MICHAEL WALSH Perception of value for money leaves most of us puzzled. I recall a friend who was a gifted graphic artist.

Tony Perrin had been contacted by an advertising agency after a bakery had requested stationery and vehicle livery to reflect the Victorian era. Tony did a remarkable job and for his trouble received £50 as the agreed fee.

The agency owner invited the artist to accompany him to the bakery in case modification was needed. In fact, the bakery’s boss was delighted: ‘How much do I owe you,’ he asked the advertising agent. On replying that he would be happy to accept £2,000 the cheque was scribbled out and handed over without quibble.

As they went on their way the agent was fuming. Tony Perrin queried his anger for he had just sold his £50 work for £2,000.

The agent, who had just made £1,950 without doing anything other than deliver, was furious at the bakery owner’s indifference.

He angrily replied: ‘He didn’t bat an eyelid: I could have said £3,000. He would have paid it,’ he cried. As the saying goes; if everyone bought on price, we would all be running around in cheap secondhand cars.

Pablo Picasso, the celebrated Spanish artist was a talented conventional artist but made more money providing rubbish art for the fashionable dilettante.

He was scathing about such clients: ‘And I myself, since the advent of cubism, have fed these fellows what they wanted and satisfied these critics with all the ridiculous ideas that passed through my head. 

The less they understood, the more they admired me! Today, as you know, I am celebrated, I am rich.  But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand meaning of the word.

I am only a public clown, a mountebank.  I have understood my time and exploited the imbecility, vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. 

It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem.  But, at least, and at last, it does have the merit of being honest.’

Such is the artificiality of life: A master craftsman was David; the best at crafting children’s rocking horses but a businessman he was not.

When a wealthy man called him and asked for a price for two horses, our humble David said he would be happy with £600. ‘They must be c***.’ The businessman replied and the phone went dead.

Sometimes there’s a method to such madness. I was puzzled when a plumber told me he wouldn’t leave the house for less than £50 an hour. Knowing his competition was charging a fraction of that I queried his fee. He told me bluntly; try calling one in the early hours of the morning.

Another irony learned through experience is that the most talented earn the least. Mozart was among many gifted musicians and artists who struggled to make ends meet.

Jacques Offenbach was one of many successful theatre impresarios but many of the tunes attributed to him were purchased for coppers from penniless songwriters.

A ceramic wares retailer was dismayed when having acquired a dozen beautiful vases no one wished to purchase them. That was until my friend increased their prices tenfold at which point, they quickly sold.

Is there a strategy to avoid such madness? Yes, remember; it is a bargain only if you wanted it in the first place. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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