Puffy face

The checkout woman had a puffy face. Her hair was dyed chestnut, and she was at an age where the act of dyeing one’s hair no longer has any point. I was hoping for a quick, in-and-out, commando raid and headed for the shortest queue. But I was thwarted. Clearly, Puffy Face was having difficulties. A woman was waiting for a price on a packet of apples, and this was causing a long hold-up. In front of me stood a very tall man, accompanied by a much smaller and much older one, who had placed only four cans of beer and a packet of Orbit on the belt, and who then stood in just the right position to block me from unloading my heavy basket. Thanks to the price-less apples fiasco ahead, we stood in this way for some time; me silently fuming with aching arms and him telling the older man to go and sit down.

At last the napple price was confirmed and Puffy asked the man in front of me if he wouldn't mind just letting the napple lady settle her bill as she had been waiting a long time, and there was only the one item to put through. The man shook his head and pushed his beer and chewing gum forward, saying something I couldn't make out in heavily accented English. It may well have been that he had not understood what was being said to him, but this reaction put Puff into quite a tizz, and she clearly felt bad at having to make Napple wait even longer. But what could she do? She picked up the beers and made as if to scan them, but then hesitated momentarily.

"Are you over 18?" she asked the man, ridiculously. He was at least 25, maybe even 30, but she was having none of it. He showed remarkable equanimity and (probably as a result of his experiences as a man from Eastern Europe living in London) reached into his pocket, where he kept photocopies of his Romanian passport and English bank card. He presented these to Puffy, but she was standing firm. Punishing him for not allowing Napple to go first, punishing him for being from Romania, she said that copies were not acceptable, and that she was sorry, but this was company policy, etc...

By this time, the older man came over, not fully aware of what had happened, offering to help, speaking softly in what I by now knew to be Romanian. This was the final iniquity as far as Puff was concerned:

"I can't," she said, enunciating clearly. "Now that you have tried to buy the alcohol, I cannot allow him to buy it instead."

"But khe is my father," said the younger man, reasonably and with very little show of aggression. Unlike me. By this time, I was royally pissed off at standing in Morrison's fucking supermarket on a hot summer's day, watching this disgraceful display of jobsworthery and racism and just snapped.

"Oh for heaven's sake!" I exclaimed. "This is ludicrous! This man is clearly at least 30 years old! Why can't you just let him buy the beer? He's not drunk, he's not underage, and we have been standing here for hours for absolutely no reason! You can do him in about 10 seconds and then we can all get on with our day!"

"I'm very sorry, " said Puffy, looking at me with her piggy eyes. "But there's nothing I can do..."

My outburst, which I was already beginning to regret, had caused a small commotion, and our checkout aisle was quickly adorned by a fleeced supervisor and a scrawny security guard.

"Are you all right, Eileen?" asked the supervisor, and the guard lowered at me, causing images of my recalcitrant youth to come flooding into my memory.

Romanian father and son quietly left the scene, and I began to feel a slight reddening of the cheeks (thinking that I might be asked to leave the store, or worse) before everything calmed down and the stupid bloody woman finally began to scan my shopping. She apologised to me for following company policy, and I apologised to her for being impatient and we all went on our way.

Can I help you?

I have a major-ish project in the pipeline, and it's taking rather longer than I intended, but is nonetheless holding my interest. More of that anon - if I ever get to finish it.

However, in order to put something up on here, I thought I'd fill the gap with a recount of my telephone conversation with a Centrica operative this morning.

This is the modern world, as Paul Weller once said, and this call to British Gas summed that up. I received an email telling me that my latest gas bill was ready to view, and promptly checked it, only to find that I appeared to owe the lovely people who heat my home and provide energy for cooking my food over £800 for two months' worth of gas consumption. This in a period (April to June, with mostly warm temperatures) when I have had the heating on twice - both times for less than an hour, and so as you can imagine I had to assume that there had shurely been shome mishtake. I called the 0800 number and pressed option 5 for 'Anything Else'. After a minute or two (not too long, not too short) of the violins and horns on that Blur track which so hideously infects Spotify every 3 seconds, a man came on the line. He did not sound as if he was talking to me from Mumbai, in between watching Eastenders on UK Gold, but I don't mind if he was.

