Ant Turns It Out

I believe it was the noted philosopher, NWA's very own "MC Ren", who I would be tempted to refer to as "my man MC Ren" if it wasn't so terribly unlikely, who once said "Ruthless, plenty of that and much more." - And so it is that ruthlessness is once again the order of the day as my ongoing war against clutter continues.

Tuesday is a good day for tidying, because it is Wednesday morning when a big truck arrives and takes everyone's large and bulky rubbish to the dump. So Tuesdays are a great day for leaving large and bulky rubbish in the place where it should be left. Today I excised several items of junk, both from my room and also from my shed. I have a warm glow inside, which makes me feel that I am really doing something.

It wasn't until a little while later that I actually added up the cost of what I'd just chucked out.

- a perfectly good video recorder which only makes a very slightly loud metallic grinding noise while trying to watch tapes. Purchased in 1988 for £200.

- a 21 inch TV which I unfortunately later discovered was made by Alba, so of course it stopped working within moments, and its cardboard insides are entirely unrepairable. £200 about 5 years ago.

- a fax/scanner/printer thingy which unfortunately stopped printing, but would otherwise have still been quite good for faxing or scanning were it not for the fact it doesn't work on anything more up to date than Windows 95. £300 about 9 or 10 years ago?

- an old colour deskjet printer. Those used to be expensive once (£300 about 12 years ago). That said, it was second hand when I got it, and it's just no use now, the space it takes being more valuable than the replacement cost. Only slightly not working, but already replaced with something else, and not actually mine anyway (on loan from work) who told me to drop it from the tallest place I could find. A good printer, although I noticed that last week someone had actually left a later model in the place where large and bulky rubbish should be left.

This is a degree of ruthlessness I was not sure I could achieve, but I have done. And while I still have many boxes and things getting in my way, I do at least have slightly less of them than before, so that's some progress for today, anyway.