bored of excitement: the griefjunkie blog

Through Streets Broad And Narrow

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:01:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

I spend more time than most people wheeling a barrow full of stock around London, either on the way to Greenwich market, or dropping stuff off at Leadenhall or Camden. Even if I'm not going to a market, I wheel it around anyway, to show how working class I am.

My barrowcraft is excellent. I can spin it by standing on one tyre and pushing off with the other leg, in order to get it facing the right exit on crowded Northern Line carriages, and glide on and off escalators like a horrible man swan. Less finesse is required when crossing the concourse at Liverpool Street station, especially at night, when it's just office blokes who have spent the evening in All Bar One or whatever doing tequila shots, yelling along to My Sex Is On Fire and trying to shag yoghurt guzzling desk weepers from admin called Jo who live in Godless new build estates in, I dunno, Chiswick Park or something, and who don't own a single album that isn't a compilation. At times like this, I eminate poverty, impatience, and a complete lack of public liability insurance, so yeah, wander about wherever you like, but forget your vintage car track day if 170 lbs of market trader pushing 140 lbs of stock ploughs into you by the Cornish Pasty Company.

[Hitting read more now will reveal further adventures at the helm of the hardest working barrow in London]

Swaying Gourmet On Junction Road

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Reading while drunk is one of the most annoying things you can do, as your eyes just roll around all over the page like marbles on a tray. I found myself doing this on the Northern Line recently, immediatley prior to tackling Junction Road in the uncertain but nonetheless determined manner of a gentleman who has consumed eight pints of snakebite in the George on Borough High Street. I may well have been nodding in agreement with the book as I read in order to maintain the air of quiet dignity for which I am noted among my peers.

Pinballing my way out of Archway tube, I was horried to find that Panic Kebabs - north London's home of deluxe artery-deleting post pub snackery for the discerning but incoherent, (and for the record, actually called Planet Kebabs) - was closed for the first time since the late middle ages. I once stated before the House of Commons that I would not set foot in Archway Kebabs, on the other side of Junction Road, even if it was the only part of the world not on fire. This left me, masquerading in my late night guise as the Swaying Gourmet, with Chicken Spot, next to the Lion on the corner of Holloway Road.

[Hitting Read More will reveal north London food adventures]

Slow Saturday At Greenwich Market

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:52:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

General disdain at the quality of available Hillmans* is the perogative of the market trader, or, as I am rebranding myself over the next few months, the gentleman retailer. Therefore,'If I sell you this, will you go away?' is now my standard offer to disinterested and/or uninspiring browsers.

It's horses for courses, though. Looking like Yoda doesn't necessarily make you wise, as I pointed out to some old bint this weekend, shrunken from a lifetime of pouring out scorn, as she picked over our stall in the manner of someone retrieving a bus pass from a pile of dog turds.

(*Hillman Hunters - Punters)

[Hitting Read More will reveal secrets of the free market economy and Beastie Boys related kitchenware sales]

Fame At Last

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:21:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Yeah I was setting up my stall at Greenwich last Saturday when a woman, who had been watching me wrestle with hangers and clips and stock for some time, came over. 'I've been following your work for years' she said, 'and I've always hated it'.

I've never been complimented and slagged off at the same time before, and it is a bewildering experience, let me tell you. It's like if you laugh and sneeze simultaneously - a third thing needs to happen to equalise the situation, like wetting yourself. In the event, all I could muster by way of a reply was 'Well, thanks for hanging in there' which I said to her very-pleased-with-itself 'I Am Not A Plastic Bag' holdall as she walked off.

The slightly odd thing is, though, that unless you actually know me personally or follow these posts pretty closely it is quite difficult to work out what it is I actually do. I didn't recognise her, so she must be among the hundred or of kind people who have nowhere else to go and read this on a regular basis. Assuming that this is the case, I'd like to extend a hearty Hello Piss There Off to you, wherever you are, by way of a welcome and a go fuck yourself.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal further bewilderances, among other things]

The Great Chip Paper Ritual

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:19:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Yeah, no one knows how Stonehenge and the other stone circles were built, or what they are made of, or what shape they are. They are a total mystery, like where the Loch Ness Monster has gone. There's all the smaller mysteries as well, with which I'm sure we are all familiar ie where are my doorkeys, why do I bother clinging to life, and I dunno why is there a lion in my kitchen, and so forth.

However, for me, the greatest mystery of all took place in the area of spatial uncertainty where the worlds of mass transit, chips, Leeds and football overlap. It doesn't concern football itself, but an incident that used to happen on the way to the football, and immediately after a great deal of chips had been consumed.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal a load of stuff about, as you might expect, chips and such]

The Unwitting Office Ladies Of Gracechurch Street

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

One of the features of Tony and I's unlikely kitchenware alliance is the very different way in which we interact with the apron-buying public. On our Leadenhall Market pitch, Tony addresses the office ladies who form the backbone of our weekday trade in the manner of a drunken uncle at a Christmas party. Even though he's saying yeah, well this is a cotton drill catering quality apron, printed by us, and so on - all of which is perfectly reasonable information to offer a prospective customer - you can hear in his voice, if you listen closely, 'You're only fourteen? You've certainly grown! When you go on holiday, do you enjoy wearing a bikini?' and all that. He's like a fucking mantis or something. If he even touches himself inappropriately, it counts as assault. I tend to think that, for a lady, although an evening out with Tony would certainly not end up with being drugged, rolled in carpet, and dumped over a cliff, you would have to pretend to be interested in an awful lot of highly specialised pornography before getting the nightbus home. That said, his Unfriendly Soviet Wife doesn't seem to mind, and the Leadenhall pitch is justifying itself, so shop on, unwitting office ladies of Gracechurch Street.

Leadenhall Market is posh and a bit creepy, so it is entirely fitting that Tony runs our stall there on Thursdays and Fridays. Currently, he is setting up outside a derelict fishmongers, the face of which is so generally done in as to suggest that he has leapt through the front of the building with the stall intact, brushed plaster and brickdust from his early 1980's social worker haircut, and started selling aprons. Still, haircuts like that freed Nelson Mandela and tore down the Berlin Wall, so they are not to be underestimated.

[Hitting read more now will reveal how to deal with the general public in an efficient manner, among other things]

Festivities By The Thames

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:33:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

For me, the transition between summer and autumn marks a sartorial shift between my summer outfits - which, if shorts are involved, make me look like a scoutmaster you wouldn't trust - and my winter clothing, which makes me look like an unsuccessful pirate. This year, however, it also marks our only outing into the festival season, with an appearance at the Thames Festival, this coming weekend, with our lavish aprons and kitchenware selection.

