cripples to “jump” in.

Between affordability and bargains

For instance, when I was buying my home, my unspoken prayer was to be able to afford it whenever I was ready rather than having to wait for prices to collapse before I stepped in – what if prices did not collapse but doubled, then I would never get to buy my home.

Equally, much as we live in a debt-fuelled world where the ability to pay off a debt depicts your seeming creditworthiness especially if you are middleclass, the received wisdom should be that one should not spend what you do not have in the bank to pay off – regardless of the reach of your credit cards.

But people are trapped in a hedonistic addiction to goods and the need to be able to show off, Christmas should never be a time for bargains and really, I have no sympathy for retailers who fleece their customers throughout the year and plead low till receipts at the end of the year.

Not in that demographic

If most customers were like me, retailers would have to get into better logistics to keep in the market, the competition would be so keen that only retailers with durable, sophisticated and valuable goods would remain in the marketplace.

Behind all this lament of the retailers stands the shareholders who have raked in profits like money is going out of fashion and even in these lean times, they still expect those atrocious profits – my wallet is closed because, the shoes I buy, last; the clothes I wear are durable; I am not a fashion slave, my old television still shows good pictures and I am not given to unnecessary ostentation.

The government would like the economy to recover through more consumer spending, which is a fine macro-economic idea, but customers as individuals need to be wary of situations where they are more exposed financially than they should be – thrifty is the word, regardless of the national call to spend; except where you have received a bailout from the government.

Bring Christmas back

Since Christmas is about the roots of Christianity, if the retailers are having a really tough time this Christmas without any mention of Christ, we can look at it as the proverbial overturning of the tables in the temple – then Jesus took exception to making His Father’s house a den of thieves [3], today, the climate takes exception to making a holy and religious time of celebration and reflection a trading day for cheaper tat.

Maybe one should have some sympathy for the impoverished, seeking the unaffordable but who think overpriced goods they crave are now a bargain to be had – conversely, maybe that is the real price of the goods with a little markup – we have all been had and we think we have had them.

In fact, Christmas becomes a good cloaking scam for a more sinister con, but if it costs less, it is worth less or should that be worthless?

Sources

[1] Christmas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] John 5:4 For an angel of the Lord went down at certain

[3] Den of thieves