Trying to make my point..!

I’M writing this week’s article whilst sitting in my favourite hot beverage chain branch and, pets, I’m grinning more widely than Tony Blair on laughing gas.

Now, whilst some allege these coffee chain people might be a tad ‘creative‘ when it comes to working out their UK tax liabilities (they pay about the same amount as a selfemployed, semi-retired Betamax and VHS repair specialist from Scunthorpe), they’ve done all right by this radgie gadgie.

Why? Wey it’s all about the rewards man! By paying Al Capone levels of extortion on the price of a cup of tea, I am able to rack up loyalty points allowing me to eventually qualify for a freebie.

This is marketing genius. It blinds me to the fact that the price of a cup of tea can be as low as only 10p, according to the price quoted by that Scottish bloke who asked me for it outside King’s Cross station recently.

I don’t care, I happily hand over the equivalent price of a 1990s night oot for some hot water and a tea bag because I’m collecting the loyalty points, aren’t I?

Oh those little beauties – I’m just as obsessed with those points as I am with the Toon’s tally (although I’ve a recurring nightmare that I’ll have accrued more on me card than Rafa has in the league come next May – and probably spent more money too).

The psychology is brilliant in its simplicity on two points: people just love collecting stuff and everybody loves to think they’re getting summat for nowt.

It’s all cobblers, smoke and mirrors – we all know it. It’s as fleeting, shifting and nebulous as autumn mist, or the pie man’s vacuous pre-season promises to Rafa.

So in harsh economic reality, my ‘free’ cuppa I’m quaffing now has actually skinted me whilst making big money for the chain, cleverly ensuring I’ll not wander off anywhere else when I fancy a mocha mugging. This hard-wired programming to blindly ‘collect the set’ had its origins in childhood with my 1970 Mexico World Cup sticker album, where only a Martin Peters or Francisco Castrejon card stood between me and legend status in the school yard.

I would spend every penny of my pocket money chasing this mirage, whilst my poor grandmas would buy jar after jar of peanut butter (which both detested as “aaaful’ yankee clarts”) simply because my sister wanted the set of lids with embossed photos of David Essex, Donny Osmond and David Cassidy.

The dishonest rougher girls simply screwed off the lids in the shop and pinched them; I’m sure it was their feral offspring who would be breaking off VW badges from car bonnets 15 years later in order to fashion Beastie Boys-style pendants.

Clearly our adults were even more ensnared by this collectionand-reward cycle of illusion.

My mate’s grandad even upped his not insubstantial consumption of tabs in order to get him enough Embassy cigarette vouchers to purchase a fabulous medieval castle.

The old gadgie’s pride in getting his bairn such a glittering bauble “for nowt” clearly chose to ignore the fact he’d spent the equivalent of a week away in a caravan at Crimdon Dene on extra ciggies, while each individual tower or battlement probably shortened his life by a couple of months.

Sadly my own kids’ generation seem to have carried on the tradition, because every video game they play entices them to collect more characters, weapons or gadgets as ‘in-app purchases.’

Givowwer! This radgie’s had enough! How about a disloyalty card, where if you divvn’t shop at the same place twice and if you don’t have any loyalty cards or – (if you’re under 30 and have a beard) loyalty apps, you get a very unique reward.

This would be that every retail outlet in the land would risk 10 years in a jail, mild sensory deprivation and heavy financial penalties if they ever dare ask you if you have a card for their poxy loyalty scheme. I’d happily not sign up for that!

■ Mike is appearing with BGT finalist Danny Posthill at Whickham Glebe sports Club on Saturday, October 20.