Whether you are one of my regular readers ( and I know there's some), or you've simply wandered on to my blog accidentally en route to somewhere else, it's time for me to take a bow and wish you all a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading.

Best wishes for 2008 !

Archimedes

I got a payment reminder from the Tax Office yesterday: only a month left before the deadline runs out and we thought we just let you know. Thanks, I had n't forgotten. I've set aside roughly what I think I'll have to pay, and God willing, it'll more or less meet what it is I have to pay once my friendly bookkeeper has worked out what that actually is.

Despite it only being a reminder, an in-case-you-forget aide memoire, there's always a sense of ju-ju with any brown paper envelope from the Tax Office. I always leave these letters unopened until the next morning when I can crash to the ground in a swoon (they want how much !); let the condemned man enjoy a decent night's sleep is what I say.

Still, some unfortunate magic weaves it's way out of even an unopened letter from the Tax Office to infect your sleep, to make you sweat, to make those dreams alarming and uncomfortable. I woke up at the worst time this morning - the wee small hours - consumed with the fear that I'll never pay my mortgage off. Where could that have come from but that brown paper envelope...?

In the early years of this decade I worked for the now defunct Internet arm of the major telecoms company I still work for. Heady, glorious days. I worked amongst crackpots. Edgy, zany, talented people from all over the world, overflowing with with all sorts of notions and ideas to drive home the Internet revolution.

Even the kindest, most well-meaning of my friends would n't say I'm edgy, or zany, or especially talented; all I really did there was the high tech equivalent of push a broom and mop bucket around, but I do have a magpie like tendency to pick things up, throwaway sayings, conversational offcuts, clippings that have fallen from the mouths of others, and at that time of my life, they were falling around my feet like leaves during a storm in a forest.

I'm thinking of one right now, it's this: " What's been designed won't work...". I've forgotten the original context now, but the words live on, the sentiment certainly does.

My December 26 post bears that maxim out. What I had in mind there was a touch of comic irony, to lead people astray at first that Xmas had been an altogether wretched affair, when all it was I was describing was the faux anxiety of playing charades. It did n't work; several people saw that post as being I loathed the whole day. I did n't; it was fantastic fun, not laughed as much as that in years...but when an idea is as poorly expressed as mine, or put it another way: "....what's been designed etc..." the message gets lost. Shoot me, I was the piano player... I was playing the wrong tune.

What does it mean in regards to me now? Basically this, think what it is I'm going to write, followed by how I want to express it, then make sure these two meet and not grind over each other like two tectonic plates going in different directions.

One of my favourite cafes has changed owners. This kind of thing always makes me itchy. I get the heebie-jeebies as well: will they change coffee supplier, or no longer honour the loyalty card; or open longer, or the flip side, close earlier ? Those buttery croissants, they'll keep those, won't they? And the chocolate brownies - the work of the Devil no less, since no mortal could fashion something as wickedly indulgent - they'll still be there ? I have a vice to keep up...

God, it was stressful yesterday. I don't know how I did it...I don't know how we did it...eleven of us crammed around the dining table amidst the wreckage of a huge meal, staring at each other. If they'd been sphinx like and enigmatic it might have been something, but no, this was a gallery of faces etched with the: "I'm just not following you...what does that mean" look and the "... just what are you on about..." puzzled frown.

And the interminable cross-examination. Everyone one of us up in front of the dining room jury at one point or another. We all got a grilling. We had to stand up to take it as well. I felt like a lobster writhing in the pot when it was my turn. Question after bloody question: "what did that mean.... do it again...can't work that out...again..." It was so tense.

Nor does a heavy meal and rich wine help either; that all blurs the message you're trying to put over. Your message confused...? Your response a little ragged around the edges...? A swarm of piranhas could n't have beaten us for speed when it came to rolling and mauling into these lapses. Get a hint of what it might be that someone is miming...bingo, it's in with the enhanced questioning techniques.

Miming ? Yeah... Charades...you know the guessing game. The one where you flail arms and legs like a techno raver and contort your face like you've swallowed a bucketful of raw chilis in the vain hope people will guess who or what it is you're miserably trying impersonate. That's what we were doing yesterday for nearly five hours. I'm burnt out. We were doing films. My family's pretty cosmopolitan too, so it was n't just Hollywood, it was Indie, European, Horror, Musical, Bollywood, short films no one's ever heard....and the nuclear option...the charade to wipe out all charades: Porn. It was talked about a lot all evening, but no one pressed that button. Thank God. My Debbie does Dallas impersonation will never be seen in public. Ever.

I'm coming in early with the resolutions for next year. I'm alarmed at the amount of money leaking out of my bank account, so there's one straight away: only buy what I need. And what I do buy has to last, whether it's clothing or foodstuffs - no more one time, one wear buys or food that goes unopened after it's sell by date. Use now or not all. The New Frugalism.

