Confederacy of a Dunce

Friday, October 21, 2005

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I've always been someone who keeps my eye on the ground looking for interesting things that have been dropped or abandoned by others. When I was very young I read a storybook about a little old man who had once found some money on the ground. He spent the rest of his life looking down at the ground, eventually becoming permanently hunched over, and never seeing the pretty things like sunsets, rainbows, birds, trees, clouds and so on. In other words, the moral was that you should look up and not down. Even as a child I had a very curmudgeonly response to this, after all, he FOUND MONEY ON THE GROUND!! And probably found A LOT MORE in the rest of his life, along with other great stuff. Perhaps I was sensitive to this issue due to my own downward-looking tendencies, but I felt that spending at least some time looking downwards was an entirely valid lifestyle. Not only can you find great stuff (aforementioned MONEY, bottle caps, colored glass, used-up lighters, nuts and bolts, old keys, etc. etc.) but a lowered gaze is a good way to avoid aggressive reactions from nonhuman primates and bullies (whether human or non-). And I have found some great stuff in my day, without a hint of scoliosis (AND I've managed to see my share of sunsets, rainbows, even eclipses and meteor showers which weren't even mentioned by the silly author I mention above). I should insert here the time-worn phrase "One man's trash is another man's treasure" which is the only way I can really justify the hundreds (if not thousands) of rusty bottle caps that we collected over a number of years. And to be honest, I can't really think of anything that would be universally judged as a "great find" (when I say "universally" I only mean "among friends, family, acquaintances and others who might read this entry"). But fortunately this new-fangled innernet thing has revealed a community of like individuals, (perhaps) centered around FOUND Magazine ("We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles - anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life."). And yesterday I found something that would certainly qualify for FOUND Magazine (in fact I shall be sending them the original). It was a page of hand-written text, reproduced below (as written, including formatting as best I can without scanning it in). I think it's a plan we all should follow. Fortunately the 'new' items are only vaguely specified and can be sold in numerous locations. Internet.

**********************************************
Where do I want us to be?

-- Renovate French property with some land (pref. with own water supply and woodland.)

-- Retain London flat - rent out in short term, use as London 'base' in long term.

-- Use French 'base' for workshop to create 'new' items, renovate, reuse to sell in London, Bath, Cambridge, etc. Possibly also Paris in the medium term. Internet.

-- Grow some food, plant fruit, nut trees. Evolve bottling etc. mainly for ourselves but possible sideline business.

'Issues'

-- Language

-- May (will?) need to raise a mortgage (let to buy)

-- Complicated accounts / tax / pensions position

read

Friday, October 21, 2005 9:40:36 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)