I’ve never owned Bitcoin.  I’ve played bit parts in local Am Drams; was an avid subscriber to Titbits (I bought it for its gardening tips) and, as a kid, collected threepenny bits, but have not succumbed to the latest fad of crypto currencies (itself sounding like something Superman would be allergic to).

I’ve only just mastered decimal currency, so the last thing I’m going to do is invest in something in the ether (a thing which used to pervade every doctor’s surgery).

However, growing up (when Elon Musk was a fragrance and not an entrepreneur) I would devise ways, from the confines of my Balham flat in the ‘60s, of how I could pay for things without using actual money; ten bob notes were like gold dust back then (although, if they’d been made of gold dust, they’d have been worth a lot more than ten bob).

I would collect all manner of things, hoping I’d invented a new currency: what might the Esso 1970 World Cup star coin of Peter Bonetti be worth down the local newsagent?  Could I buy the latest copy of the Beano with a Kidney Donor Card? If I pressed enough silver-tops off milk bottles together, could I create a sixpence?

Might there have been an opportunity for barter?  The complete set of Thunderbirds bubble gum cards in exchange for a flock of sheep?  This was never going to happen as I was never given the Freedom of Balham, thus allowing me to walk my sheep over Wandsworth Common.

If I got given some Bitcoin, I’d try and buy the card of Thunderbird 3 going through the Roundhouse (I lied about the set being complete).