And if you think it's bad so far...

Annoyingly, I totally forgot about International Buy nothing day (http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/)

In case you haven't noticed, I really appreciate the sentiment behind Buy Nothing Day. We're increasingly defined by what we own, and, by extension, what we buy. And so many major parts of our culture have been reduced to what they can be used to sell. The ultimate one being Christmas, the two month long festival of shiny mediocrity which can only be described as Mankind's ultimate V-sign to God ((C) Brother's mate).

It really shouldn't be like this. Since when was trawling through soulless malls running up a credit card bill a leisure activity? And over the coming weeks, we can look forward to this escalating into a frenzy of buying crap, misery and rudeness. And what for? Because us wasting our money is the only thing keeping our way of life afloat. Which is why so much expectation is placed on the pre-christmas sales figures, and, quite possibly, the only reason we bother with the whole waste of time in the first place.

Co-incidentally, Buy Nothing Day co-incided with the w0rst of my finacial problems. And that day was the one day I managed to stay out of trouble and not spend any money. Nope, not a penny. And I had no idea until now.

Weird. Maybe I was supposed to be an anti-capitalist after all.

That would be more convincing if I hadn't just applied for a bank loan.