Behold the Tin of Dreams.
Unshakeable. Unsinkable. Monumental.
A bit like Titanic.
So, anyway.
This is the first time I have commented on a picture within one of my posts. There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about that, one might think. Certainly not worth creating an attendance Log in respect of it, unless it was racially aggravated.
Definitely not worth the Red Arrows doing a fly-by.
Can’t think that the SMT will need to be informed. Not that they care. About anything.
Nevertheless, we will need to let the council know. After all, someone’s head has gotta roll. Serious Questions need to be asked, and Tough Decisions will have to be made – ones that have far, far more impact than the last time we got Tough and Serious.
So yes indeed – my tin of dreams.
For the past seven months I have been gradually filling it up with £1 and £2 coins. Occasionally I’ll add the odd fiver. Perhaps even a tenner. It’s now half full, and feeling heart-warmingly heavy. Still, it’s not all been roses.
Last month, in some kind of mild hysteria, I could be found muttering and swearing on the edge of my bed, poking a butter knife into the slot and trying to free a single coin, just so that I could buy a loaf of bread from across the road. And the week before that, I managed to free two nuggets (after a long and arduous negotiation with a pair of scissors, wherein I ended up snipping the corner off a precious £5 note), simply to purchase a couple of cans of Caffrey’s from the very same grocery establishment.
After all, it is the tin of dreams.
A tin that can only be opened with a can-opener – ideally when full.
The reason for the tin is simple. I’m saving up for a new TV – one that is Most Definitely Highly Definitive, or something like that. I don’t understand the technology – I just want one. My sweetheart has already been comprehensively persuaded that a minimum standard of 52″ is required, and already I can see myself on the sofa with a few cans of beer, having a Lord-Of-The-Rings-A-Thon, involving twelve hours of solid Middle Earth viewing pleasure – with perhaps a small recess for picking up a takeaway. One works up a hunger after fighting a Balrog.
Yes, the tin of dreams.
By my own humble estimation, sometime in the middle of 2009, there should be sufficient funds within the tin with which to purchase said TV. Said sweetheart has also hinted at a Nintendo Wii, so said bloke may have to add a few more notes. Either way, the TV comes first. After all, a Wii is useless without something big and grand to play it on, and there is no way that anyone can disagree. Besides, don’t fuck with a man’s tin – the complex narrative of his emotions lie within, and it would be foolhardy in the extreme to try and alter the storyline.
Anyway, the reason I am rambling on is due to having read a sobering post by Max. As is customary for frontline police officers nowadays, our attendance at squalid houses filled with pissed, obnoxious chavs is a given – especially domiciles that have the ubiquitous 42″ plasma.
Hmmm. Perhaps I’m no different. After all, in a year’s time, I’ll be plonking myself down with some feisty sherbets and staring blankly at a huge screen too. But that’s where the similarity ends.
Firstly, I’m going to pay for my fucking television.
Secondly, I will have earned the money legitimately to pay for my television.
Thirdly, I can get quite happily pissed in my house and not mutilate a family member, abuse an ex-partner via text message, smoke crack, disturb the neighbours and call the Feds.
There’s a fourthly and a fifthly, but I need to find the butter knife again. Payday has long since departed and this ‘Key Worker’ has run out of bread.
Behold, the Tin of Dreams.
PC Michael Pinkstone
This Victorian Playground Part 1 and Part 2 available to order online, offline and whatever is inbetween.
December 10, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I don’t suppose it would help to pour a pint of Guinness into it?
December 10, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I recently stumbled across a little site called quidco.com, it’s being going a few years so I’m a little late. Anyway, if you buy stuff on the ‘net from people like apple, hmv, play and 1,000s more, it lets you get the money they would pay to ad publishers for your purchase eg o2 broadband pays £60. May be of use to you in getting your tv and wii.
worth a gander anyway.
December 10, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I once did something similar to the ‘tin of dreams’ and when it was full, I carefully counted out the dosh! Whee! Riches beyond the dreams of avarice! I could buy that Aeroplane that I so wanted. In fact, with £0 s16 and 3 1/2d I could buy any Airfix kit I wanted….
December 10, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Thats the key difference – some of us earn our comforts and indeed the food on the table.
You, me and the other decent hardworking people out there have been brought up to work hard and reap the rewards that brings.
On a lighter note, i’ve found a pair of extra-slim needlenose pliers are perfect for extra the piggy-bank, and i thoroughly reccomend an extended edition LOTRathon – did it last summer with a few old friends. Combined it with an Aliensathon.
I dreamed some funky dreams that night i can tell you!
December 10, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Way back in those far off halcyon days when I was a yoof and money was actually worth something, I aqquired a blown out 1500 watt lamp from a sports ground. Its bulb was the size of a small melon!
