One of the collections that seems the strangest, to people like me, who live at sea and don't really get involved in most of the commercial stuff of life ashore, is the Pokemon card thing.
How can a small piece of cardboard, a mass-produced thing with stuff printed on it, be worth the kind of money that changes hands for some of them? Are kids living ashore really that easy to fool that they would agree that a picture of some cartoon character is worth a whole week's pocket money?! If the pictures on the cards were really beautiful, or each one carried some sort of useful knowledge which added up to a set of information that would help in life, I might be able to see the point but I've seen quite a few different ones and they're just rubbish. Just little bits of cardboard rubbish, worth maybe fifteen cents each, at best. If the kids who buy these cards can't see that they are just being ripped off, how come their parents don't see it? To me, a kid who has money to waste on bits of cardboard and special plastic wallets to keep them in is just a spoilt kid with no idea of what goes on in the real world at all. That money could help starving and sick kids in countries where people die of hunger. Or, if they didn't care about other people, they could spend the money on helping animals or to buy a good book or anything, really, except stupid bits of cardboard with silly drawings on them. If you put this on your website I bet lots of kids will say I'm stupid because I don't understand what's so good about Pokemon. I say there is nothing TO understand. They should try and understand why not letting some other kid end up with more, or 'better', Pokemon cards than yours just doesn't matter. Having the 'best' collection of Pokemon cards is a nothing ambition and if anybody can't see that then they are the one who is stupid. My collection is people's autographs. My mum gave me her autograph book, a couple of years ago, from when she was about my age and I think it's a great idea to get people to write a few words and sign their name. It's great, looking through your autograph book and reading the really funny or interesting things they have written. If I don't have the book with me but I want an autograph, I just ask the person to write on any bit of paper I can find and then I stick it in the book later. I've got one on a paper napkin from a famous footballer and several from well-known yachtsmen as well as lots from people of my own age that I have met in places we stop. I have been collecting autographs for about four years now and I'm on my second book now. My mum gave me a nice new one for my last birthday when she saw my first one was nearly full. It's got a black cover with some gold decorations on it and it looks really smart." | 
