I went shopping with my wife yesterday for ‘essentials’ correctly reporting our intentions before we went, to be legal.

In the shop my wife chose a food mixer to replace the one that broke the day before. When we got to the check-out it was taken from us, only ‘essentials’ we were told and all the electric goods are classed as ‘none-essentials’.

But it’s a replacement, I said, for the kitchen, hardly a luxury good, like beer, wine, cigarettes; all that we can manage without. You see, I said, my wife has rheumatoid arthritis and needs an electric mixer for mixing food and ‘things’, such as battered chicken, which we are having for lunch. There is no way she can do this manually.

No amount of begging to spend my money and push up their profits worked, and we left without the mixer.

So lunch consisted of fried chicken, batterless and less than tasty. Thank you, Mr President. In the display kettles were also off-limits. Is a kettle a luxury non-essential item? I can imagine my wife’s face getting a kettle for Christmas as she opens the box. “You spoil me with your gifts”, she would say, or words to that effect. Yes, darling, its non-essential, would be my reply.

Surely no one goes out and just squanders money? If I need something, it’s because it’s essential. Whether it’s a mixer, kettle or just a black ink for my printer, so that I can carry the right forms when the police officer stops me. So when will the computer shops be open? Honest officer I would have printed a form, if only I could. But it wasn’t essential you see.

Peter G Davis,

Paphos