Trading at festivals is awesome. The last full season I did was in 2005, and consisted of eleven festivals in fourteen weeks, starting at WOMAD. Here, I got politely asked to leave a rendition of Korean folk songs for shouting 'Play something we know' after every twenty minute number, all of which sounded like the noise a cat would make if you used one to beat out a mattress fire. I also annoyed some Nice Earnest People in the Free Tibet tent by pointing out that I'd thought that Tibet was one of the Wombles until China invaded it. The people of Tibet have a lot to thank me for, as throughout the weekend I decided to test the sincerity of the middle classes by doing all our shirts for a tenner. Anything you wanted to pay over a tenner went to Free Tibet. Anything less than a tenner, I made up the difference on and donated to the Chinese military. It was a good weekend for the denial of basic education or healthcare to a larger populace in order to prop up an backward looking unelected theocratic elite too, as Tibet got about £150, so quite a victory for, I dunno, people power, probably.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal rioting tips for beginners and the miracle of conception, among other stuff]

Richfield Road Incident

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:54:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

On the 23rd of August, 2002, at about midday, I was on a bus turning right out of Blandford Road onto Hartland Road, in the Whitley Estate, Reading, where I lived at the time, on the way to Reading Festival. I dunno if you've ever noticed, but bus drivers will usually wave at or generally acknowledge each other when they pass on the open road. Well, that happened here. As a bus, the 21 I think, was coming down Hartland Road - which is quite a steep hill, climbing to Northumberland Road , from where the world is your oyster - the driver of my bus, the 5, waved at his oncoming colleague. Instead of casually waving back, the other driver threw his arms across his face and pretended to be helpless and screaming, as if at the wheel of a runaway vehicle. I was in an ideal position to see this, sitting directly behind the driver of my bus, and I giggled all the way to town, with the Vines on my Sony Discman.

It was still quite early when I arrived at Reading station. Zpoonz was there and Omar 'He's Making Eyes At Me' Khan was there. Geraghty was there. Possibly Ladyboy, although I can't remember now, and some friends of Zpoonz's who I didn't see again until I bumped into them earlier this year on the Cambridge Heath Road. Zpoonz was wearing some comedy spectacles fashioned from drinking straws that he was convinced would give him cancer, although he enthusiastically balanced this potential flaw against the fact that they only cost a quid, and that you could actually drink through them.

[Hitting Read More will reveal all kinds of stuff, among other things]

Reverse Fertilisation At London Bridge Station

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:27:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

If you are a casual trader at Greenwich, you have to be outside the market office at half past eight - or, as my God daughter would doubtless have it - parp parp apes. As you might expect, a gentleman trader of my considerable standing within the London casual retail sector does not have to mingle with the proles. I can wander in at nine o'clock if I want, thereby avoiding the distressing scenes as they are stripped, hosed down with powerful disinfectants, beaten dry by thugs and thrown, naked, onto their pitches.

Being a solid professional, however, I still like to get in around eight, so I can set up nice and early, and chat to the locals walking their dogs. I also like to have coffee and a doughnut from the place by the traffic lights while chatting to Danny and the other traders. Not long ago, in the run up to the recent West Ham v Millwall game, I walked in there in my West Ham shirt, and asked for coffee as usual. The bloke behind the counter asked if I wanted sugar, to which I replied in the affirmative.

The remarkable next thing that happened was that the bloke said - and I'll ask you to ensure that any children are safely out of the room at this point - 'You can get it yourfuckingself, you West Ham cunt'. It's difficult to know what to do under those circumstances, so I mentioned that I thought my cup might be leaking, poured my coffee on the floor, and walked out throwing the now empty cup back over my shoulder as I did so. It did look pretty cool, yes. There's never a dull moment with such a Pavlovian hatred as exists between West Ham and Millwall, and the only surprising thing about the the rioting that occurred before, throughout, and after the game on Tuesday was that, eventually, it stopped.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal class issues in modern Britain, as well as the selection process for London Bridge staff, among other things]

Anxiety On The Streets Of London

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:13:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

'She's Scottish. Yeah baby she's Scottish.' So sang Bananama in their hit single 'I'm Your Venus', used most recently in the Gilette lady razor adverts. I am reminded of this every time I go to buy a newspaper from the bloke in the paper shop near Greenwich Market, who unaccountably has them mingled in among the fags and rolling tobacco. I'm not one to gossip but I think he records cctv footage of female customers and then puts it on the internet.

That probably isn't true, although I'll ask you to assume that it totally is, because he just looks the sort, and I can't see why you'd want to look like the sort of person who records cctv footage of female customers and puts it on the internet if you weren't actually the sort of person who does record cctv footage of female customers and put it on the internet. It would be like habitually walking around with a ladder and a bucket of water, but not actually being a window cleaner. There would be absolutely no point.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal exciting, and at the same time, not excting, times in south London]

The Fat Majorettes

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:12:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

Last year, my summer holiday consisted of watching twenty bored labradors being led around a field to Solitary Sister by Seal, in the pissing rain. Afterwards, I spent an hour talking to some Star Wars hobbyists in a tent, and fruitlessly entered a raffle.

This year has been, if anything, even more exciting. It has thus far consisted of having a Slush Puppy and watching some fat majorettes in unfortunate leotards twirling and thumping along to the theme tune of Match of the Day. One of them was asthmatic, and appeared to be playing her inhaler. I suppose that if she had really been getting into the spirit of things she could've thrown it behind her back and over her head and all that, but considering one of her comrades was actually on the phone, I for one am willing to forgive her.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal smoking secrets for the suave adolescent, among other things]

Ten Letter Words In Greenwich Market

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:49:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Notorious Camden Lock East Yard toothbrush sceptic Pikey Dave once informed me, in an offhand manner reminiscent of someone reading the big easy letters on a chart at the opticians, that he wanted to 'fight women.' It remains one of the most remarkable conversational snippets of my life. Not so much a raconteur as a random word generator, he also once snatched a crossword from me on the fairly random basis that 'it could never work.' If memory serves I subsequently whiled away the afternoon leaving lighted matches on his stall while trying to distract him long enough for a handbag fuelled fire to break out.

It's a different matter at Greenwich, where Danny, a fellow trader, and I can usually wrap up the Times2 crossword between us over the course of a Saturday. Danny is an ardent atheist. I thought that having an atheist on board while doing a crossword would be handy, as, considering that he has somehow managed to solve the central philosophical questions of human existence - ie why are we here and is there a God - a ten letter word for plant or shy person would be comfortably within his grasp. It wasn't on Saturday - the answer is wallflower, of course, and I got it in the end - but I cheered him up by reminding him that life is pointless and unmagical, and that the sum of human creativity and endeavour has only come about because we are a mutant species of over evolved intergalactic space fungus.

[Getting on Read More now will reveal more crosswordal shenanighans, among other things]

thursday post

Tue, 11 Feb 1930 00:00:00 GMT

Trading away at the market at the weekend, I overheard a mother engaging her very small child in the classic 'I Spy' observational pastime. 'I spy, with my little eye' she began, offering the traditional rhyming couplet opening gambit, 'something beginning with 'B''. 'Because' answered the child, displaying either an idiotic misinterpretation of the rules, or the remarkable Sixth Sense-like ability to see prepositive conjunctions. This occurred shortly after I was asked by the management if I would like to help out settling new traders, as they are bit overwhelmed at the moment. I would be, I suppose, something akin to a playground monitor. They were looking for someone cheerful, confident and practical, and seemed to think I would be a good choice, which, were I not so complex, difficult and exhausting, I probably would be.

