going, going...

[j4]

... got it. :-)

Thanks again for the crash course in eBay, folks -- I got the thing I wanted for only a little more than I'd bargained on. (Must work on the willpower thing...) Mind you the person selling it claims that any profits after cost price are going to Amnesty International, & I figured that I'd happily give a fiver to Amnesty to get the thing I wanted.

(Actually, I'd happily give a fiver to Amnesty anyway, but am crap at getting round to making donations unless somebody shoves a tin under my nose.)

Comments

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

If you want to make donations to Amnesty, I'm happy to take them into the shop on your behalf.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Noted -- thanks. I sort of feel like I should sit down at some point and work out which charities I think are deserving of my (fairly limited) cash, and make a regular monthly direct-debited donation to them... but I haven't got round to it, and right now I think paying off the horrendous credit card bills might be more sensible in the long run (as then I will have more money that I can afford to give, because I won't be paying 20 quid a month in interest...), and I do spend a lot of money in charity shops, which means Oxfam, the Red Cross, Sue Ryder, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research are getting a fair amount of my spare cash.

I've often wondered about Oxfam, though. I can't help feeling that there's something, well, wrong about a charity shop having its own designer label; and there's something faintly icky about all the "ethnic" tat that they sell. But I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with it, and provided it makes money for the charity I guess it's a good thing.

[taimatsu]

Aren't at least some of the ethnic things they sell actually made by the, er, ethnic people? There are pros and cons to that, of course - there's the possibility that it's sort of an artificial industry that could collapse when people here decide they don't want raffia christmas ornaments any more, rather than really useful skills which could make money locally. Hmm, I don't know. I know what you mean, though.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Aren't at least some of the ethnic things they sell actually made by the, er, ethnic people? There are pros and cons to that, of course - there's the possibility that it's sort of an artificial industry that could collapse when people here decide they don't want raffia christmas ornaments any more, rather than really useful skills which could make money locally.

Yeah. That's sort of what it is that feels wrong about it. They suggest that they're all about teach-a-man-to-fish rather than give-him-a-fish (I know that's Christian Aid, but never mind); but it seems that selling palatably ethnic tat to rich people who will buy it out of sympathy for the poor suffering brown people ("isn't it amazing, they make such beautiful things even when they're starving") is an awkward halfway house akin to setting up a fish and chip shop and teaching them only to catch cod in breadcrumbs.

I think my analogy fell off the back of a carved mulberry-wood elephant somewhere. Or maybe a hand-knitted chocolate bar.

Maybe I'm just an insufferable snob when it comes to twee carvings of African figures, and authentic yak-hair throws. Or maybe I'm just a cheapskate stew-dent who wants charity shops to be full of exciting goth clothes at ludicrously low prices, rather than sub-Ikea interior design ideas. I dunno. Maybe I just think brown is the wrong colour for interior decor. :-)

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

They take a few pounds out of my bank account every month by Direct Debit. Now, if only I could convince them that they don't need to send me the magazine...

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Do we get to find out what it is you bought or are you keeping it carefully under wraps? :)

[j4.livejournal.com]

's a pressie for somebody else, so I can't say until they know. :)