The Final Word: Are kippers on the list?

by Paul Moore

WE hear a great deal, and rightly so, about the continuing increases in the cost of living.

These increases will not, we are told, be helped by the economic antics of the Trump administration and there is a real threat apparently of both a recession and out of control inflation. Welcome to the 21st century.

I have to confess it is only recently that I came to have any understanding as to how inflation is worked out having hitherto relied on the fact that others know what they are doing when they calculate it.

My encounter with the complexity of inflation brought with it a number of other interesting surprises. It seems the Office for National Statistics has a ‘basket’ of goods and services that it uses to calculate the inflation rate.

This basket changes according to the ways in which we purchase goods and services and is updated regularly to accommodate changes in our living and buying behaviours.

We must all be ardent shoppers because the basket generally contains about 752 items although there are some items which have been in the basket which I would suggest we have never bought.

So, for example, if you go back far enough you can find wild rabbit in the basket, while tea bags were only added in 1980. This year 23 items were removed and 15 added and it is these new items which offer a glimpse into the lives others live.

For me the most striking item added was the yoga mat. Being truthful I do have a yoga mat. It was sent away for during the pandemic when we all believed we were going to die and were keeping in with our chosen God which in my case is Buddha so daily practice and meditation was essential.

I have not used it since we were told the pandemic was over and while I am five years older and closer to meeting the Buddha I do not think it is imminent, so have abandoned the floor. I do, however, continue the Buddhist principles of kindness, calmness and forgiveness. Ask anyone who knows me. I will also start to use it again now that I know my not doing so is impacting on inflation.

The second item which puzzled me was the virtual reality headset. Now unlike most of the things I talk about I actually know a little about these because I work in the sector where they are designed and utilised and indeed have funded projects using them.

From that experience I can say that I do not believe they will ever be a household item whether on the inflation list or not. I do believe, however, that virtual reality headsets and VR itself have a real and important role to play in health and skills training where simulation with virtual humans can help not to damage real humans.

The other notable additions to the list were mango, men’s sliders – seemingly some form of footwear for the pool – and pulled pork.

I can only comment that in all my excursions to the Co-Op I have seen none of these in my, or my fellow shoppers’ bags, nor have I seen sliders in the open air pool in The Diamond.

I can only therefore conclude that there is a parallel shopping universe somewhere which operates a different form of currency than the rest of us.

Of the items taken off the list I couldn’t get past DVD rentals. Like vinyl records and music cassettes, surely they went the day they also removed the wild rabbit.