5 years ago my bank persuaded me to put some money into an "ethical green investment fund". Last month it matured and I received a cheque for... exactly the same sum I had invested in the first place. Perhaps I should consider myself lucky; I could have got back far less. So with part of that money I indulged a fantasy I have had for many years: owning some gold.
When I was a little kid my dad told me he had bought some "gold shares". I think he meant they were shares in a South American gold mine, but I always thought the shares were actually made of that strange yellow metal which drives men mad. And ever since I have wanted some for myself. Last week I bought a handful of gold coins, which in 5 years I am pretty confident will be worth more than I paid for them. We shall see. Meanwhile they are mine to lust over; to feel their satisfactory weight in my hands, and to speculate on the hardship of the men who had to extract it from an Earth reluctant to give up its treasure.
All the gold ever found in the world could be contained within a cube measuring less than 20 metres a side. But the amount of earth shifted to find it would make a mountain 10 times the size of Everest...
Gold. like all the other heavy metals, was formed in the nuclear inferno at the heart of dying stars, just moments before they went supernova. And now a tiny quantity of that unique substance is mine. Feels kinda good, I must say.
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