It's Ebay Day!

This morning, the opening act of a gloomy, windswept day, brought forth from the lips of my beloved the words I have come to dread on a dreary Sunday.

'I'd like to get some stuff on Ebay today'.

I was stuffed. There were no drains that needed rodding, fish that needed gutting, insanely deep holes that needed digging, nothing, in fact, that could be an excuse for not getting involved in an Ebay day.

I'm not against Ebay in principle although, for greedy business practices, they take some beating. Any business that has a monopoly on the means of sale and, to large extent, the means of payment (PayPal) is automatically suspect.

The issue* I have is with the photography which, not unreasonably I suppose, I'm expected to provide. For some reason Pixie has a lot of items for sale in shades of red and maroon, things like handbags, scarves, etc, the colour of which none of my cameras will reproduce accurately (I’ve tried Sony, Canon and Nikon)**. The discrepancy between my efforts and reality often leads to flashes of temperament, fits of petulance and bouts of irritability. This is not conducive to my preferred state of peace, calm and idleness.

These outbursts can, to some extent, be alleviated by copious amounts of tea and crumpets, cheese and pickle toasted sandwiches and other comfort foods. Even so, by the end of the day we are mightily relieved that this self-imposed hell is at an end.

Of course we can now look forward to a week of thinly veiled misery as no interest whatsoever will be shown in the items offered to a gullible public – although they’re not my items, being a caring husband, I like to share in the woe. Next Sunday, waves of disappointment, and perhaps occasional elation, will attend the closing minutes of the auction.

The following week, assuming some of the delights offered on this internet gateway to riches have, contrary to expectation, sold and been paid for, I will spend an large amount of unproductive time in the local post office. There I will stand behind someone trying to send a bag of hamsters to the Galapagos Islands or individually stamping three hundred and seventy seven invitations to a faggots and peas evening. I will not enjoy it.

(* Issues must be a modern invention. We didn’t have issues when I was a kid. Now everyone seems to have them. I wonder if you can get them at the supermarket)

(** Poor rendition of colours at the red end of the spectrum is a continuing problem with image sensors. It started in film, continued when tube technology was developed and is still with us in the age of the chip. Using post- production programs like Photoshop does not usually help as the problem is inherent in the camera).



Metaphor for a blog. a vent, for anger and irritation