Calm Down With Me

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:34:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

To my considerable delight, it occurred to me yesterday that Come Dine With Me, when spoken in a strong Northern Irish accent, sounds a lot like Calm Down With Me, which I think would make a lovely show, possibly featuring a grandma with a pot of tea and a plate of jammy dodgers. A smiley old skool grandma, though, not one of those new style ones that look like Iggy Pop. Delving into my own family history, my grandfather once calmed down my cousin Stephen after he had rather comically stung on the nose by a wasp by placing a teabag on the affected area to 'draw out the sting'. Such is the unconditional trust placed in senior family members that it took me until literally the last week - ie a full quarter century - to work out what you may already have spotted, which is that this is bollocks.

Those of you with very long memories will recall my grandfather as a man who not only shot one of his own ears off by accident but made German air raids even more annoying for my grandmother by endlessly repeating the same admittedly quite funny joke over and over again until she threatened to walk out into the firestorm, find a solicitor, and divorce him.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal reasonably interesting tourist attractions, ineffective swine flu precautions, and sundry other items]

Can You Hear Me, Tony Fletcher?

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:38:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

I'm sure we all know how difficult it is to sell kitchenware when you have blood pouring from your mouth like an ebola victim. This was, however, my predicament last Sunday at Greenwich Market after I cut my tongue quite badly while licking soy sauce from a pair of scissors I had been using to eat sushi with. I was going to just carry on and not mention it, or say that yeah I do spit blood when I talk, it's traditional, or I just like doing it, and see if anyone took offence. Or I dunno offering a light bulb and saying you really should try one of these, they're delicious, or something.

It would in any case hardly have deterred my favourite visitor of the weekend, a bloke from Saudi Arabia who stops by for a natter whenever he is in the area. I like him a lot as he is a good giggle and always offers me peanuts, as if I am an elephant, chimpanzee, or other personable zoo animal. He was particularly taken with an apron of ours which has I Only Cook When I Drink on it - one of Tony's designs - which he got for his wife. 'The funny thing is', he said between peals of delighted laughter, 'that if she ever did actually drink she would be taken outside and stoned to death!' which demonstrated the lighthearted side of Sharia Law which is always there, twinkling away beneath the surface.

[Hitting read more will reveal apparant heroin addiction and inattentive biographers]

I Saw An Image Of A Ghostly Dog In That Room You Were Just In

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:05:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

On my phone, I have a template which says 'I saw an image of a ghostly dog in that room you were just in', which I regularly send in to Most Haunted Live, hosted by Yvette Fielding, who you want to punch in the face, apologise to, and then punch in the face again. I do this because I watch a distressing amount of late night telly, to the extent that I now use Most Haunted Live as an admittedly fairly limited social networking site. "I saw the image of a ghostly dog in the room you were just in' is my calling card, or screen name I suppose, and it has been on the horizontal scrolling text at the bottom of the screen loads of times, although I manifest variously as Paul from London, Paul from Middlesborough, and sometimes would you believe Paul from Margate. I like to do this, as it gives me an air of Scarlet Pimpernel-like mystery, which I think you'll agree only enhances to my generally raffish and dashing persona.

Anyway. That's a Friday night for me, making up the same spectral canine over and over again and texting it in to Most Haunted Live. I do, however, have a bit of history in this field as a mate of mine and I still have an outstanding £100 wager on who can get a letter - which must contain the word 'Hubby' - into the 'Aren't Men Daft?' column of, I think, Take A Break magazine. I assume that the thing readers of Take A Break magazine are taking a break from is reading other magazines very similar to Take A Break, as they don't look like pioneering neurosurgeons or Nobel Prize winning physicists to me. They do, howver, look like the kind of people who buy tattoos as birthday presents for their mums.

[Hitting Read More now will bring forth more ghostly revelations]

Fortunately Genuine Alpaca on Junction Road

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:02:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

The two pictures to the left of this text require some explanation and scrutiny. One is of me looking perfectly normal, if a bit swarthy and knackered, taken a couple of weeks ago. Below it is a picture of me convinced I am hallucinating an alpaca on Junction Road, London N19. I am gurning a bit in the manner of Beaker from the Muppet Show, as this episode happened during a five day mini-breakdown during which I needed to be convinced that anything was actually happening at all. You are therefore looking into the face of a man who is slightly alarmed to be imagining Peruvian mammals on a north London thoroughfare, but nonetheless relieved that within minutes he will surely be strapped to something and quietly wheeled away. I did at first assume that the alpaca was simply a delivery for Ali at Planet Kebabs, however, it turns out that they regularly walk them up from the zoo as - and I quote the handler here - 'they like to get out and about'. I was going to get it an Oyster card and a season ticket for the Science Museum, but was prevented.

I am certainly sporting the haircut of a nutcase: it cost £8 and took twelve minutes, which is ideal for the self employed, but does makes me look much greyer and more clinically insane than thankfully I actually am. I suspected that I was not in for a scalp symphony, follicle feast or tress party when I went into the barber's and said yeah can you flick it about a bit and feather the sides here and there a la Paul Weller circa 1981, or Steve Marriot circa 1966, only to find that every time I said anything the barber would immerse himself in a book, listen to his iPod or simply walk out of the room. Also, although he had the same photos of hairstyles and such around the walls the all barbers have, the people in his ones looked scared.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal curious goings on in Nevada, amongst other things]

Witch's Hat, Criminal Mind

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:35:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Yeah I like summer and all that, although I do eye it with the suspicious gaze of someone who, while not actually physically repellent, simply looks better the more clothes they have on. However, while I am a reluctant shorts-wearer I am an enthusiastic ice cream consumer, because I generally eat like someone whose parents have gone out for the evening.

As a child I was quite partial to Dalek lollies, which were something of a delicacy among the idiot children of Newham in the early 1980's. These consisted of mint ice cream with chocolate around the outside, and the wrapper had a Dalek cartoon story on it. Strange choice really, as mint ice cream is very grown up, and I was never into Dr Who, and therefore not scared of daleks. I remain terrified of ice lollies, though, so I don't really know what to think.

[Getting on read more will reveal genuine innovation in the field of frozen confectionary]

Fusion Cuisine and Horrible Rhyming Slang

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

I am by no means a fat gentleman - though I am reconciled to the fact that my days in the Bolshoi are behind me - and I do not therefore expect to be advised that it's 'best to stick to Diet Coke from now on' by the non-specifically south east Asian girl at Upper Crust on Liverpool Street station, from whom I buy a late breakfast every Monday morning. I think she might be Thai. In any case, if I want a muffin baguette drizzled in Fanta, it is her job to provide it, and not hand out casual dietry advice, in the same way that I don't expect to find a finger buffet at the dentist.

I accidentally called her 'babe' the other week and hated myself for most of the rest of the day. I am strictly 'sweetheart' or 'darling' when interacting with females in a casual or semi formal environment, in the manner I suppose of a window cleaner or electrician. 'Babe' makes me sound like someone who occasionally enjoys themselves, and 'hun', with which I briefly experimented, sounds a bit lezzie.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal fusion cuisine comparisons and a distressing journey in rhyming slang]

Fighting Homelessness In Southwark

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:24:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

The stretch of Borough High Street between the excellent but now derelict chip shop and the George Inn is where I first realised I was poor, when homeless people stopped asking me for spare change at London Bridge tube station. Being ignored by beggers is pretty disheartening, I can tell you. For a while, I thought I might have become a ghost.

