Funny money

Another financial crisis. The mortgage statement lies on the kitchen table, surveying me with resentment as I chew joylessly through my cornflakes. It keeps nudging the gas bill and rolling its eyes.

Meanwhile, the Apple organisation's relentless pursuit of money that I don't have - via the ruse of continually releasing shimmering gadgets that are as beautiful as they are unnecessary - continues apace.

I need money. Where can I find it? In my bank account? No, no. I've tried there before. Do some work? Hmm, let's not blow this out of proportion just yet. Ah! The attic! Of course!

Television teaches us many things. It teaches us that forensic scientists require two hours tops (including breaks for ads) to solve any given crime. It teaches us that asking people to text in their views on the day's news stories adds precisely nothing to the sums of human knowledge or enjoyment. But most of all, these days, it teaches us that everyone who has an attic has forgotten the unconsidered treasures loitering in its unswept crannies. That is why houses with attics cost more. See?

It's not the Antiques Roadshow; that's been going so long now that people have started bringing tapes of the original series on to the programme. Plus it's very high end, with blousy poltroons forever turning up a hitherto unknown lump of the Rosetta stone, which they've been using to wedge shut the chicken coop at night ever since their great grandfather stubbed his toe on it somewhere near the mouth of the Nile.

No, it's the daytime shows in which milky-eyed Daily Mail readers scrabble about in the gloom looking for pay dirt.

Surely up among all the mildewing sacks that I keep meaning to take to Oxfam, there must be something I can sell on for a few bob.

Let's see: a child's squeaky rubber Lenin toy, now punctured and reduced to wheezing; a lithograph print map of The Four Acceptable Continents (Including Annotations Indicating Relative Godliness) by Fenchurch Pole FRCS, dated 1908; a papier maché brassiere; the torn half of a book of carols, arranged in close harmony for barbershop Christmas services, published by the Louisiana University Press; three novelty egg-cups of uncertain provenance, purpose and resemblance - possibly supposed to be representations of Scottish football managers of the 1970s, or 75% of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Nothing so far. What else? A teetering pile of supermarket recipe cards; a small, porcelain barrel containing the dust of an erstwhile foodstuff; two hats (one green); a rolled-up poster outlining the principle no-nos of the five major world religions; a giant foam finger, emblazoned with the slogan "Santiago Pilgrimage 1987"; a child's loom (shuttle missing); a collapsed clothes rail, bearing the winter fashions of the late nineties; several blue "unidentifiables"; a dead wasp.

I see. Work it is, then.