I was in the middle of a game of cribbage with three friends of mine when the conversation turned to the subject of Bitcoin. Though I was feeling a little drowsy, I listened carefully for a while to learn all I could about this clever new cryptocurrency and then slipped off to invest all my savings in it.
Overnight I doubled my money and shrewdly I reinvested my gains. Within a week I had become a multimillionaire. I paid off the mortgage, bought a yacht and sailed off into the sunset, a glass of gin and tonic in my hand and the soft breath of the ocean breeze blowing in my ear.
Nice, I thought.
Everywhere I went in the world, people wanted to ask me about the secret of my success. “What is a cryptocurrency?” they cried, “and what’s it got to do with crypts?”
I answered that dealing or speculating in cryptocurrency did not require anyone to spend any time in a crypt, unless they were already in the habit of doing so, but that the two words stemmed from the same origin, namely the Greek word kryptos, meaning hidden or secret – a crypt being a hidden chamber, cryptography being the practice of writing code and hence cryptocurrency being coded currency, ie currency that exists only as computer code.
“Fantastic,” they said. “And what about Blockchain?”
“Go away,” I told them, “I’m tired.”
I awoke to find the Queen of Diamonds stuck to my face. It had all been a dream. I hadn’t invested in Bitcoin at all, I had nodded off at the mere mention of the word, not because it’s a particularly soporific word but because it was the 340th time I’d heard it this week.
I don’t know about you but I find that if I haven’t grasped a concept after 339 attempts it’s best to have a doze. And probably best not to sink all your spare cash into it too, even if that does mean missing out on the most groundbreaking investment opportunity since the wheel.
Life, it seems, is full of ships that have sailed, leaving you standing on the quay wondering if you should leap into the water and try to clutch the trailing anchor chain, or just turn your back on the sea and go for a coffee and a bun in one of those nice little seafront cafés.
I like buns.