Anyway. I was wheeling stock past the Post Office there last Friday, when a homeless bloke unexpectedly offered me a fight. I give thirty five quid a month to a homeless charity, which presented a dilemma, as I wasn't sure whether this meant that I should have a fight with him, on the basis that I have effectively paid an entrace fee of sorts, or that I shouldn't, on the basis that one of the many things that violence probably won't solve is the issue of rough sleeping in London. Also, fighting a tramp would be difficult as their major componant is stain - this particular one was in effect a bearded stain in a jacket - which may well give them some kind of special combat skill, possibly shapeshifting, and you'd have to be careful in case you got bitten.

[Getting drunk and rowdy with Read More now will reveal classic but defunct scrapping and brawling phrases]

Greenwich Hankerings And Baffling Ceramics

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:53:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

At Greenwich, I trade very near a bloke who sells hand cream which smells of roses. This is not in itself remarkable - the average rose presumably smells nicer than the average hand - however he says 'Would you like some hand cream, madam?' to every single female who passes by, and after a few hours of this, it sounds like he is saying 'Do you have a hankering, madam?' which is hardly the sort of question you ask a lady on a summer's morning.

I look after his stall quite often, and yesterday I used a discarded child's doll to demonstrate the rejuvenating effects of his hand cream by saying 'Yeah be careful with that stuff though - this lady used it every day for a year, and instead of being forty six, she's now four months old, which is awkward as she's the shadow home secretary', and so on. Looking after other peoples' stalls is always quite a larf, and makes a bit of a change from, at Camden anyway, having to spend more time than you might imagine explaining t shirts to people. There really is only so many times you can enjoy people saying to you 'Yeah, sorry, this t shirt you have here, how can a dolphin be a gay shark? They're different animals' or 'Yeah sorry, why has that Bono t shirt got Twat written across it?' and so on. Often I would either pretend that I didn't speak English or that it wasn't my stall or just say "How odd, I hadn't noticed that was hanging there, and now you come to mention it, I don't understand it either.'

[Hitting Read More now will reveal widespread point missing on behalf of the general public]

Love Among The Callipers

Mon, 25 May 2009 11:39:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Yeah I was at Greenwich last Saturday when I had a right laugh with two guys who were not only deaf, and not only disabled, but to cap it all would you believe gay with each other.   In a odd way, it was a bit like a full house in poker. I first realised that they might be deaf when they didn't hear me repeatedly saying hello to them, and I first realised that they might be disabled when I noticed that they both had wheelchairs.    They were in fact quite reminiscent of the cover of lovely old Suede's tremendous first album, which features two disabled lesbians kissing, and I was tempted to break into a couple of verses of Animal Nitrate, but thought that they probably get that all the time.    However, if my experience in casual retail is anything to go by, disabled people are usually quite a giggle.   Indeed, it was a wheelchair fan who supplied me with my single favourite moment of market trading, when a bloke with cerebral palsy bought one of our 'Help! I Can't Speak Properly!' baby bibs, because, you see, he literallly couldn't.    I suppose that if you find yourself in a wheelchair, you can afford to lighten up a bit, as things are hardly likely to get any worse.

Anyway.   At some length, I suggested that they get their wheelchairs welded together for added romance, which they agreed would save a fair amount of tyre expenditure, and also remarked at how lucky they were to each find a fella with a thing for deaf disabled guys.    Otherwise, as I pointed out, they would have been like two ships that got pushed past each other in the night.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal dismal tales from a fun pub in Slough]

Cookery for Crackheads, and Trout-based Sports

Sat, 16 May 2009 19:23:29 GMT

Dear Rachel,

Yeah I had a nice chat with a bloke at Greenwich on Sunday, whose job was to teach cookery skills to people coming off crack in Kingston, Jamiaca. Ironically, I've been trying to get Pikey Dave back on crack for a laugh for the last two years, but decided it would be inappropriate to mention this. Anyway, it turns out that, amid all the hallucinations, cold sweats, and screaming, a person coming off crack can whip up a mean butternut squash, lemon sorbet or Spanish omelette, providing of course they are kept away from knives, guns, or drugs. Or, come to think of it, recipes involving knives, guns, or drugs. Anyway, he was a nice bloke, and bought three aprons from the stall for his shivering maniacs. The thought that there are Yardies coming off crack via choux pastry while wearing aprons with Soups Upside Your Head, How Spoon Is Now? and I See Bread People printed on them - my kitchenware tributes to the Gap Band, the Smiths and Sixth Sense respectively - will bring me lasting pleasure.

[Hitting up Read More now will reveal how many years aircraft carriers have been going, and how kicking trout can while away an afternoon]

Cigarettes and Alcohol

Sun, 10 May 2009 23:06:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

It's not that I don't like Camden, it's just that I don't like Camden. Or rather, I like a lot of the people who trade there, from the familiar Spastics Parade in the East Yard to the darker recesses of the Stables Market where I am known to traders of Asian origin as 'Mr Paul' - which gives me the air of smouldering mystery that I really rather like - but overall Camden is grim. It's like a joke with no punchline, or rather, a sentence that you expect to be a joke, but then isn't, but that you feel you have to laugh at anyway. Oddly enough, it is the newer bits that everyone always whines will destroy the character of the place that are the best, because they are destroying a character that was in dire need of a good destroying. I'm not sure I am entirely in favour of the huge shopping mall they are building behind Cyberdog, but whatever, most of the people who claim to love the character of Camden Market do all their shopping in New Look anyway, and the new development will give them the opportunity to do both at once.

That said, I do like the place more since discovering that the Britpop fued between Blur and Oasis was sparked by Noel and Liam Gallagher jostling Alex James while he was at the urinal in the Good Mixer, and causing him to piss on his shoes. I learned this from John Harris' excellent The Last Party, about the fantastic British popular music scene of the 1990's, which was centred around Camden Town.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal entertainments guaranteed to bring delight to any social occasion]

It's Kicked Off On The Train!

Wed, 06 May 2009 12:10:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

I'm sure most of us have at one time or other accidentally started a riot, and I found myself discussing my experience in ths area over the weekend. This is a bit of a cheat of a blog, as I wrote it in my Livejournal at the time, but as far as I am aware there is no law against plagarising yourself, so I am going to write it again here:

I was quietly minding my own business on the train coming back from trading at Camden, when at Ealing Broadway a load of Chelsea piled on being generally loud and boisterous. Not behaving in an especially aggressive way, just making a lot of noise and being a bit lairy between themselves. A couple of anti West Ham chants (I was wearing a West Ham shirt) but nothing especially nasty. Mainly, a reworking of the Oliver Twist classic Chim Chimeny, with the line about sweeps replaced with 'We hate those bastards in claret and blue'. Ideally, I would have responded with a common reworking of the Crystal's nonsensical 1963 hit Da Do Ron Ron, with the the chorus changed to 'The Chelsea run run, the Chelsea run', but I would have felt a bit strange launching into it on my own. As creative as football chants can be, they are not ideally suited to solo rendition. Anyway, things escalate a bit, until inevitably one of them chucks an empty can at one of the others. Then they are all throwing stuff at each other. You might already see where this is going.