"Can I take your name, please?..."
"Is it OK to call you Alan?..."
"And the first line of your address?..."
"Could you confirm your date of birth please?..."
"Your mobile number? Do you have a landline number? Is your email address still the same?..."
"Are you calling about your gas or electricity account?..."
"How can I help you today?"

Well, something is clearly wrong, Mr Man, said I. Eight hundred pounds is a very large sum of money indeed to pay for such a small period of time, etc. I was advised to do something called a burn test, involving turning all the gas on for a minute and watching to see if the dial was turning. This - I told him - I would do.

He then went on to say he was cancelling the bill (phew!) as it was clearly incorrect, and had I considered some of the different payment methods on offer, which would mean Nectar points flowing my way like water. I mumbled non-committally, feeling - though I have one - that Nectar cards are a total fucking waste of time. After that, he asked if I wouldn't mind awfully participating in a brief customer satisfaction survey, which should take under a minute, and which asked me to rate my experience on a scale of 0-10 using the keys on my telephone. I gave him a 9, even though he had annoyed the shit out of me.

Costa Coffin

How saddened I was to pass what was the Gaff (before that, it was the King's Head) only to see it miraculously transformed into a fucking Costa Coffee shop. I feel, along with Mark Steel - and I'm sure plenty of other people - that the homogenisation of our town and city centres is one of the more depressing aspects of the modern world. It's not that I was a particular fan of the Gaff, though I did occasionally pop in when it was still the King's Head, and was at least happy that - even just a few months ago - the place hosted such luminaries as the UK Subs at live gigs. The fact that it is now yet another link in an unwanted chain, in an area which has managed to retain at least a relative level of localism, sort of crushes the soul a little bit.

Why - how - do we need a coffee shop on the Holloway Road, when we have so many places doing just that already? I regularly get a coffee at a Moroccan place near the Coronet, and it's always good, and reasonably priced at £1.25. If you wish, you can have cream cakes for around a quid, crepes, croissants, trifles, sandwiches, baked potatoes... All the time, people of North African descent drop in and chat animatedly over an espresso, thankfully drowning out the sound of Heart FM on the radio. As with Caledonian Road not far away, ludicrously equipped with 5 mini supermarkets in the space of a few hundred yards, it won't be long before the smaller independents are driven out of business by the thundering juggernaut of Tesco or whichever other multinational corporation.

Costa Coffee will never - despite its weasel words on Rainforest Alliance and corporate responsibility - host a UK Subs gig. Another nail in the coffin of British pub life, this will not enrich our lives. Don't even get me started on the sodding Sainsbury opening up under the student flats...

Beaster

There was a changeover of staff on the checkout, which is always more seamless than a changeover of bus drivers, and the new girl took her place, sweeping up the first item (Copella apple juice) in a fluid motion, almost without stopping. She had a faraway look in her eyes, but was keeping up a good rhythm as she stroked each piece of packaging across the laser scanner, and I was able to synchronise with her as I stuffed them into the bags. There was none of the occasional fumbling to peel apart the openings, no rushed pushing to get things in there nice and neatly, and no unseemly stacking up of shopping at the end of the belt.

Suddenly - there had not even been eye contact previously - she spoke.

"Are you enjoying the Bank Holiday so far?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, feeling that to say anything further would have been superfluous, but nonetheless leavening any perceived harshness with a smile. She returned to her scanning, looking strangely troubled, before again speaking up:
"This weather's disappointing though, isn't it?" I nodded, and knew that this time I would have to respond in some way.
"Mm," I said, "Though tomorrow is supposed to be better... So they say." She smiled again, and I went on:
"You're closed tomorrow, aren't you?" I paused, and then pointed towards the ground. "Here, I mean..."
She frowned and hesitated a moment before replying that, yes, she thought they were closed. I was intending to subtly hint at the fact that she would be able to enjoy some free time, which is a rare and precious commodity for those in her type of job. She didn't seem particularly buoyed by what I said, though, and went on with scanning the groceries until they were all done without a further word. But, just before I made to slot my cash card into the PIN device, a supervisor appeared at the side of the checkout and began stage mouthing at the girl. I was able to easily make out what she was saying, as she was making no effort to disguise the words:

"Have you decided?"