There's no season like Xmas for over consumption and waste. For me in particular, these words have an extra charge: single man living on his own. Waste and unthinking extravagance are like our call signs. I pride my self on trying to live reasonably abstemious, but I'm red-faced as I write these words when I think of how much I simply throw away. It's not good.

The New Frugalism. I was sent this by a friend in the US. Could this be what we'll be having to do this time next year after we've all been raked over by the hooded claw of sub-prime ?

"Are you prepared to survive tough times and prosper in times that aren't so tough?

I've written several times about living on the edge, economically speaking, and I know that's not the primary focus of frugal living. It is, however, well within the scope of being frugal to prepare for tough times and make the most of times that are not so tough. Learning to be as self sufficient as possible will only make us more secure and less apt to be hurt financially no matter what.

There isn't nearly enough room to tackle all the ways there are of being self sufficient. Some of you have more opportunity than others and some of you have a lot more interest than others. I realize that some of you live in apartments in large cities and feel as if some things are not possible. You can still provide at least some of your own food needs.

I wish I could convince everyone reading this to begin to take more personal responsibility for providing as much food as you can for yourselves. You don't have to live on an old fashioned
farm with an apple orchard, a flock of chickens and a two acre garden to make a big difference in your budget. You can be more self-sufficient, food-wise almost anywhere you are.

It may be too much to grow your own wheat, but it's not too much to buy wheat, along with a hand grinder that will turnout the freshest and cheapest whole wheat flour to make the
best frugal bread ever.

It's also not too hard to plant a few cloves of garlic in a pot to put on the windowsill for very frugal seasoning. It's only a little more trouble to plant vegetables, either in garden plots or in large containers, even on the balcony or front step, and that means more frugal food.

A grow light is not as expensive as buying fresh vegetables throughout the year. Even if you're in an apartment or don't have access to a garden area, you can grow things like lettuce, radishes, onions, peppers, or even tomatoes if you have the room. You'll have to pollinate tomatoes and peppers by hand. (Beans don't do well indoors. Although they grow into interesting plants, most of the time they won't bloom without direct sunshine.)

If produce from your own garden, a neighbor's garden, a farmer's market or gleaning is available, canning, dehydrating or otherwise preserving the food will stock your pantry nicely. If you've never done that before, be ready to experience a wonderfully elated feeling of satisfaction when you see the rows of dehydrated or canned foods waiting for your winter enjoyment.

"Putting by" food can include wild foods, too. Learn what's available in your area and go looking for them. They can make a good dent in your food budget and they can be canned, dehydrated or frozen. Use methods and recipes that are close to their domesticated counterparts. "Greens" like dandelion leaves, lambsquarter and dock can be treated like spinach. Roots like daylilies can be treated like potatoes. Wild fruit should be treated the same as cultivated fruit.

Nothing beats the quality of fresh food, home grown, harvestedand preserved by hand, and being self sufficient food-wise can be the beginning of a very satisfying lifestyle that's more
frugal than you ever thought possible".
_____________________

Pat Veretto is a work at home grandmother who has homesteaded,
homeschooled and happily lived frugally most of her life. She
currently freelances and is the moderator of The Dollar
Stretcher Community at
http://community.stretcher.com/forums/.

Many years ago, I frivolously told someone that I would only date people who read Saul Bellow. Why I ever said that is forgotten to me, I would have to be Shirley McClain and channel back to that moment to find out what led me to come out with something as shallow and as half-brained as that. All I know is that I did and for some reason, I can still remember the words.

Sometimes when the mood is on me and these words float back, I wonder if I dangled something out here a little too far and fate was n't just tempted, it took a good, long tug, and nearly upended me. Most of my relationships match the lifespan of a Mayfly: skittering madness, near vertical ascent of excitement, then abrupt disappointment heading in the other direction.

But dating is n't what I've got in mind for this post, it's shorter, sharper, sweeter. Does the choice of book indicate what kind of person you are? If Andy McNab's what you read on the commute to the office, then does that imply you're wannabe soldier of fortune and nothing else? You've got Bridget Jones's diary tucked on your knees, you're in search of Mr (Mrs) Right? Does Tolkien on the other hand, say beard, real ale and a degree in Earth Sciences? Only insufferable literary snobs read Saul Bellow? Do men and women stand in different corners of the room when it comes to choosing between Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre? On this last particular point, I'm a fully-trained man and I know where I stand: there's only one solitary neighbour I'll be troubled with. Call him Heathcliffe.

As it's probable you can infer someone's personality from their choice of reading material, it's equally likely that other people comfortably defy this expectation simply reading whatever comes their way. As long as there are words in a coherent sequence, it could be a car manual or the Bhagavad Gita, it's the words that matter. I'm in this camp. I need to have some words in front of me otherwise a day simply is n't a day.

