THE SHOPS IN THE HIGH Street were open late, as was usual at this time of year in order to accommodate as many free spending customers as possible, and were lit up with their entirely commercialised version of Christmas. And unlike the neighbour’s innocent if vulgar exuberance, theirs showed their grasping greedy desire to part their customers from every last penny. This year, he saw as he drove past, they had even gone in for a form of emotional blackmail that he had never noticed in previous years. A sign in one of the larger stores proclaimed in neon-lit letters a foot high: Why not spend that little bit extra this year, and purchase the gifts your loved ones will adore? Surely they’re worth it?
Not when the January credit card bills fell on the mat and induced half a year or more of p
