Fun over

[j4]

For information, if you get a phone message purporting to be from Alliance and Leicester leaving the number "0845 300 3440", it probably is actually from Alliance and Leicester, despite the fact that the first Google hit for it is some other people. They couldn't explain it either, but they did seem to think they'd left me a message.

The reason they'd left me a message was that they had spotted a Suspicious Transaction on my card -- not merely the recent late-night purchase from amazon.fr, as I first guessed (after they stopped my card because of a late-night payment to yahoo.com last month) but actually a genuine Suspicious Transaction. Yes, somebody has defrauded my debit card to the tune of... wait for it... £2.39, which they apparently spent at "Jazz Inc". Wow, I bet that buys them a lot of fun.

I suppose £2.39 would buy you a fair amount of jazz on iTunes, actually, if we assume that jazz tracks are likely to be longer (because more noodly) but less in demand (and therefore only 79p) so you'll get a lot more music for your money.

But somehow I don't think it was that sort of jazz.

ANYWAY. Seven working days without a debit card is not the end of the world but it's a pain in the neck when I've got a day's holiday on Friday and am going to London for a gig. And frankly, based on the way this week is going so far, I'm expecting the gig to be cancelled at 5 minutes' notice and all buses/trains to and from London to be replaced by large vats of shit. (How would they tell? TERRIBLE. Har har.)

In an attempt to have more fun than the week is so far trying to supply, your challenge for the week is: what's the most fun you can have for £2.39? (Doing something which costs no money at all is cheating: you have to spend the £2.39 somewhere along the way.) Answers on the back of a cheque for £2.39, please.

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I reckon 2.49 would get enough flour and fat and so on to make either a large quantity of dumplings or a pretty enormous spotted dick. Either of which options is pretty good fun. Might even run to to the rudiments of stew or custard, as appropriate.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

2.39, even.

£2.20

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Swannee (http://www.netfysh.com/store/ccp51/cgi-bin/cp-app.cgi?&pg=prod&ref=SlideWhistle) Kazoo (http://www.electrohill.co.uk/acatalog/info%5f2259%2ehtml)?

[nja.livejournal.com]

You could walk into Oxford and buy two organic sweetcorn cobs (http://www.sainsburys.com/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1193775280311) for £2.39. While walking home with them, you could have tremendous fun pretending they are horns and you are the devil (careful not to frighten any small children!), or playing them like those exotic percussion instruments featured in Latin American music, or seeing if you can juggle with them. Then you can eat them, which will be even more fun.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Buttery sweetcorn OM NOM NOM NOM. Tricky to juggle once you've buttered it, though if it's too hot and I'm using forks instead of proper pointy sweetcorn-impalers then I do end up doing something that looks a bit like juggling.

Actually I like the percussion instrument idea too.

This is sounding like teh top fun so far!!

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

£2.39 will, at current exchange rates, buy you about 1½ copies of the "Eastern Economy Edition" of The C Programming Language (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131103628/202-9432840-7825406) by Kernighan and Ritchie, as published by Prentice Hall of India. (Brand new, 2007 printing, at cover price.)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Eh, really sorry to read about this latest inconvenient development. You're not the only person on my Friends list to whom this has happened in the space of about a day.

Spendy (http://www.thomasscott.net/spendy/) suggests lots of used and second-hand books at about that price, but my gut feeling would be you'd get the best bang for your buck from contraceptives and confectionery.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, yes, 2 quid for a mixed pack of three condoms from a toilets machine and then 39p's worth of parma violets and flying saucers... I am liking this idea very much too, though wondering how it would combine with the sweetcorn.

Second-hand books also good. The tiny branch library up the road from where I used to work when I first moved to Cambridge used to sell books off for 5p and 10p each, so £2.39 would buy, um, [some maths here] quite a few books! Yay maths! Yay books!

[brrm.livejournal.com]

parma violets

YKINMK!

I feel I ought to conform to character and suggest something automotive - but the most recent thing I bought for that kind of money was a chrome clip and a couple of rubber seals (my kink is my business!)

A ride on the Wall of Death might count, though. Loads of fun, and only a couple of quid IIRC.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

my kink is my business!

Do you mean it's private and confidential, or a commercial success?

[brrm.livejournal.com]

It's a commercial success, I think. Just not for me.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Also, wow, Spendy is cool. And exactly what I usually don't need, ie encouragement to spend money... :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hm. Maybe a week's worth of internet access, if it were possible to find somewhere that charges by the week...