One of my friends is adamant that education i.e school got between him and work. Wild horses, in the shape of his parents, did drag him up to the school door, over the threshold and then straight to the classroom. But if it had n't been for them, he would have downed his pen, slung the exercise book over his shoulder, thrown on the overalls and beelined it for the workshop.

Press him and he will admit that some education is useful; practical, utilitarian things, like reading, a little elementary science, a nugget or two of basic engineering know-how. That far and no more, though, that's all he's prepared to 'fess up to.

I hold a dissenting opinion, the reverse of his, light to his dark, chalk to his cheese as it were. For me, you see, work gets between me and education.

If I could spend more time in the coffee shop each morning and not have to keep glancing at the wall clock above the Barrista's head, fretting have I got enough time to finish the piece I'm reading, digest it, understand it and perhaps jot a few notes down in my notebook to mull over later, and can I do all of this before having to creep like the snail to the office for that first conference call...

No, I have to collapse all of this, the way you might do if you were running for the bus and trying to pack a suitcase at the same time. That great article in the paper, that salient thought, enlightening commentary....all of them, part digested, jumbled up and never, ever properly understood. Yet, there's a chink of hope called Blackberry. With that credit card sized techno chip burping emails, I can work anywhere....and is n't the coffee shop somewhere...and is n't that where I'm self-educating...

Saw it...saw it with mine own eyes...a man in a tee shirt...a sleeveless tee shirt, outside on probably the coldest day of the year, walking home. He ambled past me, not even hands in his pocket, or even shoulders scrunched up, and these are the recognised signs of "Brother, it's cold outside". No, not a thing, not a concern. Just the regular pattern of one foot in front of the other. And me wrapped up like a pig in a blanket, swaddled against the cold and still feeling it worm through all the layers. I'm just not tough enough

London is so restless. I can't walk anywhere in the City without hearing the unfinished symphony of jackhammers and drills. Day in, day out. The noise is intense.

Buildings wrapped in death shrouds slowly being taken down brick by brick; new buildings going up on the footprints of former. Nip 'n' tuck work on others. There's a rolling cloud of dust and debris unfurling every day in the City.

Even the pavements are being unzipped; there's scarcely a street I walk on in the City that has n't been opened up by a pneumatic drill, it's innards dripping over the side of the trench.

What happened to the Bowler and the Pinstripe? Stuff of myth really; cheap shorthand, a lazy cliche, and, anyway, all of us who earn our coin in the City, aside from the Investment Bankers and Corporate lawyers, have done it for years sans ties and in chinos.

But it's men in hard hats and safety vests, mini diggers past the Bank of England, and cranes hoisting mysterious loads these days; they're forcing the pace. That's the spirit of the times now. I love it. We're getting the skyline we deserve - there's some clever, idiosyncratically designed skyscrapers slowly wending their way up. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing as aspirational, nothing as replete with energy and hope, nothing to out-symbolise a modern 21st century city than a clutch of tall buildings. This city needs a signature skyline that's more than just the London Eye and St Paul's.

Are n't holidays the best ? Really they are, admit it. Everything is different; it's novel, it's unusual, it's exotic. Sights, sounds, tastes, the whole mogambo, nothing is the same. We've parked our quotidian life on the side of the road for a quick bite of something else rare and wonderful.

Let's not forget our hosts either, they're out to impress too, you know flatter, endear themselves, pay attention, make us -the tourist - oh so happy. And on this last point I speak with gratitude, boundless and undimmed at that, 'cos even if what someone said to me in Vietnam was simply part of their standard sales pitch, they could n't have made me a happier man if they'd tried.

It happened like this. I was in a car driving through the Hai Van Pass, a coastal mountain road which swoops and dips, loops and curves through central Vietnam. Thin, persistent rain pattering the road surface and lack-lustre grey clouds blowing in from the sea. From time to time we slowed down to sidestep mounds of earth that had been pushed down the sides of the pass by mudslides. Only a few days before the tongue, but not the body, of a typhoon had lashed this area of the country indiscriminately; the mudslides were it's visible wounds.

We stopped at a small trading post for something to eat. It was damp, it was muddy, it was forsaken, and as the sole tourist I was the star attraction. The lightening conductor. It all came my way: chairs pulled out, the cup of tea produced from nowhere. Beautiful. Then the sales pitch and believe me I'll buy anything as I proved when somewhere in the spiel is "....you very handsome man" I don't care if that contravenes the trade descriptions or bears no reality whatsoever to my er...unconventional charm....Baby, I've waited all my life, all forty plus years to hear that !

Did I say it was a grey, featureless day ? The moment those words rang out, my sun shone, the clouds rolled back, the birds sang and the grass got greener.