In reply, the girl made no effort at a stage whisper, but replied in a normal voice:
"I'm not so sure now. The more I think about it, the less sure I am. But if I don't... Well, it's now or never, really." She almost giggled as she finished speaking, and the supervisor moved away with a mysterious smile on her lips.

Whatever it was, I hope she made the right decision.

Sir

I have been beastly about chuggers in the past, for which I feel a twinge of guilt. Fuck's sake, they're only trying to make a few donations after all. Who am I to judge? Especially as this may be my next career move.
It's just...

In terms of shopping, I can't stop being an English male. If I need to buy something which isn't a pint of lager or a copy of the Currant Bun, I am immediately out of my comfort zone. The other day, noticing the fraying on the cuffs of my favourite shirt, I knew I had to take action. However, I eschewed the usual bun fight of M&S (Next is no longer an option in my neck of the woods, which is undoubtedly a good thing) and headed through Strutton Ground to McCombie Bros towards the Scotland Yard end of Victoria Street. Two shirts for £30. Bargain, I'm sure you will agree. It was (and is) also my kind of shop. Eccentric and odd. Not widely patronised. The assistant was sporting a mohican and the proprietor was filling in some stock sheets over the shirt racks as I entered. As mohican boy plonked down a couple of teas, the old man accidentally stood on his foot, and he reacted by silently demonstrating the agonising pain he was suffering - screwing up his eyes and hopping from side to side theatrically. But then he (I mean the boss) had to go and spoil it, didn't he?

He asked me if I was all right. The bastard.

He wondered if I needed any help. I told him that I was browsing - thank you - and I think managed to achieve an uneasy equilibrium after this rude interruption. But there was no doubt that something had been lost between us in that moment of prostitution, and things would never be the same again. I did end up buying a couple of dickies in the end, but I felt sullied nonetheless.

Then there's the Big Issue sellers. I do not mean to attack the homeless, as this would be pure foolishness, but I cannot abide the way that the sale of a magazine has to be so personalised. The lack of response (even should this be in the negative) is seen as a snub. I don't know why I have to enter into this immediate and ephemeral contract with someone standing on a corner, and why I have to feel so bad about not keeping my end of it.

For me, it's symptomatic of the malaise affecting the world...

But you've heard my bullshit on this subject too many times. I will allow you to continue browsing without further interruption.

Way on Down

With thanks to Co-op Historian for the fantastic pic!

I'm heartily sick, I have to tell you, of these mass market explainers, like the dreadful City Boy of the incredibly irritating Martin Lewis, who patronisingly explain to us dumb fucks on our morning commute why we are all deeply embedded in a puddle of excrement on Shit Street.

On the shite theme, does anyone really buy this bullshit about the whole credit crunch (I have been trying to avoid using this trite cliche, but had to admit defeat in the end) thing being caused by bad mortgage loans in the USA? It all seems a bit too convenient for my liking. In the febrile run-up to the festive season, the Madoff story broke - relatively quietly it has to be said - and I couldn't help but smell a rat. I mean, I know the USA is helluva big, with a motherfucker of a population, but surely there can't have been that many bad loans made - to lead to the virtual collapse (watch this space) of the entire world economy? Where were all these so-called experts and economists when one august institution after another crumbled into so much dust?

Where are they now that Adams (crap shops anyway, if you ask me. It's also intriguing that their website has no reference whatsoever to the stores going into administration) joins Woolies, Zavvi (the major disappointment for me on this one is that that twat Branson seems to have managed to worm his way out of trouble. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than the vultures of Fleet Street being able to let loose a Branson Pickle headline) Whittard and the others on the scrap-heap of the global economic slump?