[teleute.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the *most* fun would be, but I think you could get a decent quantity of whipped cream and chocolate sauce for 2.39 (I have no GBP symbol on this keyboard :-( I feel so far from home). I imagine you could have a lot of fun with that (even if you just put it on ice cream or pancakes).

[j4.livejournal.com]

I have no GBP symbol on this keyboard

How unfair! :-/

Mind you I am weird and just type "£" so I probably wouldn't notice if somebody stole my pound sign...

whipped cream and chocolate sauce

You can certainly buy a tub of double cream for about 39p, the chocolate sauce is more likely to be expensive but you could just buy some dark chocolate and melt it with a bit of the cream. In fact if you chose the chocolate carefully there'd probably be enough money left over for a banana or two to mix in with it. Mmmmm.

I should have had some breakfast.

[redbird]

Two quid worth of tea, to be drunk at home with a few good friends, as accompaniment to late-night intimate or raucous conversation. The remaining 39 pence to be spent on electricity, for boiling the water and lighting the room.

If I can't have the fun at home, it's harder.

[fanf]

I reckon if I were a Russian or American with 1337 skillz and little ethics, £2.39 would get me quite a lot of fun if I could spend it on a thousand cards, or use it to spot people who aren't paying attention so can be defrauded repeatedly.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Yers. :-} I wasn't actually paying attention, but fortunately my bank were. I did have to think for a fair while about whether it was some piffling eBay purchase or something.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Buy 239 penny sweets! That's, um, just over 34 a day.

[j4.livejournal.com]

In fact, a rough calculation suggests that £2.39 could buy me a penny sweet every working day of the year. If only I went past a sweetshop on my way to work! Actually it's probably just as well that I don't.

[gerald_duck]

Wholesale looks even more attractive.

Unfortunately, a carton of a hundred twists of Swizzels Fizzers is £3.39 — and that's excluding VAT. )-8

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

You could buy a quantity of variously-shaped balloons, blow them up - not too full, mind - put them in a high-sided but empty paddling pool, and bounce about on and in them. If it was a hot day you could have a marvellous water-balloon fight.

OK, maybe not "the most fun" but usually that sort happens spontaneously anyway, with or without props.

PayPal have been alleging I have "suspicious transactions" on my account but I no longer *have* an account with Pay Pal so I've just assumed it's pollocks (yes, I watched Gordon Ramsay last night).

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Plastic sputnik decorations from Paperchase, £2. M&S chocolate bar, 39p. Hang decorations in front of eyes and eat chocolate.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I think my vote would be either chocolate or second-hand books, depending - there are plenty of places here where the equivalent of 2.39 sterling, which is pretty close to $5 Canadian, would get you two or three used paperbacks, but I'm out of experience with second-hand bookshops that side of the pond recently.

Alternatively, you could probably get three or four pieces of sushi for it, and eel would definitely count up there in the "most fun for your money" stakes.

[ Yay excuse for userpic that does not get used very often. ]

I also find myself reminded of the "fifty pence and a bunch of grapes" bit from Adrian Mole.

[arron-shutt.livejournal.com]

I think that the reason that they engage in this 'microtheft' is that (1) the cost of chasing up this fraud way outstrips the cost of investigation/compensation and (2) certain banks have a threshold below which they tend not to notice certain things from happening.

That lovable Young Earth Creationist expert, "Dr" Kent Hovind was trying to avoid the fact that he was moving huge amounts of taxable cash in and out of banks by little amounts so only god would notice. Which got him 10 years for not "rendering unto Caeser what was owed". His wife, who cashed the checks, also got an all expenses paid stay in pokey. I'm sure that they'll have plenty of time to spread the gospel whilst they're in there..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_hovind

Smurfing is a crime!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfing_%28crime%29

So if they stole £3 from you and did it to 1000 people in the same way, then it does work out to be quite a bit of cash. But given each person loses less than a bus fare per theft, it doesn't seem worth bothering with on an individual basis..

[gerald_duck]

Go to a Galloway and Porter warehouse sale and buy a couple of interesting-looking books.

[j4.livejournal.com]

EWRONGCITY

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

£2.39 will (in Tesco) buy the essential ingredients for a BACON BUTTY.

I'm hungry now.

[brightybot.livejournal.com]

1) Buy cheap cat toy from Allison's Animals in Kidlington or nearer equivalent
2) Find cat
3) Have marvellous fun entertaining cat.