Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Carphone Warehouse are trying to give me a free mobile phone, but don't seem able to do so.

It wasn't my idea; for once I do not have that odd compulsion in the back of my head to go and trade in my phone for a newer model. This is probably because a)the model I have has yet to celebrate its first birthday, though it's only got a couple of weeks to go; b) there isn't a phone out there that I like the look of better than the Motorola V3 Razr, and c) I have, for the first time in years, been deliberately avoiding places such as the Carphone Warehouse simply so that I won't be tempted.

Most of you know that I am notoriously weak-willed in these matters, so avoidance of the outlets is vital.

I didn't particularly like the sound of the phone they were trying to hawk me, but since the only stipulation was that I stay with my current network for a further 12 months , which I was planning to do anyway, I reckoned that if they wanted to send me a free phone, why should I care?

Anyway, this morning I got a worried message from their sales rep saying that they had just had an email from Vodafone telling them that I am not entitled to a new phone until 4 March. Off, since I subscribe to O2, but there we are. What worried the rep, though, was the thought that I might already have received a new phone by courier. I haven't, and wasn't expecting to, really. Be interesting if one turns up, though!

In keeping with the trend for having toys put under my nose for consideration, for some reason instead of walking up a flight of stairs, or more likely just shouting, Beastie colonel_maxim emailed me this link to Swords Mart under the title 'shiny'. Ah, the lad knows me too well, and I have to confess to being tempted, though I can't help but wonder what sort of shoddy mess you can buy at those prices.

The real fun of the site though, comes from the occasional and consistently 'miss-spelt' sword names designed to avoid copyright issues. So they sell Nasril instead of Narsil, Sling, instead of Sting and so on.

My particular favourite though, has to be Rider's Stranger Sword. Quality, and only £20 or so.

Maybe not quality, then.

Today I took delivery of a shiny new sword, a copy of Anduril, the reforged sword of Elendil, from Return of the King, and I am mightily pleased with it.

Of course, this isn’t the officially licensed United Cutlery version, it is a cheap Chinese knock-off, and I daresay that too much rough housing with it would snap the blade, but then too much rough housing with a large sword in this day and age is probably asking for trouble anyway. This version doesn’t come with a fancy wooden display plaque, but it does come with a leather scabbard, and looks pretty damned cool.

The official version costs £190 and, it has to be admitted, is prettier, and carries more detail, particularly with the inscription down the blade. Nonetheless, I like my version which is unbeatable at the price. I have just discovered that it is possible to but an officially licensed scabbard for an additional £120. Someone's having a laugh.

Ebay is a fine institution (provided you find a decent supplier), and probably the only place on the planet where I could get one for £19.50 before postage and packing. Admittedly, shipping it over from the States more than doubled the cost, but at a total of £51, it is still less than a third of the recommended UK retail price - and an even smalled fraction if the scabbard is included.

I have too many swords.

And daggers.