Barnaby bags a bargain

Barnaby likes nothing better than wandering around a Car Boot Sale on a sunny morning and today was a doozy. Hundreds of stalls. Thousands of bargains and lots of happy shoppers. He was surprised to see for sale an antique penny-farthing bicycle, and, on a different stall, a horse drawn plough. Neither of which he'd ever encountered at a Boot Sale previously. Naturally enough, most of the other items were of a much more prosaic nature, comprising children's toys, household ornaments, furniture and unwanted gadgets and gizmos of all descriptions. Many of which prompt the question, why on earth did anyone ever buy that in the first place? That begs the follow up question, what ever persuaded the person who designed and manufactured it to think anyone would ever want one?

Nevertheless, the majority of the customers went home clutching their carrier bags full of bargains, well happy with their morning's work.

Barnaby was happy with his own bargain, too. A double CD of the Rolling Stones for the grand price of £1.

You can bag your own bargain, of course, by visiting www.barnaby-wilde.co.uk and downloading one of Barnaby's e-books. The best news of all is that most of them won't even cost £1 and some, believe it or not, are absolutely FREE!

Barnaby wonders how low will you stoop?

Barnaby has been wondering whether it makes economic sense to pick up coins in the street. Assuming that it takes approximately three seconds to stoop down and retrieve a coin, it would presumably only be worth picking one up if it's value was higher than you could earn in the same amount of time.

For readers in the United Kingdom, where the minimum legal wage for adults is currently £6.19 per hour, or .515p for 3 seconds, it would certainly pay to pick up even the smallest UK coin, which is currently the 1p piece. Indeed, it would make economic sense for anyone earning up to £11.99 per hour, or approximately £24,939 per annum, to do the same.

Coincidentally, this is not far off the average UK earnings for adults in full time employment, which is currently around £26,500 per annum.

As a rule of thumb, therefore, Barnaby suggests that if your wage is above the National Average, you should leave any coins you spot in the street for your less well paid countrymen to pick up.

Unless, of course, you should spot a Liberty Head 1913 5c piece, which sold at auction on April 26th this year for $3.1m.

Unfortunately, in the time it will take you to determine whether the coin you have spotted is a genuine Liberty Head nickel, you might just as well have picked it up anyway.

Alternatively, instead of walking around looking at your feet all day, you could download a copy of one of Barnaby's e-books and read that instead. You'll find plenty to amuse and entertain you at www.barnaby-wilde.co.uk

Barnaby thinks about Loneliness

Those Indie authors at Top Writers Block have produced another collection of short stories, this time on the theme of Loneliness. Twelve authors, including Barnaby, writing cooperatively, have produced twelve stories inspired by the word 'loneliness'.

All proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to the charity Sea Shepherd.

You can read a sample, or download the whole book in any ebook format by visiting
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/311958

You can find Barnaby's own ebooks, including several titles which are FREE downloads, by visiting
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/barnabywilde. The range includes quirky poems, collections of short stories, humorous novels and detective fiction.

Volume 3 of the Mercedes Drew Mysteries (Flandra) is now published, and you can download Volume 1 (Flowers for Mercedes) completely FREE at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/310785

More information about Barnaby Wilde books at www.barnaby-wilde.co.uk