Recently I visited the White Rose Shopping Centre, in South Leeds. During this tarry, procuring a new printer for the purpose of printing copies of my daily narratives.

At the cost of £19.99, a gracious offer from monsieur WH Smith and folk at his splendid stationery emporium. Quite perversely, the purchase price less than that of forking out for new ink cartridges for my old hardware. Yours truly benefitting from the throw away zeitgeist encouraged by our corporate overlords.

GJ Strachan keen to print off copies of his work to keep for posterity, allowing future generations of his family a chance to witness his wit, erudition, literary versatility and a taste of life in late 20th/early 21st century northern England.

These tens of Lever Arch folders, with thousands of pages of his essays, his cherished compositions which, perhaps misguidedly, he convinces himself will one day be recognised as works of literary importance.

If they don’t achieve that status, he melancholically concedes that at least his future kin will one day have enough fuel for the mother of all bonfires.

Later informing a friend of this new printer hardware purchase on informed a friend, he (rather unsportingly in my mind) opined “What a waste of bleeding money. Think of all the environmental damage you’re causing with this misguided hubris.“

A comment leading to me defending my character; informing them “How do you know printing paper copies of my work will be a waste of time?!….. I’ll prove you wrong one day when my book goes global!”

“I wouldn’t hold your breathe for that to happen, Gary!” this ‘buddy’ sneered back discourteously.

“You don’t know what the future holds!’ I replied defensively….. “I’ve written enough decent stuff over the years to one day monetise the efforts of my labour/”

“Well you reckon you’ve written over one million words on your website, and despite that volume of work you’ve not had a sniff of interest from a publisher.” My accuser countered.

“I’d manage your expectations with that in mind!” they argued with further cynicism and lack of enthusiasm about my chances of fulfilling literary aspirations.

“I will do one day!” I barked…. “Even if, like Samuel Pepys’ journaling genius, it takes two hundred years after my death for my words to receive widespread critical acclaim.” yours truly rebuffed… Refusing to have my surety of eventual writing success dinted by these slights.

“Well you’ll be long gone in two hundred years time so won’t even know of your newly acclaimed status as a latter day Samuel Pepys!” they continued to sneer.

“I don’t care!…… At least I’ll leave a worthwhile legacy to my descendants two centuries hence!” I argued, getting ever more frustrated at the discourteous slights.

“Destroying half the trees in some Scandinavian forest to gratify your vain glorious need to own paper copies of your writing isn’t a worthwhile legacy, Gary!” they opined….. “It’s selfish and if anything contributing to them potentially living in a worse global environment in 2222!”

“You can talk, at least I don’t leave lights on and electrical appliances plugged in unnecessarily like you do at your place!” GJ Strachan ranted like a itinerant child.

“Maybe not, but you do waste enough electricity powering that bloody printer to feed your self-indulgent vanity!” my ‘chum’ countered… “Not to mention throwing away a perfectly good printer because it was cheaper to buy a new one than replacement inks!”

Changing their tack slightly, my friend inquired “Oh by the way, you got any plans for Saturday evening?”

“Not that I can think of…. Why?” I responded to his change of topic query.

“The weather forecast is good so I’ve invited a few people around to mine for a bite to eat… We need some fuel for the fire pit!”

Bastard!!