I am not often called upon to give financial advice, but I’ve seen a few Flash Harries in my day, and I know an investment fad when I see it. So when one of my readers asked where he should invest his South Canterbury Finance payout, I was only too happy to offer him some advice.

The biggest investment fad is technology. Our business leaders bombard us with messages about how we must innovate and be smarter, and how we much develop new technologies to compete with the rest of the world. But investing in technology is crazy because it keeps changing. Why would anyone put their money into something that may not be around in fifty to a hundred years?.

The latest technology fad seems to be computers. Apparently a silicon chips the size of your fist can store hundreds of pages of data on it. I imagine you’d need a fairly powerful magnifying glass to actually see any of this data, but I expect they have come up with one of those too. You can even send letters over the telephone line using one of these internets. To me it sounds like voodoo, which is why I avoid technology investments. Things come and go in the blink of an eye.

That’s why woollen garments are a rock solid investment. You see, people will always need jerseys and mittens to wear, especially with the dreadfully long winters we seem to have nowadays. This may surprise you, but I’m old enough to remember when the sun always shone. Oh better days! Back then young people and Maoris wouldn’t give you lip, and the bakeries weren’t all run by Chinamen. Every time I put on my faithful old grey cardigan I am reminded of the decent and polite society we have lost.

The use of steel to build ships is a relatively new phenomenon, but before then almost everything that floated was wooden-hulled. Steel is a crazy thing to make ships from, because it’s so heavy, and it’s wonder more of them don’t sink. I suppose the shipping engineers will say they know what’s best, but then the so-called experts have been claiming the Earth is warming too! So follow my advice and put your money into timber. Once these shipping types come to their senses they will be queuing up to buy the forests, and you could just make a fortune.

But if you must invest your money in modern contraptions, go for typewriters. The old-fashioned manual typewriter is a wonderful creation, because you don’t need electricity to use it, and because it’s difficult to correct your mistakes. These days it seems as if people just rattle on endlessly about any old mumbo-jumbo, because they know they can. When typing is hard work, and when the effort to correct a mistake is considerable, the mind becomes sharper and you become less prone to waffling, or (my pet hate) discussing how you feel.

Or we could just have a great big war. That would sort out a few of the scalliwags, and it would grow the economy, like it did when we took on that Hitler chap. Now he was as mad as a snake, that fellow, but I always admired German ruthlessness. We could do with a bit of that in my neighbourhood. Sometimes it’s like the bloody United Nations on my street!

Well, I must dash. There’s a shout in memory of poor Eric at the RSA. Eric was a good fellow. An absolutely crazed murderous raping maniac when he wore the uniform, but my God didn’t the Krauts fear him! He’ll be missed.