[Scuffling with Read More at this point will reveal clever tricks for out thinking would-be assailants at suburban train stations]

Terry Scott meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:07:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

As a Beatles obsessive from a very early age, I know that 'Komm gib Mir Deine Hand' is German for I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Also, while I wouldn't swear to it, I think that 'Schlaufe vorbei interessiere ich nicht, was Ihr Gesicht wie aussiehts' is also German, this time for 'Bend over, I don't care what your face looks like'. I once overheard Tony explaining this to Slack Matt as I wandered around the East Yard, and while it is not a sentence that I need to employ every day, I do get a tiny bit of squalid pleasure from knowing that I know it.

[Hitting Read More will reveal - at last - the hidden meaning of the Kink's Waterloo Sunset]

Hot Cutlery and Turning Into Gandalf

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:11:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

If you get a teaspoon, immerse it for some time in very hot water, and then drop it down the back of someone's trousers while they are talking to someone on their market stall, they jump about in a manner strongly reminiscent of Riverdance, while really, really swearing. Also, because no one expects to have scalding cutlery in their underwear at, well, any time of day really, it also creates a lovely cartoon effect as the moments when a) you are happy that you have underwear which is free of scalding cutlery and b) you realise that actually you don't, converge, rather like when Tom realises that Jerry has set his tail alight again.

I did this to Pikey Dave as a Christmas present last year. A surprising side effect was that the resultant string of imaginatively arranged obscenities was the loudest ever heard in the United Kingdom. If you listen carefully you can still hear two w*kers and a c*nt reverberating under the canal bridge even now, four months later.

[Bitch slapping Read More now will reveal what happens when you unexpectedly channel Gandalf while ordering coffee]

Constant Asthma, and solving the Ripper case

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:26:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

Yeah I can't see the point of having asthma, but I occasionally get a version of it when sprinting for overland trains at Greenwich station after trading. I refer to it as Constant Asthma, and you get it by charging for a train and launching yourself onto the carriage with seconds to spare before the half hour wait for it to actually leave starts. Trying to maintain an air of quiet dignity under these circumstances is quite a trick, and I instead favour slumping red faced against the window, trying not to vomit, and gasping like a sex pest. People will look at you in a slightly curious manner as you recover, which is when you'd like to explain that actually you breathe like this all the time, no matter what you are doing - washing your hair, playing chess, anything - because you suffer from Constant Asthma, hence the phrase. An attack of Constant Asthma can usually be avoided by getting on the Docklands Light Railway, which leaves every eight minutes, and I think I shall do this in future.

[Hitting Read More now will - somewhat remarkably - sort out the identity of Jack the Ripper]

The General Public and Telescopes

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:42:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

I have latterly arrived at the conclusion that while the general public are a harmless and usually quite friendly bunch, the majority of them spend the greater part of their lives in one of two states: bafflement, or surprise. When dealing with them in a casual retail environment, which is what we spend a lot of time doing, it is best to imagine them to be a large coach party of special needs children on a day out. In fact, I sometimes think that Britain is a sixty million seater Sunshine Variety coach on its way to the seaside for a day of dropped ice creams and tragic bonhomie. An example at Tony's antique stall at Greenwich last Saturday will illustrate this.

Tony's stall offers for sale antique pocket watches, sundials, telescopes, and bakelite rotary dial telephones with the lovely purring noise that now Belongs to History. It is the telescopes with which we are primarily concerned. Tony pointed out to me in an exasperated fashion how people would pick up the telescopes - which it is worth pointing out, are clearly marked as telescopes - extend them, in the way you might well do when about to use a telescope, and then look at something right in front of them. I saw more than one person testing a telescope by looking through it at their hands. 'It's a telescope, not a contact lens' you want to shout 'Look at something far away.' I fully expectwd someone to hand one back to him and complain that it tasted funny. It's a good job there was a better understanding of what telescopes actually do in the Age of Exploration, or Sir Francis Drake would have sailed round and round Plymouth harbour, endlessly discovering stuff that was three feet away.

[Making Read More your bitch will reveal more reluctant voyeurism on the Underground and tales of automotive deprivation)

Making Your House Look Possessed

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:46:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Greenwich Market is great for dogs, and I saw a lovely one at the weekend. It was a largish Jack Russel terrier which was sharing a buggy with a small child. I was drawn to the animal's remarkable sang-froid, which it maintained despite having it's ears chewed enthusiastically by its happily toothless infant companian. The dog's expression was the same as that which might fall across the face of someone pausing by the front door, trying to remember if they've put their keys in their bag or left them on the kitchen table. It was certainly happy enough - I got the impression that this sort of thing happened to him a great deal - but seemed to be aware of some inner wolf howling at him and wondering why he wasn't running with the rest of the pack in an Alpine forest somewhere. The child seemed at times to be trying to climb into his hairy friend, with whom he would celebrate kinship by hugging him on the face. Later, I saw a mongrel called Bisto fighting a carrot on Nelson Road. Dogs are excellent.

[Slapping Read More now will reveal further dog secrets, and how to make a small house in Reading appear to be possessed by Satan]

Antisocial Networking

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:53:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Sunday evenings usually consist of piling into the Duke of Wellington public house on Toynbee Street after trading to rest, recuperate, and in my case, bully food out of androgynous ladyfaced girlboy Chris, with his lovely soft skin like a baby deer. Most of the early evening is taken up with putting the world to rights. By nine o'clock, the world is completely righted and we can start on the other planets. By chucking out time we have Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury pretty much done and dusted. If Uncle Vinny, who runs the place, ever gets a 24hr licence, it is entirely possible that we would not go home for several days, and just emerge blinking and hungover one Thursday morning to give a press conference in return for tea and fried egg sandwiches, when we have discovered the meaning of life and the existence of God.

[Hitting up on Read More will reveal Facebook observations among other things]

All Aboard The Groovy Train

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:49:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

I was on the Northern Line the other day, going from London Bridge to Camden Town, when I encountered one of the most distressing of all London Underground species: Spontaneous Comedy People. These are usually drama students or something who see it as their mission to entertain everyone on the entire carriage. They are the poor relations of flashmobbers, who are in turn the poor relations of self satisfied fucktards. Well, some flashmobs are alright. I liked the Tony Hart one, which was a lovely thing. But mainly all flashmobbers want to do is show you what a simply marvellous time they are having. Look at those ones on the T Mobile ad, all dancing at Liverpool Street Station. Al Queda must be kicking themselves, as if they had chosen that day to blow the place up instead of July 7th, Bin Laden would be Prime Minister by now.

