House of cards

It is not an easy thing to admit. Some things attack the very basis of your understanding of your character. Some painful instances are just too painful to recall. The attacks on the very foundations of your being are too profound to be dismissed. Yet, surely it is better to face your failures rather than pretend; to sweep the negativity away with a defensive swish of the back of your hand.

So facts must be faced; the assumptions made must be rigorously re-examined; new strategies devised; reality accepted.

It comes down to credit cards.

I am not really old enough to be trusted with the responsibility of a credit card. The temptation is too easy, the fruits of ill use too sweet; but modern life is made almost impossible without one.

Ian is the only person I know who has made a virtue out of his inability to drive – the whole of his life is geared to the reality of the lack of a car, and, because he never has owned a car he does not miss it in the way that a confirmed driver would. I know other people who do not drive, but they have ensured that they are married to or are living with a confirmed driver. But driving is not like a bank account.

I do not know anyone who does not have a bank account: they may resent the fact that they have to have one, but have one they do. I know some people who try to limit their financial exposure by relying on a cash card like Maestro rather than succumb to the easy snare offered by a credit card (I see people like this every time I look in a mirror!) But all of those people who can have a credit card do have a credit card.

We are all ensnared by the complex web of capitalism, so that anyone who does not have access to credit in one way or another is regarded as a freak.

To be fair a credit card is useful when buying things over the internet and paying for theatre tickets by phone etc; but anyone who actually uses the card for credit is paying over the odds for the money which they think is a gentle service offered by their bank. Credit cards use people, not the other way round. The only way to escape the snare of instant gratification is to ensure that your credit card is paid off (in full) at the end of every month.

This still leaves you with the residual guilt of using the banking system which, if you think back to your time in university, was a rapacious monster encouraging spendthrift ways while persuading you to all sorts of excesses. This schizoid behaviour by the bank is suddenly resolved when the bank demands its money back or informs you that you are now a wholly owned subsidiary and must pay a soul churningly large amount of any money that you have and might expect to have into the bottomless coffers of the bank.

In my own case the financial reality of a student’s life was only brought home to me when my bank manager (a fellow Labrador owner and therefore an easy touch for the extension of any loans that I had) went on holiday and his under manager took over control. The under manager whose signature was ‘A. Hodges’ with no gender indication, turned out to be a particularly vindictive lady who always took the opportunity to write me pointed letters basically asking me what the hell I was doing with the bank’s money. The situation was only resolved when the ‘real’ manager came back off holiday and we had a meeting (including, when I really was financially non existent, with my Labrador in attendance: present, as they say about Jeremy Bentham [the well known dead nineteenth century philosopher] in present day London University Meetings, but non voting) when everything would be resolved. Then he left. Nothing was the same again, and a credit card really did become one of the key cards in the Devil’s suit. It was eventually at this point (yes, I know that doesn’t actually make sense) that the whole payment at the end of the month to ensure some sort of reality check for the credit card is dated.

I also attempted to find some sort of moral basis for the ownership of a credit card by ensuring that my credit card account was with the co operative bank (one of the most inefficient organizations in my experience) and the credit card was one which gave a percentage of the money to Amnesty International. I might add that the logo of Amnesty was prominent on the card itself.

I have used this card (very occasionally) ever since and have never even been tempted to take money out by using it. It continues to be paid off at the end of every month and some sort of stability is maintained.

Until today. Today I attempted to hire a car (see yesterday) and as the company takes a vast sum of money notionally you have to use a credit card. When the vehicle is returned then the amount on the credit card is cancelled. This did not happen as my credit card was blocked when it was placed in the machine. It turns out that all cards in GB are now chip and pin; all of them, not just my Maestro card. I do remember a pin number being sent to me, but as I never use it to get money then I thought that I could ignore it. It turns out I was wrong. With all my much vaunted finger-on-the-pulse of the white hot heat of the technological revolution: I have been caught out.

We did find a way to get the process completed, but, the shame of it all!

What other aspects of technology are waiting to bite me?

The Black Spot of electronics has been passed to me: the Admiral Benbow will never be the same again.