When I arrived in my new home my new grandmother started to knit me a new outfit. – “It will take me some time now, mind, but when it is done, you will be the proudest pudding around.” The suit she made from her own hair, though I had better not call it a suit: it was a sack, an itchy hair sack that taught me the virtue of not accepting gifts, and certainly not expecting pleasure from them. No. A gift is a burden. You either have to pay it back in thanks, lord, and what little thanks we have in this life to give, or you have to feed it with your attention; it is like a hungry dog that won’t stop yapping until you fill its snout with food, or put a muzzle on it, and even then you have to hear it whimpering under the table. No. A gift is no friend. Hear me now: A gift is surely no friend.