bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

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]

Yeah I dunno when I started doing this, but in my head London Bridge station is the Death Star. Not all of it, obviously, but the small tunnel leading to the service lift that I use to take stock up to street level. I think this came about as it actually looks quite a lot like a tunnel on the Death Star, and I always feel quite naughty using it, both of which have combined so that I am replaying the scene where Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are putting their Wookie companion, Monkeyman, into the lift to take him to the detention block or whatever. If I can get my barrow into the lift without anyone else entering the corridor, I have evaded the stormtroopers. If I don’t then, well, I’m in very hot water indeed, presumably.

It is, however, precisely this sort of daydreaming which saw me very nearly walk under a lorry on Wormwood Street yesterday, having dropped off stock at Leadenhall Market, probably because I thought I was in the opening sequence of Saturday Night Fever or something.

Photards: Top – Liverpool Street station concourse. If you’re not careful you’ll be skittling unhappy office people all over the place.

Middle – Borough Market in Roman Times. A strictly food-only market, but I am trying to blag us a pitch in there on a basis that I haven’t worked out yet, but will probably just make up as I go along.

Bottom – My old friends, the escalors at Moorgate Station. Heave trolley onto lefthand (down) escalator on Thursday, before trading starts. Go up right hand (up) escalator on Sunday after trading stops, on the way to the Duke of Wellington. Clatter down left hand escalator some time later in attempt to catch last Northern Line train home while completely pissed.

Facebook – 100 members in the Facebook Group! It’s like an unstoppably juggernaut truck. Look out When I Was Your Age There Was A Shop Called Woolworths!

Twitter – It’s odd, Twitter, isn’t it. Still undecided.