Foraging and figs... My plan to embrace Brexit life
IT’S official – the economic outlook is so bleak that even fast food outlets have announced their sales are dropping. People are spending less as they are worried about what’s around the corner because, to be honest, if you’re still eating king-size McWhoppers, you’re probably not too concerned about the future.
The rest of us are staggering from the news leaked from the Treasury that a hard Brexit might cost £66billion a year, which sounds an enormous amount, even to those who have recently bought a ticket on ScotRail.
Yet among the storm clouds of leaving the EU, some chilly financial types are trying to persuade us there’s a silver lining in our weak pound, by insisting that this will make us more attractive to foreign investment and boost export sales.
It’s even been suggested that devaluation was necessary and long overdue. Which is rather like God flooding the Earth to rinse out the misdeeds of humanity, then having Noah say that the lawn needed it.
Pessimism is on the march. With all the signs indicating that it’s less a case of seasonal belt-tightening than buckling up and bracing for a potentially very bumpy ride indeed, there’s not much comfort in the fact that I’m bang on trend, having stored all my savings and investments in the form of Nectar Points.
It’s time to embrace endless soup, own-brand gin and all other forms of enforced personal austerity short of harvesting roadkill and preserving your floors by sticking a square of carpet to each shoe. And since we’re all in it together, let’s share our best money-saving tips.
BBC Scotland: Instead of spending large sums recording and broadcasting The Quay Sessions with Edith Bowman to a tiny audience, why not visit each viewer’s house and give them a pile of records by bands who are now as hip as old boots?
Fining Edith every time she says ‘amazin’’ or enthuses about someone’s ‘journey’ would also open up a rather useful revenue stream.
Parents: Chocolate biscuits are delicious but hardly cost-effective since your children will eat them.
Take a tip from the Victorians, and replace them with Garibaldis and fig rolls. The notorious squashed fly biscuits are so resistible that your biscuit tin will last until the third or fourth great-grandchild.
Political parties: Save money on costly think tanks by filching education and childcare policies from other parties.
If you’re the SNP, you can call this ‘magpie politics’, call for the Conservatives and Labour parties to retire and fire off one of your leftover glitter cannons to celebrate
Foodies: Get on fleek by ditching the spendy bagged salads and go foraging for wild foods such as dandelions and nettles instead. NB, elderflower champagne is not recommended. A relative enthusiastically gathered, brewed and bottled up one vintage before it had finished fermenting.
The result – late one night, the garage sounded like the final shootout in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, followed by a morning clearing up exploded glass.
Fashionistas: You might think about cancelling the eyebrow shaping sessions. The HD, or Scouse Brow, should have been killed off by now anyway: has no one mentioned they make you look like killer clowns?