Aside from the huge holes in the country's high streets (thank god for that, some might say - especially the good people of Exeter) there is of course the impact on the jobs market and the slow death of so many smaller communities to think about. I know, from experience of Oswestry, that life is hard out there, and it ain't getting any easier. For a lot of people, those few hours' work in the shops would have made the crucial difference to their lives.

So far, incredibly, the coffee chains seem to have been relatively unscathed by the whole process. I am of course aware that Starbucks has been struggling, but this is in relative terms to the retailers mentioned above, and there still seem to be new coffee shops opening up all over the place. I am as guilty as anyone else of (over)indulging in the overpriced stuff they peddle, but there surely must come a time when it all falls down?

Meanwhile, in an alternative universe, the football continues. And may god help us all.

Turtle doves

Doves symbolise peace, I believe.

I'm going to try and tell it as I saw it.

I was returning from Christmas shopping, and had just got off the 73 bus at Kings Cross, planning to walk to the stop in York Way and catch a further bus home. It had been a successful shopping trip, taking in 3 replays (and a match) on Lord of The Rings pinball, and a surprise result at Heal's, which appears to have gone downhill quicker than Tony Hawks with an afterburner, so I was in a good mood.

As I rounded the corner past WH Smith, I could see a little flurry of activity ahead of me, and could hear raised voices. I continued to walk, though a little more cautiously, and caught sight of a tall slim Arab looking man in a brown trench coat, seemingly throwing punches at a white police officer. Things happen quickly in these situations, and I stopped in my tracks to see the Arab man attempt to break away from the policeman. He ran only one or two steps, however, and then turned to confront the copper again. I could now see that this was a BT policeman, part of the institution once described by an ex-boss of mine as for nothing more than glorified security guards, and could also clearly see that he was - to put it mildly - losing control of the situation. There was a taxi waiting for the Arab man, a pile of luggage next to it, and two women - one young and one middle aged - who were starting to panic, standing to one side. A further hi-viz person, who was black, and whose jacket was marked with 'Events Planning' moved towards the situation, seemingly seeking to play the role of mediator.

The BT policeman had by this time reverted to a feral state. He crouched, Bruce Lee style, and drew some kind of telescopic baton from his belt, holding it next to his ear and screaming at the Arab man to get on the floor. NOW! The mediator was doing quite a good job of trying to calm the situation down, and was asking the Arab man what had happened.

"He was swearing at me!" the man was saying repeatedly, "In front of my wife!"

All the while, the policeman was screaming at him to get on the floor, and the Events guy was trying to keep a lid on things. The man's wife (I deduced this because I could hear her saying: "Hamed!") and (I guess) his daughter, were becoming increasingly freaked out by the events unfolding before them.

I could tell from the tone of the copper's voice and his agitated state that things were going to get ugly, and I must admit that my first thought was not to get involved in any trouble - not so close to Christmas. I thought of the effect of all this on the Arab man, wondering whether he had just arrived in London, or was just about to leave. No good would come of it all, I could tell. So I gingerly walked past the scene and headed towards my bus stop with something of a heavy heart. Once there, I was too far away to see further detail of what was happening, but I could hear the pitch of the shouting increase, and then heard the inevitable wail of sirens. A BT police car pulled up within 5 minutes, and another a minute after that one, which seemed to me overkill. It was also interesting that no real police seemed interested in getting involved.

Overall, the incident, or the little I saw of it, was handled incredibly badly by the authority figure, though I obviously don't know what had happened to kick it off. I assume, and this is probably a reasonable assumption, that it was something utterly pathetic.

The Streets

There is an element of the streets that I quite like, watching the passings-by and the hither and thither, so I do like sitting alone at a pavement cafe. There is a sub-text to the street if you watch it for long enough and patterns begin to emerge - a whole dynamic of relationships and territories which aren't evident at first glance.

