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Animations have always been close to my heart. What fun the moving image. If I am in a shop and there is a TV showing a product, I stop to watch it.

Writing this makes me think about an outdoor shop in Leeds that ran a video of a strange product – strange to me, anyway.

It was a neckband that you twisted to convert into a hat, the kind of thing you might use climbing in the mountains.

I was never really interested in the product enough to want to buy it, but the moving image grabbed my attention and pleased me. Every time I visited the shop, I stopped to watch the video.

The video ticking along on an endless loop, demonstrating a product for which I had no thought of buying, was such a relief from the reality of things.

All troubles and concerns left me and I would watch the demonstration unfold, and then unfold again.

It wasn’t an expensive product. I could have bought it if I wanted. That makes things all the more appealing, don’t you think?

After all, who can watch a TV showing something they cannot afford, without at least some small twinge of an unwanted feeling?

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I made the animated gif in Photoshop. I had an idea to illustrate the stages in a buying process, but abandoned the idea and continued adding bits without really thinking about it.