I am a big fan of patience. Note the lower case P. I like the virtue. This isn’t a column about some woman on Instagram I follow. We are often too quick to anger simply because we don’t get what we want straight away.

This is why the container ship Ever Given has done us all a service. You may remember it from earlier in the year when it was stuck in the Suez Canal. I am not passing judgement on the driver, I have a Yaris and I can hardly park that, but it caused a delay that is said to have cost the global economy billions.

It recently arrived in the UK, having been scheduled to get here in April. Some of the items on it include some wearable blankets, which are here just in time for the late August heatwave.

Barking and Dagenham Post: Steve Allen has not lacked any items from the Ever Given delaySteve Allen has not lacked any items from the Ever Given delay (Image: Steve Allen)

I realised while reading about the ship’s arrival that in the last four months I haven’t felt the lack of any items. If we can cope for a quarter of a year without all of the things being transported to us, maybe we don’t need them at all.

I’m not the first on to consider this point. The boss of Ikea spoke of reaching “peak stuff” a few years ago, saying that we might not need to buy more. That is a brave business position for someone who not only sells stuff but they sell cabinets, which people use to put other stuff in.

Do we really need a blanket that you can wear? The blankets you already own probably work just fine but if something is new or an upgrade we want it without needing it.

If we keep making so much stuff we could see climate change get worse and then you really won’t get much use out of that blanket.