Generally, being a creature of habit, I visit Waitrose on a Sunday for the shopping. If I go for a swim (one length for each year I've managed to drag my carcass through this living toil) I tend to arrive around midday or a little later. Other Sundays, when I don't swim, I might arrive a little earlier. Regardless, when I leave the store and head around the corner to catch the bus home, there is always a geezer standing in the little sheltered area overlooking the cordials (which is also the staff entrance) no matter what the weather. I'm fairly sure that I played pool with him once, but I'm not sure where. My feeling was that it was in Tottenham, but (apart from that possible pool game) I've never seen him anywhere other than in this doorway near the bus stop. He doesn't drink, but will smoke the occasional cigarette, and stands in the doorway watching the traffic - human and vehicular - pass by for hours on end. He wears jewellery and dresses relatively smartly, and a lot of people seem to know him, stopping to pass the time of day with him. The other day, in the pissing rain, I caught him at the end of his shift, poking his head, in a hood, out of the doorway before walking off to who knew where.

I just can't work out why he chooses to stand at this place once a week. In fact, I don't know if he stands there at other times when I'm not around.

At the risk of getting all Ralph McTell on you, there is another old dear who chooses to frequent the roadside. Though I don't think she would be classed as homeless in the conventional sense, she is in her sixties I would guess, maybe older. She frequents one of those green telecom boxes outside the bookies down the road from where I live, leaning over it and rolling cigs from a tin. Her hair is matted on her head, and whether she is wearing a traditional granny dress or a jumper, there are always smears of what appear to be a mixture of food, snuff and catarrh down the front. Thick grime is in evidence at every visible point of her body. Thankfully, such points are few. As far as I can tell, she doesn't drink either, and obviously has some form of accommodation to return to at the end of the day. As with the bus stop man, plenty of people seem to know her and talk to her, though she looks at me like some sort of feral beast and I wouldn't dream of broaching a conversation with her.

Then there's the Jamaican guy. He has a territory beneath a tree where he stands and drinks cans of Holsten Pils before popping back into the betting shop. Any time of day - within reason - you'll find him skulking beneath this tree or making his way into Ladbrokes. I saw him with a woman once, and I think I know why he prefers to stand under a tree all day.

L'hamster est mort, vive le rat

Poor old Alexander the Great passed away recently. He has featured on here before. His was a brief candle, though it burned only at one end (the end where you're trying to watch a movie and he's making a god-awful incessant racket on his plastic wheel) and he will be sadly missed. I feel a little culpable, in that he may have starved to death. It's hard to be sure really, as he would (as is normal, I hear) hoard his food in his nest amongst his own shit and piss, so his food bowl was frequently empty. He was not easy to tame and would bite the bejesus out of your fingers at every opportunity, so that my kids took to wearing Marigolds while playing with him.

Anyway, I endeavoured to bury him yesterday, but after about 2 weeks of constant sun, the ground had hardened to iron. I only had a stick - and a slender one at that. It didn't seem appropriate to use one of the kids' beach spades while they were watching, and this also negated my first plan which was to tip him along with the stinking contents of his cage (somehow a large blowfly had managed to get in there) into the palladins outside the flat. I therefore reverted to my druidic heritage and made a stone cairn, decorated with a silver screw from someone's bike I think. I also painstakingly etched his name into a piece of slate, but it pissed down overnight and my efforts were erased. Though the cairn still stood! My fears of foxes, cats, feral wolf kidults from Islington, etc. went unrealised.

So farewell Alexander. Never again.

I also bought myself a new MFD, which certainly gave what The Sun used to call VFM, though no doubt I will be grabbed by the consumables in the end. A couple of years ago, I bought an Epson Photo Deluxe Ultra-Shit 2.3 or something and it cost me somewhere in the region of £80. The one I bought today is an HP Photosmart 4280 and includes scanner, copier and printer. Not only that, but it has 11 (count 'em!) different memory card slots.

Cost? £44.99! Toner cartridges are approx. £40 the pair. Problem: the better the printer, the more you print. The damned cartridges are the same size and design as a referee's whistle, though I couldn't find a pea in there. I assume therefore that they won't last very long. Not even as long as Alexander.