Flashmobbers remind me of the aunt at the birthday party when you are about 11 who keeps trying to make you dance to Toploader when really all you want to do is sit quietly all evening without having to be seen doing anything at all. In fact, Dancing In The Moonlight would be an ideal theme tune for a flashmob, as it is probably the most hatefully smug song ever written, with it's horrible door bell plinky plinky bit at the beginning. In 2002, I walked out on a first date with a girl who had it as a ringtone, on the very correct assumption that the relationship needed to be strangled at birth. I think I said that I was a diabetic and had left my insulin in the car, feeling that this was unromantic enough to kill the atmosphere without being overly gross, and made my exit post haste. I actually slightly have vague diabetes - I'm more of a diabetic sympathiser than an actual diabetic - but I don't need insulin supplements in any format. I also don't have a car, so it was a pretty big fib.

[Getting on a Read More tip will reveal happy travelling on the London Underground]

Greenwich, Camden, and skiving in the East Yard

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:38:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Traditionally, south London is where north Londoners send ugly or diseased people, or those who have mental illnesses like childbrain, or the one where you are an adult, but still have baby limbs. It's the condom in the cornflakes of the greatest city on earth. Happily, I have recently discovered that there is more to south London than rubbish public transport and floral tributes to adolescent stab victims written in text speak. This is in the form of Greenwich Market, where I have been trading for the last couple of weeks. Today, I made friends with an Airedale terrier called Clancy and traded next to a couple of ladies called Wendy and Shandy, who, despite having names like a backing singer duo, actually sell scarves.

[Getting on Read More will reveal East Yard babywear memories, among other things]

Cold weather and the Innuendo Postman

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

I show mad skills in cold weather, including the useful wearing carrier bags inside your shoes, which is an old market trader's trick, as is standing on cardboard, or sitting on newspaper, all of which are far more effective than they sound. Also, clothes-wise, I will wear two t shirts, two jumpers, a hoodie, a scarf, thermal leggings - which, I have to say, leave NOTHING to the imagination - my new fleecy hat and thick gloves. This outfit also helps to combat boredom while travelling home on the Underground, as by the time you get to Tufnell Park, you'll have fainted from heat exhaustion.

[Hitting up Read More will reveal a blizzard of innuendo, euphemism, and double entendre]

Mistaken, once again, for a bear on the northern line

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:57:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

I was on the tube last Thursday, clattering along under the Pentonville Road and heading into the City, when I became the centre of attention for a very small and highly animated child. 'It's OK', said her mother, struggling to contain the squirming infant, 'She thinks you're a bear'.

Amazingly, this is the second time in three months that I have been mistaken for a bear by delighted children, and is the reason that I have decided to shave my beard off. With the benefit of hindsight, this wasn't an inspired move immediately prior to standing around outside as gales and blizzards howl around Camden Lock, but it was either that or reach the inevitable point where toddlers would be offering me jars of honey and drawings of Eeyore as I battle through Moorgate with the weekend's stock

[Clicking Read More now will reveal inept beard related comedy jibes by East Yard observational wizard, Pikey Dave]

Daytime drinking for the thrifty, and flint teeth

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:16:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

I am sitting on a sofa at three in the afternoon, drinking a can of lager. I have never done this before, and it makes me feel glamourous, like a wino. Still, you can't really afford not to drink the afternoon away when you can get eight cans of Carlsberg for a fiver on Junction Road. I genuinely am only drinking this as there is no Coke in the flat and lager is cheaper, healthier and makes everything you do totally brilliant. Fortunately, I have to nip down the East End and talk to some people in a bit before stopping off at Camden on the way home to talk to some other people, thus avoiding what may have very easily turned into an impromtu all day solo drinking session. I can think of few things more depressing than sitting in a silent flat under a filthy January sky, drinking can after can of competitively priced lager - price wise it's competing with milk and food for fucks' sake - and passing time online until ten o'clock finally comes round and the weeping starts. Bloody hell. I bet that sort of thing happens to people all the time.

(Yeah hitting Read More now will reveal excellent plans for replacing Pikey Dave's teeth with mineral quartz deposits and a public reassurance that I am not, at time of writing, an alcoholic]

Mad Eleanor Davies, cold Yards, and why totally different places are unalike.

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:35:00 GMT

Dear Rachel.

Yeah I was on a train today reading the fantastic Catherine Arnold's history of - yes, that's right - the mentally ill in medieval and late-medieval London, and there was a bit about my favourite mentalist, Eleanor Davies, who was totally spasmodic. Davies claimed that, because she could anagramatically extract the words 'Reveal, O Daniel!' from her name, she was therefore blessed with prophetic powers. Armed with this excellent reasoning, she would accost people around what is now Liverpool Street Station and tell their fortunes, which were always rubbish, for money. She became something of an annoying celebrity, until in 1633, she was eventually arrested. In court, it was pointed out that an anagram of her full title - Dame Eleanor Davies - was 'Never so mad a ladiee', at which point she was locked up in Bedlam for eight years. Job done.

[Hitting 'Read More' mow will reveal tricks to combat the cold when trading outdoors, and - at last - why Englsnd is colder than Australia]

Jack Magnets, boredom in the Yards and, surprisingly, Motown

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:40:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

Yeah I dunno how Camden has a reputation for glamour when some of the specimens of womanhood that caught Jack's eye as we traded together in the Cobbled Yard recently would have been more at home annoying the postman or catching frisbees in their teeth.

When ladying, Jack's technique is, I assume, to go up to a girl and say 'Yeah hi, I've been looking at you for some time and plucking up the courage to come over and say hello, but now I'm here I just want you to know that you look fantastic, your hair is amazing, and when you smile you light up the room. Anyway, I was just wondering if you have any considerably less attractive and much, much stupider sisters you could set me up with?', because some of these lovelies look like they would have gone on Stars In Their Eyes back in the day and said 'Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Les Dawson.'

[You might want to hit Read More now, to learn the secret of Jack Magnets, and the lead singer of the Crystals in 1963]

Happily, the secret of civilisation

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:44:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

I was catching a train at Slough last year, and for some reason it had been delayed, or hijacked, or cancelled, or they might just have not fancied running it at the actual correct time, or something. On the whole, the service from Slough, where my sainted mother lives, into London Paddington is pretty good. In any case, I find that trains are alright if you are not too bothered about what time you actually need to get to where you're going. The trick is to travel off peak, get a good book and don't be hungry when you get on, or you'll get well stroppy once the signal failures, track side equipment problems and freight trains blocking the line kick in and you find yourself staring out of a window at a tiny bit of West Drayton for an hour, bored and hungry and wishing that slaughter was legal.

[Hitting Read More now will reveal suggestions for signage at Colchester station, and, remarkably, the secret of civilisation]

Adventures of the kebably kind, and a new baby in the world.

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:24:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

I looked in the mirror this morning, and was disconcerted to find that I didn't have a reflection. No one wants to find out that they are a vampire before breakfast, and I was relieved to find that actually, the mirror in question was the door of what I hadn't previously realised was a cupboard, which had been opened slightly and was reflecting at a different angle than usual. Discovering that I had attained supernatural status during the night would have been particularly hard to bear, considering that I had spent most of it wrestling with Goliath 12, our griefjunkie mainframe computer, which appears to have melted. It certainly isn't working anymore, however it isn't the disaster it would have been once upon a time considering we are pretty much wrapping up our East Yard operation this weekend.

