Sock Puppets Against Consumerism

You know how lots of people moan about everything becoming homogenised? Every high street is the same. Every out-of-town shopping area is the same. Every "mall" is the same. Pop music is hand-picked, toys are mass-produced. And so on.

Sometimes, despite the neon lights, the bright colours, the sugary tastes -- the very feeling that we are all playing, eating, watching, wearing and buying stuff made and sold by the same handful of companies can make everything seem, well, a bit bland.

Sony, McDonalds, Tesco's, Coca Cola, Asda, Adidas...  It's getting to the point where we're all "consumered" out.

Now being a man of a certain age (the nomenclature "bloke" seems apt), being a Hurley, and the apple not falling far from the tree and all that - it is rare for me to open my wallet. 'A fool and his money are easily parted' is my favourite saying. Oh I do my fare share of alms giving to deserving causes - but I loathe giving money to big businesses when I can help it.

Of course I live in the real world and when the boss brings the shopping in to assuage the fears of my mouths-to-stomachs-on-legs - sorry, I mean the children - I detest the fact that some fat cat is sitting by his pool toasting my health as items from Lever Brothers, Kellogg's and others go into the pantry.

So anything we can do to buck the trend is akin to a small victory. A tiny guerrilla ambush against the huge armies of the corporations invading our metaphorical homeland.

We have to pay our utility bills, mortgage, credit cards and much else besides too, all of which is like being an indentured slave. All those fat cats must be toasting my health (so long as I can work every hour God sends just to pay their over-inflated bills) as they sit by their heated pools.

So the other day when the boss (Mrs H) and our youngest made these sock puppets, from er... socks, using buttons and such like I gave an ear splitting war cry, held them aloft in the living room and cried out to heaven: "Take that Mattel and Hasbro. I will not be your consumer-slave any longer."

Then I dashed to the kitchen, dug out some blue poster-paint from the corner of a cupboard, smeared half my face in it a la William Wallace (the Welshman), ran out into the street and cried "FREEEEEDOM!"

I have asked the judge for clemency. ;-)