Careful grinding with a file near its neck produced a slot of a size that would accept threepenny coins.
I fed this lamp until one day it shattered under the strain of one too many, then carted the several lbs of coins to my local bank where the girl uttered a cry of dismay, and informed me that she had to count them by hand, as weighing was not acceptable.
I dont remember what value was there, but it was considerable for the day.
As a result of the consternation shown by the girl at the bank, I never did this again. Sad really……….
December 10, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I was doing the tin of dreams thing, then I got burgled and lost the lot – In excess of £100. I don’t keep money in the house now.
December 11, 2008 at 8:25 am
Good grief Michael, you must have one hell of a mortgage if owning a TV is just a dream. (Avoid plasma by the way).
Now – a red 911 cabriolet with cream leather, 7 speed doppelkupplung, traction management………
December 11, 2008 at 11:58 am
I had one of those tins once…………….. gave in and opened it when there was £10 in it for a night out.
I’m rubbish with money and still have dreams of a new TV and Wii next year and trip to New Zealand for the rugby world cup in 2011………….. a very big dream at the moment, well maybe when I finally get my long overdue wage rise it’ll happen!
December 11, 2008 at 11:08 pm
A number of moons ago my own tin of dreams paid for 2 weeks on the east coast of cyprus, after the best part of a year saving up.
My brothers neighbour is a benefit drain – 28 years old, never worked, three kids, free 4 bed house and enough residual benefits (after free fags, booze, sky and fucking big telly) to take the family on an annual disney/florida trip in addition to the costas for half term.
Makes me wonder everytime I see her why the hell we all bother working.
December 12, 2008 at 6:35 am
When I was a youngster, my dad had a five gallon water bottle (back when they were actually made of glass… I’m dating myself, I know) into which all pocket change would go at the end of the day.
One day, when it was approximately three quarters full, the bottle accepted its last coin, (I believe it was a dime) and broke into two pieces. Change spilled everywhere.
I never did find out just how much was in that bottle.
Nowadays, we have a different custom. We call it the “Fuck It Bucket”. It’s a random change bucket, from a random casino in Reno or Las Vegas. Into it goes all the pocket change.
When the bucket is full, we say “Fuck it” and make a weekend trip to Reno.
Maybe I should redirect my efforts to a tin such as yours.
December 12, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I hate to post long quotes from other sources, but on this occasion it’s justified and i think somewhat pertinent given the news last week in the Matthews case:
This was part of a comedy sketch written by Bill Hicks, it’s pretty full-on but so relevant about the multi-father families of today i just had to post it:
But I’ll tell you this. Where’s this idea that childbirth is a miracle came from. Ha, I missed that fucking meeting, okay? “It’s a miracle, childbirth is a miracle.” No it’s not. No more than a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out of your ass. It’s a chemical reaction, that’s all it fucking is. If, you wanna know what a miracle is: raisin’ a kid that DOESN’T talk in a movie theatre. Okay, there, there, there is a goddam miracle. It’s not a miracle if every nine months any yin yang in the world can drop a litter of these mewling cabbages on our planet. And just in case you haven’t seen the single mom statistics lately, the miracle is spreading like wild-fire. “Hallelujah!” Trailer parks and council flats all over the world just filling up with little miracles. Thunk, thunk, thunk, like frogs laying eggs. “Thunk, look at all my little miracles, thunk, filling up my trailer like a sardine can. Thunk. You know what would be a real miracle, if I could remember your daddy’s name, aargh, thunk. I guess I’ll have to call you Lorry Driver Junior. Thunk. That’s all I remember about your daddy was his fuzzy little pot-belly riding on top of me shooting his caffeine ridden semen into my belly to produce my little water-headed miracle baby, urgh. There’s your brother, Pizza Delivery Boy Junior.”
(The weird bit here is hicks wrote this around 15-20 years ago, and has been dead for the last 14).
Feel free to delete if a bit extreme and full-on for public consumption PCMP.
December 12, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Great comments all! The different variations on the tin of dreams was very enjoyable to read.
Kay – you have my genuine sympathy. The amount of burglaries I’ve ‘dealt with’ (meaning, I’ve passed a crime reference number to the victim and apologised that they will never see their stuff again) wherein the thieving bastards have stolen the kid’s piggy banks (their own little tins of dreams), simply beggars belief. On one occasion I recall a gentleman who’d had his front door kicked in and various personal belongings taken, such as his TV, laptop, camera – the ‘usual’. He was holding it together quite well, but when he realised that his 8 year old little girl’s change jar had also been nicked, he broke down and was quite inconsoleable. Getting ‘tough on crime’ my arse.
TBS, nowt wrong with the last addition – it’s an apt, accurate and entirely sobering piece of observational comedy… Karen Matthews eat your heart out, and it fits in nicely with MCM’s post.