(You might want to click on Read More now, for baby and drugs news)

Reluctant voyeur on the Central Line

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:48:00 GMT

Dear Rachel

Yeah I was on London's underground tube rail network this morning on the way to Convent Garden market when I found that, due to overcrowding on the Central Line, I was actually in someone's kiss. Or, more correctly, two peoples' kiss. Like, you would usually think yeah, get a room, however I very much got the impression that these two already had a room, and had spent a lot of time in it, probably immediately prior to getting on the network. I actually felt that I had inadvertently walked into their room, in fact. I mean, it's nice to see and everything, two people sharing a nice moment in the midst of several hundred people sharing a horrible one, it's just that I was right in the kiss, so close were we all packed together, and I hadn't introduced myself or showered or anything.

[Hitting 'read more' now will reveal details of our combined efforts with the posh weirdo children from our East Yard compadres, Meaningless Slogan]

Happy Everything! It's 2009 look!

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:47:00 GMT

Dear Rachel,

Like many of us I'm sure, I get quite nostalgic when I imagine the smell of fried onions, fag smoke and piss, all mixed together and coming at me through freezing rain while trudging along the Barking Road. This is what going up the footie smelled like before it went all gay, and I spent an inordinate amount of my younger, better days buggering about watching my beloved yet profoundly annoying West Ham. Without wishing to be vulgar, I have always thought that being a West Ham fan is like looking at your genitals and discovering that you've contracted some horrible STD: despite being irritating, distressing and frequently embarrassing, you'd never be without them.

Traditionally suspicious of victory, West Ham have snared a massive haul of two trophies in my entire lifetime. When I was was growing up, however, they were known as a 'good cup side.' This meant that, in theory, they were good at winning the FA Cup - and with three victories in only one hundred and fourteen attempts, the facts certainly bear this out. Despite the unlikeliness of West Ham actually getting to Wembley, FA Cup Final day was, for idiot urchin children like us, the summer solstice. Or maybe it was more like a little Christmas, but in May and without presents or joy. In any case, it was certainly special: for a start, it was likely to be the only live footie you saw all year, which is strange to think about now. Also, this was before keyboards were invented, so you couldn't just download stuff or whatever. It was unreal, you would look at this fantastic spectacle which was happening only about six miles from your street, and was happening live, now, at that very moment. It was wildly exciting.

Over the actual Christmas just gone, I finally watched the 1979 FA Cup Final, between Arsenal and Manchester United. It is regarded as one of the most dramatic Finals of all time, and, as I discovered while listening closely to commentary by Brian 'Is There Something You Want To Tell Us?' Moore, and a clearly drunken Brian Clough, one of the most homoerotic. Those of you who don't want to know the final score should look away now.

[You'll be wanting to click 'read more' now, for a rambling account of a thirty year old football match]

ogm!!!1 teh animation!!111

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:31:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

I am over tired at the moment, and I know this because I happened upon the opening sequence of Bagpuss the other day and very nearly burst into tears. Bagpuss is a genuinely warm and lovely programme, although I was always a bit worried about the sepia photards of Emily that appear at the beginning, as she looked to my undeveloped mind like the ghost of a dead child. I also loved Pipkins, which featured a mental rabbit called Hartley the Hare, who looks like Basil Brush would do if he had been in the Happy Mondays. He was a wreck, and in a permanent state of decline but I loved him, like Emily loved Bagpuss. I once got very upset when I noticed that the Pipkins van had a dent in the rear door, having to be calmed down by my Auntie Beryl.

[You should do 'read more' now, and at the end I have put links to both Bagpuss and Hartley the Hare, largely for the benefit of foreign types who are unfamiliar with the English tradition of posh and/or gay children's television characters. I draw particular attention to the first link 0:58 - 1:47, in which Hartley claims to have 'beautiful ears', a 'glorious nose' and 'wildly exciting eyes'.]

ogm!!11! teh west yard!!1

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:52:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

When not at Camden, I can often be found drifting around NW1, NW5, N19, or E's 1-9 like something out of a novel by Dickens, a painting by Lowry or advert by St Mungo's Shelter for the London Homeless. Like any Englishman, I consider it my birthright to nip into various hostelries of my acquintance and have a swift half with the friends, associates, petty criminals, and general violence enthusiasts who comprise my social circle. I have no capacity for alcohol whatsoever, as previously discussed here on September 4th, which makes me all the more impressed with a simple drinking game common among ladies in London in the 1730s, which any ladies reading this in contemporary times might want to make a note of for the forthcoming Christmas season. The rules are like this: 1) Find two friends - this game is traditionally for three players. For authenticity, they should be called Molly or Meg or Eliza, have few teeth, raucous cackling laughs and probably work as competitively-priced prostitutes. 2) Drink gin. 3) Carry on drinking gin until two of you are dead. 4) The last lady alive is the winner. Say what you like, it knocks the shit of vodka shots, pretending to be happy, crying yourself to sleep, and being sick in your hair for a girls night out.

(You'd be better off clicking 'read more' at this point)

ogm!!11!!1 teh joint effort's!!11

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:19:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers.

Those of you familiar with the far end of the Stables Market at Camden - where, as you might recall, we had a little shop for a while - will know that venturing up the cobbled ramp in the dark and the rain is bleak, depressing, and like accidentally wandering onto the set of Bladerunner, or between the pages of George Orwell's dystopian classic 'It's 1984!'

I popped up there the other Sunday to see what was what, as I'd quite like to get our old shop back, for a lot of the newer stuff we've been mucking about with all year. There's a tarot reader in it these days, which yes, we didn't see coming. Otherwise, things are pretty much as they were. Steve Veedubs still has the shop next door, for which I paved the way by lying to the former occupant that the market was being demolished. Steve, who once drank a great quantity of his own urine, initially by mistake, is an excellent and trusted friend of the House of Griefjunkie. If, instead of writing Baloo as a lovely old clearly gay bear, Walt Disney had portrayed him as an enthusiastically flatulent ex engineer who is so gadget obsessed that he would buy a dog turd if you put a microchip in it, it would pretty much be Steve.

(You'll need to click 'Read more', and now is an ideal time)

ogm!!111! its teh german's!!111

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:06:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

I was on the quiet carriage of a train the other day, reading the Downing Street Years - which, incidentally, is the most grown up thing you can do - when a slight mishearing of a tannoy announcement lead me to believe that there was a Nazi trolley service passing through. The phrase 'at seat' (which to my relief was what the trolley service turned out to be) when uttered in a lumbering and neanderthal northern accent sounds like 'Natzee', as opposed to the correct and melodious southern 'Nartsie', and the announcer was from somewhere in the north. Bolton, Sheffield, I dunno. Somewhere. In any case, I would probably have have been in the clear, racially speaking, if it had come to checking documents and bloodlines, as I am descended from at least six generations of undiluted total fucking idiot, employed in Chatham Dockyards in Kent, or the Port of London, in London. My grandmother walked to Chatham from Whitechapel, where she is from, to get work, met my grandfather there and married him on the basis that he 'had a nice hat'. Their courtship was romantic, and involved lots of walks in Victoria Park in Mile End, during one of which they adopted a stray dog called Mickey. They also named all their subsequent dogs Mickey, and many of them enjoyed far more success and prosperity then any of their human descendants.

