I seem to have made myself glum with the thought that I just can't afford to go to California in July.

It IS sad, I know, to think that you ought to earn something BEFORE you spend it. I am stuck with that - it's a generational thing to some extent - it's also to do with my bad attitude to 'business', which is always a gamble, but is also the only way a future evolves.

If it was down to the hand-to-mouth, cash-in-hand people like me then culture would never have evolved beyond trading any small surplus you have for something else you need. In Mexico I traded entertainment for food and shelter (and money hardly figured in it for months). I have never grasped investment of surplus wealth for a measured return, or 'hedging your bets' on the future by buying insurance or pensions (why don't you just save your own money and gamble it on the Stock Market?)

And I do apologise for that 'dumbing down'. I know it's more complex than that, and I know it's easier than that - perhaps I am forever stuck with living down being a healthy, white, middle-class, educated British male. Because of everyone else's prejudices (or 'positive discrimination' as we say these days - with the assumption that all those characteristics are unfair benefits....) I have had to continually affirm my right to poverty - if it is 'voluntary poverty in the Western world' it must appear smug (and probably claim to be 'spiritual' of course) and if it is involuntary it is (around here) considered incompetent...there's no way out.

If, like me, you don't think that 'enlightened self-interest' is the perfect defence for greed and self-indulgence then you are thought to be some sort of grumpy leftie.

I am still having trouble getting into the middle ground simply because I don't want MORE than anyone else until everyone has ENOUGH. It seems obvious to me.

And yes, I haven't been drinking for a week, but had a bottle of wine tonight. OK.