Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
It was fast becoming the confectionery bar from hell.
I only wanted one of those famous items that help you work, rest and play, though not presumably at the same time.
The chap on the stall handed it over. That’s 98p mate.
So, all innocent like, I fished a pound coin out of my back pocket. Sorry mate, said the bloke, it’s card only today.
But, I stuttered, I haven’t got my card. You can keep the 2p change. I just need to top up my energy intake.
Sorry, he said. Not allowed. Not even for 2p.
I ended up going back to the car to fetch my debit card, which I’d locked in the boot.
I should probably have just said forget it, or stronger words to that effect. But I was starving and this was the only food outlet.
Most of us rely on contactless payments these days. I do it myself. Even for small amounts. Not quite as small, mind, as the youngster I saw in a café paying for an individual sachet of tomato ketchup with his card.
The use of cash has steadily declined since 2009 when contactless payments were introduced.
There is some good news for dinosaurs like myself who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Cash is making a comeback.
A friend of mine always carries a £20 note in his pocket for emergencies. Just recently I’ve been making purchases in places where they’ve said it’s card only, yet others will only take cash. What is the poor customer to do?
Cash declined during the pandemic when we were terrified at the prospect of handling infected notes and coins.
But then people discovered it’s easier to budget with real money than flash their cards. It’s very easy spending with a card.
Remember how our old mums put money away in envelopes every week. There was the gas, the electric, rent, rates, the food bill.
Social media has got a new generation turning back to cash. There’s a TikTok account — no, don’t ask me to explain — called The Budget Mum that proposes just such a way of budgeting.
They warn that using cards regularly can lead to debt. There’s no better way than the old way, stuffing money into envelopes for groceries, bills, even Christmas shopping. At least you know where you are with cash.
The British Retail Consortium reports that, faced with rising living costs, cash transactions are back in vogue for the first time in a decade.
Unlike the man from Mars, offer many shopkeepers readies and they’ll bite your hand off. So much less trouble and no added costs of processing payments.
Cards are here to stay. No getting away from it. The banks want us to use them all the time. It adds to the power they already wield.
I just wish it wasn’t either or. Give us the choice of cash or card payments. There’s nothing more embarrassing than being at the front of the queue for a takeaway supper only to be told they only take cash. I know. It happened to me recently.
A famous football manager of yesteryear once said: “life’s a game of cards”. He meant the red and yellow ones. But it’s become ever more true in our everyday financial dealings.
Does the Lake District attract too many tourists?
We’re not quite there yet. The Lake District twinning with Tenerife.
Our problems tend to be similar. Offcomers buying up the houses meant for locals. Becoming overwhelmed with tourists at peak times.
Easter’s been and gone. There were pictures and videos posted online showing the incredible numbers of cars parked on grass verges at the most popular honeypots .
The question is asked once again. Are we getting over-touristed? That’s not my word, it’s how one poster described it online.
You could head off to the Canaries to get away from it all, but they don’t want us. “Tourists go home” says the graffiti on public buildings.
Ironic. There was a headline in one paper about the excesses of tourists in Britain at Easter. Fights over parking, litter, even fighting in the queue to reach the summit of Snowdon. Alongside it was a picture of a group of tourism officials planning to attract more business to Cumbria.
We’ve now got influencers. People who command hundreds of thousands of followers online. If one of them recommends heading for the Lakes…well guess the rest.
Silly Billy should have known better
There’s something unworldly about certain MPs. Or are some inherent risk takers?
You would think William Wragg, a senior MP and vice chair of the 1922 committee, would have seen enough colleagues getting into trouble to keep his own nose clean.
Several colleagues in the Commons rushed to his defence when it transpired he had sent dodgy pictures of himself to a potential blackmailer, then handed over private phone numbers including that of a minister, in a bid to save his public humiliation.
I don’t share the sympathy. Surely he’s heard of scammers, hackers and the rest to know, if he wants to be naughty not to do it online and share it with the world while jeopardising his mates.
