Paying good money for rubbish
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In 1987 Marie Jones, a playwright in Northern Ireland, wrote a play called “Somewhere Over the Balcony” that is set in Belfast at some time after the “Troubles” but when they were very fresh in people’s minds.
At one point in the play a character talks about the fact that the Troubles have made Belfast a popular tourist destination – people want to see where the riots and murders took place. She is particularly concerned with the actions of a German couple who are fascinated by everything to do with the events, including the fact that Republican women would bang the lids of their metal dustbins to alert their men when the security forces were approaching.
In the play, the Germans want to buy Kate Tidy’s dustbin lid as a souvenir. They offer her ten pounds for it, but then comes the good bit, as she tells the Germans:
“That was the first bin lid ever banged on Internment morning . . . it was handed down from my granny. It is a collector’s item. It’s worth . . . two hundred pounds”
OK – so it’s a play, but I can just imagine something like that happening. It strikes me that nothing has changed in centuries – throughout history gullible people have been offered all sorts of trash for huge sums of money, in the belief that it has some particular significance. If all the supposed bits of the “true cross” of Christ’s crucifixion were put together you’d be able to build Noah’s Ark with them!
This was the trade that Chaucer’s Pardoner was in back in the 14th century – ripping people off by conning them into believing that something of no intrinsic worth has miraculous properties.
Nothing has changed – people still pay absurd sums of money for items that once belonged to celebrities, or so they are told. The average human being seems to be just as gullible as ever!
At one point in the play a character talks about the fact that the Troubles have made Belfast a popular tourist destination – people want to see where the riots and murders took place. She is particularly concerned with the actions of a German couple who are fascinated by everything to do with the events, including the fact that Republican women would bang the lids of their metal dustbins to alert their men when the security forces were approaching.
In the play, the Germans want to buy Kate Tidy’s dustbin lid as a souvenir. They offer her ten pounds for it, but then comes the good bit, as she tells the Germans:
“That was the first bin lid ever banged on Internment morning . . . it was handed down from my granny. It is a collector’s item. It’s worth . . . two hundred pounds”
OK – so it’s a play, but I can just imagine something like that happening. It strikes me that nothing has changed in centuries – throughout history gullible people have been offered all sorts of trash for huge sums of money, in the belief that it has some particular significance. If all the supposed bits of the “true cross” of Christ’s crucifixion were put together you’d be able to build Noah’s Ark with them!
This was the trade that Chaucer’s Pardoner was in back in the 14th century – ripping people off by conning them into believing that something of no intrinsic worth has miraculous properties.
Nothing has changed – people still pay absurd sums of money for items that once belonged to celebrities, or so they are told. The average human being seems to be just as gullible as ever!
maca1 › Interesting artikle
blissfulliberty › while i am reading it rains so hard outside and it s so loud on the rooftop. my concern is flood may happen somewhere...
yeahh.. back to money.. inflation is so high today and money must be spent wisely. i am worried that basic commodities like rice and meat cost higher than they used to.. inflation is really felt right now.. :)
yeahh.. back to money.. inflation is so high today and money must be spent wisely. i am worried that basic commodities like rice and meat cost higher than they used to.. inflation is really felt right now.. :)
svetle76 › ????