[There is more stuff, you need to click the easily missed 'Read More' at this point.]

ogm!!1! teh street entertainer's!1

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:27:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers,

Yeah I dunno if you remember a couple of years ago, there used to be this hunchy bloke with child legs who used to play Nowhereman all day on a sort of metal harp in the cobbled yard at Camden, right next to the pizza place. The mentally insufficient warbling Beatles classics is just the sort of thing to sharpen your apetite right up, so the pizza people must have been well chuffed. Incidentally, scandal fans will be interested to learn that all the loose change he used to get from suddenly not that hungry passers by was spent on a well known local prostitute and crystal meth afficianado, in what must have been very bleak sexual congress indeed.

ogm!!11! teh bleary idiot's!11!

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:53:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

Yeah, one of our celebrity customers is none other than telly chefess Nigella Lawson, who, as I am fond of pointing out, has two legs but, incredibly, three thighs. I was watching a show of hers the other day where she was going on about visiting some fish market in Portugal and being 'enchanted' by all the traders singing and such as they dragged the mornings' catch up to their stalls.

It prompted me to consider how enchanted she would be in the East Yard of Camden Lock at 7 am, with a bunch of not-getting-any-younger idiots blearily shouting at each other to fuck off. Usually mingling with this are the horribly juicy range of noises produced by Sammy the Orange hockling up phlegm, which sounds like a racehorse being throttled and is audible as far away as Belsize Park. I must drop Lawson an invite to pop down and see how peckish she feels after listening to twenty minutes of that, while having to contend with Dave trying to put his cock in her coffee for a laugh.

ogm!111 hear's to teh happy couple!111

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:25:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

Being a Londoner I am suspicious of air that I can't chew, I need to be mugged at least annually and if someone isn't trying to blow me up I don't feel loved. I was therefore on principle less than enthralled with having to trawl out to Gloucestershire, which could be on the moon for all I know, for Joe and Abby's wedding. The ceremony itself - over which, let's not forget, I was actually presiding - took place in the garden of Abby's uncle's house or something, and those of us who made up what was effectively the Away support for Joe had met in Bristol to await a minibus. Our progress was immediately hampered by having to hunt around for some girl who nobody actually knew and was only known by her description, which was 'very fat'. This was further complicated by the fact that, as the enormous woman in question was very sensitive about her size, no one was to make any reference at all to, I dunno, cake retention, placing armed guards around the wedding buffet, or cramming food into your face like a panicking hamster.

ogm!11 i needlessly fought teh law!11

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:23:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

Yeah, considering I don't like either honey or brandy, I was intruiged to find myself banging honey brandy shots off the bar at the Wellington at 3 in the morning with the rest of the Idiot Battalion making up Joe's stag night. It was a shambolic crew by that point, as you can probably imagine, and I had reached the point where words seemed to be too large to get out of my mouth. I have a recollection of the best man raising a glass to the happy couple and falling over, exactly like the Statue of Liberty would do, and of Piers - Joe's brother, with the title of ringbearer on the day of the wedding itself, like some kind of hobbit or whatever - shouting at a jukebox.

ogm!!!111! teh matrimony's!!11

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

I decided to escape the confines of Griefjunkie Towers and go to a county fair the other day, which is how I came to be watching fourteen sullen labradors being led around a field in the pouring rain to, improbably, Solitary Sister by Seal. I had been particularly keen to see the display of working dogs in case they were going to pull accountancy skillz out, but they had nothing more remarkable than the ability to walk slowly in a big circle, although one of them was pulling a tiny cart that had nothing in it. I am a noted dogophile and tbh cant get enough of the hairy little fools, but it was proper raining so I left them to their unenthusiastic wanderings and took shelter in the Star Wars Role Players tent till it stopped. I also entered a tombola, but won fuck all.

ogm11!!1 dinner is served!11

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:11:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

With his wedding hurtling towards us with dizzying speed, Joe has discovered that to get married in this country costs £103.50. That covers everything you need - vicar, poisonous gossip, scuffles at the buffet, and so forth - and seems a bit steep, really. It seems especially pricey when you consider that the cost of legally kicking a naked midget in the UK is just £20.

ogm!!11 teh aminal's!1

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:35:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

Yeah last night saw a short wander up the canal for those of us in the East Yard to London's popular London Zoo. They do these late opening evenings there now and then - a bit like a parents' evening I suppose, where all the animals' parents are invited in to chat to the zookeeper - and we get free tickets because we are the best. I had a hotdog and then saw a lion roar, then sneeze, then look embarrassed, and as you can imagine I was well chuffed with that.

ogm! teh identical sealed box's!!11

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:07:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers.

Like all working class people, we would rather win money than earn it.

It is this instinct which prompted me to apply to appear on Deal Or No Deal, which is the only thing guaranteed to bring life to a standstill here at Griefjunkie Towers. I am a particular fan of the bit where they get the other contestants to offer advice as to what to do vis a vis dealing or not dealing. What I want to do at this point is ask if any of my fellow contestants are versed in statistics and probability, as this will be genuinely useful advice, and will enable me to make a more informed decision. Otherwise, you just get some fat-armed old growler from, I dunno, Knaresborough, saying either a) follow your heart b) stay true to yourself or c) follow your dream, which is just a variation on a) if you ask me.

DRESS YOU'RE BABY NICE!!1

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:48:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers.

We are awaiting the screaming of tiny lungs and the constant emptying of tiny digestive systems here at Griefjunkie Towers, on account of Joe getting his dolly up the duff. (See 'ogm! teh pregnancy' blog, July 10th.)

To celebrate, we decided to whip up a range of baby bibs. They're all organic and fair trade and made by, I dunno, mermaids or whatever. Which is nice.

ogm!!11 bob in teh oxford arm's1

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:50:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers

Anyone who has found themselves wandering up Camden High Street in the bleary hour before the casual pitches are allocated will doubtless have seen what appears to be a pile of hair and dirty clothing piled against the door of the Oxford Arms.

This is none other than Bob, or Old Bob, who is a familiar sight in Camden, if only for a kind of moonwalk he does which requires no particular dance floor prowess but instead the ability to walk so very slowly behind a barrow that you appear to be moving backwards.

ogm!! the pregnancy!

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:16:00 GMT

Ahoy there, casual lovers.

Never let it be said that we're out of touch with modern parenting here at griefjunkie.

Paul never knew his own father - and is still hoping that, in a dramatic plot twist, it might be Darth Vadar - and Joe likes single mothers so much that he's actually marrying one. It's the decent thing to do really, as he's only gone and got her up the duff again - further proof of a link between ladies and pregnancy. Anyway, Abby - which is a strange name for a single mother, as they are usually called Kelly or Jade or Chelsea - had her first scan last Friday, and we can exclusively reveal that it's going to be a boy and that happily Abby is definitely the mother. All being well, Joe Jnr should be with us pretty much exactly on Christmas Day - although that is where any similarity with a virgin birth must end, as anyone who has tried to get some sleep in the room next door when she is visiting will readily testify.