bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Dear Rachel

‘Andy’ is a classic, solid and perfectly serviceable name, but you don’t expect to see it tattooed in Germanic script above the left knee of a steampunky girl walking through Greenwich Market.   This slightly unusual sight occurred at the end of a routine day in casual retail, and prompted Keith and I, idly watching her progress as we packed our stalls away, to embark upon a discussion of childrens’ names.   I mentioned that if I have twin daughters I want to call them Disdain and Antipathy, whereas for a son, I am leaning towards Vladimir.  Vladimir Smith – and I don’t know why – sounds like someone with a plan, someone who knows what to do and the shorter Vlad Smith variant sounds like a Communist safe cracker or a vampire from Barnet.

Marshall is the name of Danny’s English terrier, and his main role is to hang about under and around Danny’s stall, attracting fuss from angry looking women with prams and tattoos that don’t say ‘Andy’ from Peckham and Catford.   As Keith and I continued to put forward ideas for infant nomenclature, standing by this point facing the back of our stalls, he suddenly said ‘Where’s all this bloody water coming from?’ and looked up towards the roof, which he reasonably assumed to be leaking.  ‘Do you reckon it might be coming from there?’ I said, pointing at Danny, who had just walked past holding Marshall’s water bowl, which was usually full of water but mysteriously wasn’t on this occasion, as if it had just perhaps been emptied over someone.

Keith is excellent but also nuts, and tends to wind himself up.   Therefore, when he gets annoyed with stuff it is often because he is both the storm and the teacup.   He told me once that genius and madness are happy bedfellows, which of course they are, although as I told him at the time I would only think that he was a genius if it also went hand in hand with being old, fat, and having to get up three or four times in the night to spend a penny.   He’d started the day in a trying fashion when he showed Danny and I some of his latest work, which he’d printed on what he claimed was ‘…the best photographic paper money could buy’.   ‘Feel that’ he said, offering the lovely paper and asking for trouble.   ‘Does it feel like this?’ replied Danny, getting his cock out.   Most of the time when someone is going on about photography, the only way you can get through the conversation is by imagining how they’d look if you shoulder-charged them to the ground and knelt on their windpipe.   Keith talks about photography a lot but you can make it easier for yourself by saying that a particular picture is brilliant, then when he agrees – which he will – you can say that yeah it’s just the right size to get trapped wasps out of the double glazing with, or something.

Following the water incident – which I thought Keith handled rather calmly – he discovered that Danny had once again deliberately blocked him into his parking space.   Keith usually empties bins all over Danny’s car when this happens, but on this occasion he chose a different course of action by not only backing into Danny’s car, but continuing to do so until it had been pushed across the car park to a point where his further egress was unhindered, then alighting from his own vehicle, writing ‘wanker’ across Danny’s windscreen with a marker pen, and driving off.

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Photards: This weeks gems are -

Top: Bill, Keith and Fabio, early morning at Greenwich, gathered around and on my favoured pitch.  Note my roll of carpet behind Bill.  This was a present from Danny, and is useful for many reasons.  Trading on cobbles all day will quickly wreck the tendons in your legs, what with them not being a flat surface, and the carpet provides a far more comfortable platform upon which to stand.  My roll of carpet differs from Keith’s in that Danny hasn’t trained Marshall to relieve himself on it for a larf.

Middle: Bunting at Greenwich Market on the occasion of the recent royal wedding.

Lower: The lovely view from the Blue Room on Toynbee Street – a little bit of Brune Street, with the word ’slag’ written on it.