🎁 TREE 495: Ffestive FFOREST gift guide 1

By now, you have probably erected your Christmas shrine. (Mine doesn’t have lights or decorations yet. But I have secured it to the wall with a wire so the cats don’t knock it down again.) Soon you will start placing your offerings beneath it as we enter fully into the season celebrating our glorious god Capitalism. In the spirit of this sacred time, I have compiled a list of a few things you may like to purchase for yourself or a loved one/coworker. I’ll share my list over the next few days.

Spirit level

I bought one of these a few years ago when I was installing a fence in my garden. I immediately realised the folly of my entire adult life up until that point. For 20 quid, you can save yourself hours of guesswork and measuring and remeasuring because you have a device that unambiguously tells you what vertical is and what horizontal is. It cannot be fooled by wonky walls or hilly horizons. It cannot be swayed by any argument. It is an objective source of truth in a world of just-abouts. It is a sanity check when something doesn’t seem quite right but you’re not sure what it is. If your home doesn’t contain a spirit level, Christmas gives you the perfect reason to remedy the situation. The tree needs offerings; they might as well be useful.

My spirit level is about 70 cm long. It has magnets in it for attaching a metal ruler. I’ve been using a lot because we’re hanging pictures in the new house right now.

My spirit level is also a metaphor.

Oh, Santa Tim. No.

Billy Idol can do more than sneer. Such a great voice, also 80s saxophone (Spotify).

Grow slowly
Jeff