Bored of excitement – The griefjunkie blog 

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]

Whatever the questionable qualities of Tony’s approach to casual retail may be, he is unlikely to advise a customer to fuck off on the basis that she is a fat armed northern growler, or give fiscal advice along the lines of ‘Fourteen quid? Expensive? Expensive for you, yeah’ or ‘Wouldn’t spend fourteen quid on an apron? You wouldn’t spend fourteen quid on a fucking holiday’ and so forth, as I am fond of doing at key moments.

However, now that I am no longer at Camden, I do at least not have to deal with so many Spanish tourists. If your life ever falls apart and you find yourself selling things at Camden Market for a living, familiarise yourself with this exchange:

‘OW MANY EES THEES?’

‘Are you Spanish?’

‘SI’

‘It’s too expensive for you. Please go away’

…as you will quickly find that it is the most efficient way to deal with what will assuredly be a fruitless and boring conversation. I used to say this all the time, and they would just nod to convey understandment and walk off, like they already somehow knew.

Picters: Top – bored scribblings at Greenwich Market. I was discussing why people don’t like identity cards, but do like Facebook, when the latter is simply the highest and most sinister evolutionary form of the former. It was a slow afternoon.

Middle – Leadenhall Market. Dates back to the 1300’s. looks quite a lot like Covent Garden, and is used to represent London in Harry Potter films. True.

Bottom – Tony setting up at Leadenhall. I helped by taking photards, drinking coffee, and having a nice bun.

Twitter.

Facebook. Yeah, still fluctuating between 96 and 97 members. Am going to keep a list of names, and anyone I find mucking about will have to spend a long evening at Tony’s.