It has been a month when clients decided to pay late; my mortgage lender is somewhat less flexible about matters of a financial nature. Such is the gig economy.

Obviously, things are much worse in Ukraine, and I was going to donate some money to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) fund. But I also needed a new bicycle bag. I couldn’t really afford both.

So this bar bag was my solution. The entire cost of the bag goes to DEC. And whilst I’m sure there are people who would yell ‘get off the road you snowflake virtue signaller’ at the sight of it, I don’t mind that too much. Virtue signalling is less bad than, say, not signalling at a roundabout. Which does happen, you know.

And possibly virtue signalling encourages people not to be so proudly mean, or uncaring about a cause. I'm old enough to remember people saying that the campaign to end apartheid was trendy, and it possibly was. But still a good thing. Is it virtue signalling to wear a poppy?

Of course, the best thing to do about conflict around the world is to ride a bicycle instead of being dependent on a petrol vehicle...or even an electric one, in the UK, where so much of our electricity comes from gas-fired stations. I digress.

In an ideal world, there would be no product review of anything less than 10 years old, because of finite resources being depleted rapidly for short term minority benefit. So I’m reluctant to say too much about its performance.

But so far it’s turning out to be an excellent bag. I can see no reason why it will not last for decades, when hopefully it will look like an anachronistic reminder of a short and long-forgotten conflict that was resolved quickly.

Well done to Wizard Works for making the bag - in the UK too- and although they seem to have sold out of Ukraine stuff, there are other ways to donate.

Please don’t send them baby clothes or pebbles with messages of peace. You should do your own due diligence on that. But DEC is a goods start and it seems, from colleagues in the humanitarian sector, that cash is better than sending stuff to a war zone.

This month*, I will donate £10 for every copy of my book (the Bicycle Clip Diaries) I sell to DEC too. That's the full cost of the book, you'll still have to pay the postage.  Order directly from me, here 

*April that is. Not March as there's only one day of March left.