bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Dear Rachel

I wouldn’t go back to trading in Camden Market for all the teeth in China.  It has, however, been a couple of years since the good ship publicgriefjunkie fired off a broadside at the unsuspecting penniless public oozing out of Camden High Street, and it feels very natural to suddenly have a presence there again.  This remarkable turn of events has come about as a result of the union between us and Martin the Jewelery Seller, with whom we used to share a double pitch with until we left for Greenwich in early 2009.

Martin is the most Yorkshire man ever.  In this age of text speak, Martin hoses down his text messages with arcane northern speak.  To support that statement, here are some actual phrases he’s used in the last five messages I’ve received from him: Ay Up, Lad (this starts every message).  Speak to thee soon.  Are you reet to sup next Wednesday?  Enough of my mitherings.  Love to thee and thine.  Let us ponder.  Appen so.  Appen as. (I only know that these last two mean something along the lines of ‘See you later’ because they appear at the end of messages).  We shared the same twelve foot double pitch in the East Yard every Saturday and Sunday for two hundred and fifty consecutive weekends, and more than a few weekdays, too.  Whenever I think of that statistic, I find myself staring into the middle distance and slowly shaking my head.

As is well known, Martin is a man who plays his cards not so much close to his chest, but actually inside his ribcage.  He is also legendarily straight – in fact, his handwriting is excellent, to use the market trading vernacular we touched upon a couple of weeks ago.   If he was a dog, he’d neuter himself.   If he was Santa Claus, Christmas would be called Book Token Day.    I have always been fond of pointing out that Martin is the only person in the world who lies about his age upwards.   That’s how straight he is.   Bearing all that in mind, he is obviously the man we’d want in the frame for a caper like reclaiming our spiritual homeland in NW1.  It is, however, worth pointing out that we are at this juncture simply a main supplier to what is in effect Martin’s shop.  He’s going to have all manner of stuff in there, including a load of his art which, very much in the tradition of the great Italian renaissance masters, consists largely of vans with skulls for hub cabs.    It’s quite exciting for all concerned, though, and gives his excellent wife Eva a valid excuse to leave the house, as she will be staffing the operation.    I didn’t go to their wedding, which was in Latvia, but I remember Martin telling me ‘I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t marry Eva.  I’ve tried, but I can’t', shortly before proposing.    The proposal itself I should imagine went very much along those lines, and to this day I don’t know why he wasted romantic sentiment of that calibre in London NW1 when Paris or Venice or a water boat on the Nile in the still of an Egyptian night would surely have been a more fitting backdrop.

Grimness and sleaze alert – please look away from the screen now if you aren’t a fan of things which are vile.

Those of you who recall last week’s entry, in which another of the great romantics, Danny, was given a mobile phone full of grim amateur porn by a passing tramp, may be interested to know that there have been further developments.    It transpires that the phone actually belonged to the broadminded lady in the mpegs, who is called Angela.   Danny managed to text her, and he got a call back from someone saying ‘Hi, I’m a friend of the person whose phone that is, can you post it to me?’  He said he found the ‘friend of’ bit particularly suspicious, as she had slight lisp, which was in evidence throughout the admittedly limited dialogue sections of her getting shagged by some fella.   My personal favourite line came from the bloke, who said – and I’m sorry for dragging all this out – ‘Where do you want it?’ at a crucial moment, in a workmanlike manner reminiscent of someone delivering a sofa.   I was half expecting her to say ‘Yeah can you leave it in the living room by the curtains, and is there any chance you could take the old one away with you?’ but unfortunately she didn’t.  Anyway.  We were all extremely suspicious of the ‘friend of’ line, and I wished Danny had said ”Friend of’, eh?   Well that’s a coincidence.  I’m a ‘friend of” the bloke who’s just flicked one out over your keypad’, but this opportunity, too, was missed.

Twitter: Probably over capacity.

Facebook: Budge up and make room for Dave Williams, who seems like a decent sort, and has taken us up to 118 members.   Can I ask the older boys not to bully him.

Photards: This week’s wander through the visual archives are:

Top: Text message from Martin, on my iphone.   Note ‘Thee‘ and ‘Aye‘.  Fuck’s sake.

Middle: Double pie and mash, loads of liquor.   Brilliant.  The winter months are not a time to piss about with sushi.

Lower: The cobbles immediately in front of my usual pitch at Greenwich.