A credit card to end all extravagance

Are you completely happy with your present credit card?

Or are you, as we suspect, increasingly suspicious of what it's costing you?

Do you find yourself increasingly going into shops where there is a sign up saying "We are sorry but we no longer accept credit cards because we can't afford to"?

And having to pay by cash, of which you never have enough?

Or having to pay by cheque, which always exposes you to that intolerable moment when, halfway through writing out the name of the shop on the cheque, the assistant says, "Don't worry - we've got a stamp for the name"?

Have you sometimes dreamt of a card which would do everything for you ?

Worry no longer!

Dream no more!

That moment has come! That card is here!

It's called the Indycard.

Here are some of the things the Indycard can do.

It can scrape the ice and snow off car windscreens on frosty mornings!

It can force its way into most ordinary household locks!

It can remove excess tomato sauce, mustard and unwanted pickle from the interior of most regular hamburgers.

It can smooth off the edges of most kinds of putty, Polyfilla, etc, before they dry.

But, you may well say, my ordinary credit card can already do this.

Ah, we will say, but you don't DO any of those things with your ordinary credit card, do you? You don't actually use your Access Card or Visa Card or National Gallery ArtMasterCard to scrape egg off your waistcoat with or make patterns on puddings with because you fear that contact with ice, snow and tomato gunge may well affect its electronic workings.

The Indycard can never be affected like that because it has no electronic workings!

The Indycard can NEVER be used to withdraw money from any bank, building society or bureau de change.

It's the world's first credit card that can never make you overdrawn. Never involve you in unnecessary spending. Never tempt you to make an impulse buy.

Because all it is is a piece of rectangular plastic with rounded corners, and nothing else!

No microchip.

No hologram.

Just a small piece of hi-tech, up-to the-art, state-of-the-minute, back- of-the-moon, plastic which has been engineered in our own laboratories to a state of durability and toughness that ordinary credit cards can't reach.

The Indycard has the toughness of a Stone Age flint, the flexibility of the Scott report and the lightness of an unused paper tissue.

It can open things, turn things, scrape things and be used in the last resort as a fighting weapon, a small deadly plastic dagger which, gripped between forefinger and index finger, can inflict untold damage on the man behind you in the queue at the bank cash machine who is staring over your shoulder trying to make out what your PIN number is.

Except that with an Indycard, you'll never be queuing at a cash machine again!

That's the beauty of it.

The only disadvantage of this is that you can't use it to buy things with.

But maybe this is an advantage. Think of all the things we buy that we wish afterwards we hadn't got!

Think of all the money we get through on an evening out just by flashing our plastic card! Think of all the impulse purchases which turn into impulse regrets!

This will never happen with your Indycard. No more overspending, no more extravagance, no more unhappiness.

The only unhappy person will be the thief who nicks it or the close relative who tries to use it in your absence.

It is the first credit card in the history of the world that is absolutely burglar-proof. And that's because it's the first credit card in the history of the world which is also credit-proof!

It has 101 domestic uses.

And no financial use at all.

So, next time you're caught at midnight with a flat tyre, and you're trying to get the hub cap off with an ordinary credit card, remember - we warned you!

For details of the Indycard, send a blank cheque to this column.