Over the years, as I observe more and more people, one question keeps on coming back to me : What is it about people and cheap gold jewellery? Sometimes it seems like it's an addiction, as though they want people to see them and go "oh, they must be well off - look at all that gold!" when instead what they normally say is "look at that scabby little scutter with all the naff jewellery. what the fuck does she look like?

   Now don't get me wrong, some gold can look really good. But at that point we're talking about the quality 9ct gold, or ideally the 18ct stuff - where you know it's actually worth something. That's not the case with the vile stuff I'm talking about here - this is the 4.5carat hoop earrings that Argos (or wherever) sells for £2.99 or thereabouts. You'll know the sort of thing when you see it. It's cheap, it's excessively nasty, and it doesn't bother concealing the fact.

  So why do people wear it, and think it looks good? Quite honestly, I have no idea - and I wonder whether they look in the mirror and think "Yeah, I look like a million dollars today" - which, if not accurate, says one hell of a lot for the powers of self-delusion. Or the hallucinogenic qualities of junk food - I'm not sure which.

  But it's an odd correlation - the massive majority of the people who douse themselves in this tatty gold are the ones with the lowest income, the ones who once would have been listed as "working class" or "lower working class", but who could now probably be better deemed the "benefit class" (if we weren't a classless society (thanks President Blair, and excuse me while I piss myself laughing)) - it's like they're saying "I'm not on benefits/the breadline, see, look, I can afford this gold, so I can't be poor, not me". Maybe image is everything - maybe they do wear it because they think they look good, I don't know, it's all beyond me.

  I think I'll write more about this, add in some pics, see what conclusions I come to. We'll see...