they don’t need. Who are these élitists to decide what you need? Do you need a dishwasher? Do you need a deodorant? Do you need a trip to Rome? I feel no qualms of conscience about persuading you that you do. What the Calvinistic dons don’t seem to know is that buying things can be one of life’s more innocent pleasures, whether you need them or not. Remember your euphoria when you bought your first car? Most people enjoy window-shopping the ads, whether for bargains or for luxuries. For 40 years I shopped the ads for country houses, and finally saved up enough money to buy one. It is not unknown for an advertisement in a newspaper to be read by more people than any news item. When all the New York newspapers went on strike for several weeks in 1963, research showed that it was the advertisements which readers missed most. If advertising were abolished, what would be done with the money? Would it be spent on public works? Or distributed to stock-holders in the form of extra dividends? Or given to the media to compensate them for the loss of their largest source of revenue? Perhaps it could be used to 2 reduce prices to the consumer – by about 3 per cent.