bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Dear Rachel,

Recently, a colourful advertising banner in the Times claimed that Ten Pilates was the workout that ‘everyone’s talking about’.   While I doubt that this claim was ever meant to be taken as statistically accurate, I allowed myself a small smile as I read it.    I did this because what everyone around me at that moment was talking about was as follows: a) Danny, outlining the sexual attributes of Keith’s wife Barbara to Chris the Knowledge in order to annoy Keith, and b) Keith, involved in an extraordinarily foul mouthed discussion about the sale of Cuban cigars to the bloke who runs the juice bar outside the antiques shop with the Millwall fan in it.   All four participants in these exchanges were talking very loudly, principally as a result of Danny trying to drown out Keith, and Keith trying to drown out Danny.   Chris the Knowledge, incidentally, is so called as he is training to be a cabbie which – if you are unfamiliar with the procedure – involves acquiring ‘the Knowledge’.   The Knowledge is knowing where every street in London is and knowing how to get there from every other street in London, and is an impressive thing to have floating round your cerebral hippocampus.

I am on occasion partial to a cigar, and I will vouch for Keith’s price of three hundred quid for 25 San Christobal La Fuerzas being very fair.   Nonetheless, it was difficult for him to maintain a credible bargaining position when, within comfortable earshot, Danny was saying ‘Oh I remember that place – I had a go on Barbara there the other week’ in response to Chris the Knowledge offering a stage by stage guide to a notional journey between Plaistow and New Cross Gate.   I’ve just checked the route myself, and considering that Danny claimed to have had a go on Barbara on every single thoroughfare that Chris the Knowledge mentioned, this adds up to sixteen joyless liaisons from Selwyn Road to New Cross Gate station, including what must’ve been an appalling contretemps in the Blackwall Tunnel.   If ever I am called upon to undertake delicate international talks, perhaps for the United Nations, I will take Danny along to loudly claim to have had a go on my opponent’s mrs – including all the usual details of having to arrange proceedings so he could see the telly, as Million Pound Drop was on, and so forth – as it is a remarkably efficient way to add weight to an argument.   In the midst of this, I looked up to see a bloke walking through the market, yawning.   It wasn’t until I looked at him a second and third time that I realised he wasn’t yawning at all – he was just walking along with his mouth wide open, in the manner of a basking shark.   At this point, I found myself wishing that everyone actually was talking about Ten Pilates, if only for a couple of minutes, as it would feel like a little holiday.

After the noise and threats had died down, the weekend immediately set about presenting its specialities, which were boredomness and sub-zero temperaturality.    Trying to keep me behind my stall is like trying to keep a dog in a bath at the best of times, however on a weekend as hyperthermically cold and tedious as the one just past I am prone to wandering about all over the place in search of light conversation and warmth.    I often use Trader Wandering to judge the economic health of the market; if Alex the Jackets pops in for a natter about the footie, it’s a reasonably slow day for everyone.   If Hand Cream Jean does the same, it’s a very slow day as she is busier and further away, and if – as happened on Sunday – I find myself wandering around the grounds of the Maritime Museum and bump into Leather Thierry doing the same, I might as well catch a bus up west and see Five Guys Named Moe or something, and leave any punters to sort themselves out.    Either that, or leave Dave in charge.

Most market people (with the exception of Danny and Keith, now I come to think of it) are known by their first name and some kind of qualifier, to denote what they sell or where they are from, and thereby ease identification.   I am, for example, widely known as Paul Aprons or – even after all this time – Paul Camden.    Go back far enough, of course, and this is how surnames started.   Dave, though, is just ‘Dave’, because like Elvis, everyone who has seen Dave will immediately understand the implications for the immediate cultural landscape.    In the likely event you haven’t seen Dave, the image you need is this: a man goose-stepping up and down outside the Flood Gallery, shouting incoherently, and saying ‘You don’t want to mess with me, sunshine’ to Golden Retrievers, a species of canine with whom he seems to disagree about almost everything.   There is a theory that the mentally ill are actually the sane ones, and it’s the rest of us that are mad.   Using Dave as evidence, I will immediately refute that.   However, when it’s too cold and boring for even the insane to come out and – in Dave’s case – claim to have a two hundred room luxury hotel in Canary Wharf and Theo Pathitis’ thirty two digit phone number while casually approaching female browsers and blowing raspberries into their shoulder bags, you know you’re on a losing ticket.   God knows I know what being poor in a market is all about, but on this occasion, which was last Saturday, I only got through by promising myself that when the day was over I would go to the Lighthouse Fish Bar on Tooting Bec Road, get chips, walk home, and eat them in bed fully clothed – including hat, coat and scarf – until I felt warm again.   Later, throwing dining etiquette to the wind, that was exactly what I did do, and it was quite simply fantastic.

Attention: These posts are being turned into a book.  Or rather, the basis of a book.   It’s an idea that’s been floating around for a year or so, but after a couple of false starts, it’s well and truly underway.   Interestingly, ‘underway’ should really be ‘underweigh’, as it was originally a naval expression linked to ‘weighing anchor’.   Anyway.   It’s underweigh and I should think it’ll be finished in August, which is a keeping-everyone-happy expression I like to use when I actually mean October.

Photards – this weeks studies are:

Top – There was considerable commotion around the perimeter of Greenwich Market last Sunday, with cheering crowds and all that.   I rushed out excitedly, thinking that it might be a hanging, only to be met with this anatomically correct representation of Queen Elizabeth I.  It was all to do with Greenwich becoming a Royal Borough, which should make everything alright.   I declined the market’s generous invitation to trade in royal themed fancy dress as, like the actual royals, I value my dignity.

Middle: For all its manifold qualities, the Duke of Wellington public house, Toynbee Street, London E1 has the worst bar staff in the entire world.   They have literally not heard of anything.   Unless Vinny or the one who looks like Amy Winehouse is serving, I ask for a pint of Fosters and half a Strongbow and mix snakebite myself at the table, in a manner strangely reminiscent of salt n shake crisps from my childhood.

Lower: The South Wing of my home in Tooting Bec, London SW17.