I've been called a lot of things but these four words have never come up in any sentence flung my way. Never. Are there any other words that can lubricate a wallet faster than these four horseman ?

This is how to make a sale. Whatever it is I'm buying it. That's right I do need three identical maps, fifteen postcards I'll, in all likelihood, never send, jewellery for my wife even though I'm not married. You take Visa ? What else have you got ? I don't need it, but I'll take it anyway. I'll take it in small. You only have XXL ? I'll grow...don't worry. What colours have you got? Fluorescent purple...how did you know that's my favourite colour...you read my aura ! You can arrange shipping....I'll take the lot.

This is why I say holidays are good. You hear things you never hear at home....so it was to get me to buy something, yeah as if....She saw my inner beauty, no really she did...

I noodle around with writing. Bits pop up on here, other bits elsewhere. Nothing sustained, it's really on an if and when basis; still I like to lay a course of words down everyday. A day simply does n't feel like a day until I've put one word in front of another and hoped that from a distance this train of words looks like it's linked up, heading in one direction, strong enough to be able to hold together for the duration of the journey, and importantly, makes sense. And I'm more excited than a brace of paparazzi photo-hounds chasing celebs leaving sleazy nightclubs when I know someone has visited this site.

Nevertheless this is all low-level writing, noodling, for pleasure really; sure, there's an inner compulsion, a stimulus at work that I can't properly describe, and without this fuse firing, I would n't even be getting this far.

Any mortification I face is only ever going to be online - the tin ear phrase, a burst of ricocheting punctuation, confused sentences, teetering words; that's as far it goes. It will never be the public death by a thousand walkbys that I was sadly privy to earlier this afternoon in a local Waterstones. An author, surrounded by copies of their latest book, ignored by the crowds, who worked around her table the way ants walk around an obstacle in the sand, absolutely indifferent to the poor author's hollow-eyed, desperate look, the: "I've killed myself to write this, gone through the torture of, will it, won't it sell, and now this...and in public...why ? "

They could have been living in a shadow world, another dimension for all it mattered to the customers swarming through the store. An invisible author; there, but not there, corporeal, yet incorporeal at the same time. Uncanny and uncomfortable.

I bowed my head here, and coward that I am, the fairweather noodler of words, I slipped away myself, down the stairs and then to merge in the crowd, but not before I saw a miserable author leave their chair and begin to roam the store button-holing customers: "Do you like historical fiction ? This is my latest book, it's about....". No one tugged on that float, apart from one person, who innocently asked if the author wrote sci-fi because that's what they really liked.

I scarcely get any body reading what I write, but there can be compensations in that, I'll never face an ordeal like this. But, a few more readers would be nice...there's no door control policy here. Love all, serve all, that's my motto. Now just waiting for you to turn up..

Closing the sale the Cambodian way. This happened to me last week wandering through some souvenir stalls close to Angkor Wat. A young boy, who was somewhere between six and ten, walked up, looked me in the eye, held out several multi-packs of postcards, and then kicked off into his sales spiel.

"What do you want to buy?"

"I'm o.k, I'm fine. Don't need anything. Just having a look around"

"Where you from?"

"England"

"England. Capital city, London. Population of London 7 million. Population of England 55 million. UK is England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales..."

"That's good ! I'm impressed. I'll take a card. How much for one?"

"No one. Can only sell pack. One dollar"

"O.k I'll take a pack then..."

"How about two dollars then ? Extra dollar for me to go to school..."

Chutzpah, charm, intelligence, reasonable command of a foreign language, drive. Granted it's a case of different environment, different circumstances, but I'll place all of my hard-earned folding on the table that there'll be no British child of a similar age able to pull all of these off. Unimaginable.

After a pitch like that there's only one thing: hand over two dollars for ten cards I really did n't need (and now can't find) and tell him it's probably business school he needs to be going to.

A change is gonna come or how unbroken sunshine, great people and novel experiences can turn a man's head. I started my tour of SE Asia writing this to a friend:-

"I think ... the long distance travelling bug to places where there is an elevated risk of malaria is waning; I'm a middle aged wannabe man of letters who wants fresh coffee in his milk and guaranteed provenance where his food came from (good homes, organically reared, fed on clotted cream, then humanely dispatched), not the choice of fresh or smoked squirrel, or a dozen bear paws marinating in a gallon tank of homemade rice wine I saw in Laos a couple of weeks ago. You know I'll defend to the death the rights of local artisans and their local delicacies, there are some points, however, that I feel I have reached.

Three weeks later I sent this to another friend:-

"It is stupendous. SE Asia is dreamlike. The quality of light and the intensity of the colours - yellows sharper than any yellow I've ever seen, greens deeper than any green, silky blackness, blues to make your eyes water - is simply blowing my mind. I'm stunned by it all".