bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

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]

Greenwich has everything you need, really: a maritime museum, connections to the Docklands Light Railway – which is always exciting, especially if you get the front seats, as you can pretend to be driving it – and no tourists or screeching Myspacers whatsoever. There are, however, some similarities with Camden, such as the obligatory baby wear stall with If You Think I’m Cute You Should See My Mum/Dad/Uncle/Aunt/Kidnapper or whatever, although it lacks the lovely ‘Daddy Only Wanted A Blowjob’ or questionable ‘They Shake Me’ baby shirts that Bibbsy does back in the East Yard. As I recall, the first Griefjunkie bibs were ‘If You Think I Was A Bad Idea, You Should See My Mum’s Tattoos’ and ‘Help! My Nan Is 34′, which I don’t recall selling any of, but seemed a good idea at the time.

I kind of miss the routine of Camden, though. My day would usually start by not helping Martin, the bloke who sells jewellery next to us, set up the pitch up in any way whatsoever. Instead I would go and chat about the footie with Barry the Cakes, get a couple of doughnuts, and have them by the canal lock gates while talking to Jenny, who runs up and down the towpath in the mornings. Most of the time we talk about the herons nesting at Little Venice, and my medically irresponsible approach to diabetes. So yeah, I miss all that, but it isn’t as if I’ll never be at Camden again. I’ll probably do the odd Friday here and there, and in five years time we can all get together for a reunion, like Take That.

(Ha. That advert for directgov.com was just on the telly, and it sounded like the bloke was saying ‘If you have a question, just ask Direct Gob. Asking Direct Gob would be excellent, because if you typed in, I dunno, Where is the nearest chemist?’ it would come back with ‘It’s next to the fucking library, you cockspanker’ or something.)