This weekend, on our way to the march, we diverted into Selfridges for a cup of tea.

It’s a long time since I got excited by the idea of Oxford Street, and even longer since I thought that shopping there was worth the effort and hassle of all the crowds. So what I’m about to say might just be a reflection of my age, and perhaps the reason I was up there at the time.

All I could think as we wandered through Selfridges was what how pointless it all was.

No, worse than pointless, destructive. Of the lives of the women and children forced to make pointless stuff; of the environment from which resources and habitats have been stripped to make pointless stuff,; of populations ruthlessly displaced and murdered to get control of the resources that fuel all this pointless activity; of the people manipulated into believing that buying pointless stuff will make them happy.

All so that a few people can make their own pointless lives meaningful by accumulating money and therefore power over the lives of others.

It doesn’t have to be like this. All it would take is for governments that issue their own currency to acknowledge (they already know it) that between their currency, their people and their ability to tax, they have the means to do whatever needs doing to give everyone a decent, meaningful, non-pointless life, that enriches the people and the world around them instead of destroying. That gives humanity a future worth looking forward to.

It’s hard to imagine, I know, but it’s possible. And it’s not too late. But it is getting late.

What are you doing to help?