Jorge Ben Jor

Now I've actually reached the end of my limited creative resources. There is no good reason to title this post Jorge Ben Jor, other than that it begins with a J and that he is one funky motherfucker. Watch this:



So I popped into the local shop on the way home. I could see quite an old-looking geezer peering intently at a tin of something or other. He was wearing thick glasses, and I assumed he was reading the label. As I took my stuff to the counter, he lifted the can (which turned out to be Campbell's chicken casserole) towards the cashier and said:

"How much is this? 39?"

I could see the price tag, and part of it had rubbed off - half of the '8' in the 89p to be exact. I admired his diligence.

So, at least the farcical events at Newcastle have taken some of the attention off the balloon debacle, and we are hopeful that the FA will be receptive to the letter of complaint, leading to a replay of Sunday's game, before looking forward to a chilly night at Pride Park and the upcoming minute's silence at the Sty.

Sterile

Well, the tree's gone up. It seems to be more or less permanently dark. Oxford Street is pedestrianised, and groups of people are sitting in pubs with paper hats on. In 22 days, the whole revolting package-fest will be in full swing, and we will be forced to try and outdo each other in our relentless consumerist quest.

In order to keep myself from sinking too far into the slough of despond, I'm going to start a new project on here. Each post up to JC's soi-disant birthday will contain a link to an item of egregious opulence. Items for sale which are not only obscenely expensive, but which are also totally unnecessary under any circumstances. I'm starting with this:

The world's most expensive dog collar, valued at $1.8m.

Not only that, there will be around 2 games a week leading into the new year. It doesn't look too promising for City after Saturday's display, I have to say. Titus Bramble is..., well, Titus Bramble, and you have to laugh, but after that (28 seconds on the clock) we created nothing else, and Wigan could easily have fulfilled Lawro's prediction of the result.


Dubya shows what he thinks of Frank's ideas for the January transfer market.

No doubt Sven will be peering in his (or someone else's more likely) stocking for signs of largesse from Santa Sinatra. More dirty money will be flung at someone like Stephen Crouch's agent in the January transfer window, but by then I think it will be a little too late.

christmas

city

football

money

shopping

Half moon glasses

A box of Spoon Size Shredded Wheat. This finally settles a long-running argument, which has unjustly gone against me for so long

Only a single strand for my irritation this week, bile fans, but it will be a carefully trodden path, as it is one strewn with landmines.

For verily, I speak of: CLOTHES!

Some of the people who read these musings will, I know, be spluttering into their spoon size Shredded Wheat at the very idea that I could write anything about clothing. No Hadley Freeman, me.

However, this is a specific style of dress about which I will speak, having observed a perpetrator of such yesterday. This is not one person, remember, this is a type. Let me paint a picture.

The man (it is always a man) is in his late 50s. He has grey hair, but it is spiked and styled in a manner more befitting someone 2o years younger. Ageism is not my thing, believe me, and I'm all for this grey revolution (not really) we are apparently undergoing (hordes of wealthy pensioners can be seen jumping straight from the Northern Rock queue to a week's kayaking in the Zambezi, I hear) but, let's be appropriate, shall we? Crew cut. OK - especially where coverage is reduced. Short business style, OK. Even (if you still have sufficient active follicles) slightly long and unkempt. OK. But not spiked. 'mK? 'mK??

Next up, the shoes. Again, they're simply not appropriate. Little, almost pointy, Merrells or some such. Brown, or distressed white with stripes if not the distinctive 'M'. Not too much wrong with that of itself, but when combined with the rest of the ensemble... No.

And it's NO if only for this one very good reason: Cargo pants. There must be a time and a place for these. Perhaps when piloting an aircraft? Think All Saints. That's all I'm saying.

There are only 3 more elements. The first is the most minor, but it all contributes. It's a t shirt. Maybe Firetrap, but I won't dwell on that.

The last two combined are the piece de resistance. A. Jumper. Over. The. Shoulders. A la French tourists. I mean, really! And to cap it all off, a pair of over-ornate half-moon glasses (Chanel, or equivalent marque) perched on the end of the nose.

Broken camera

UPDATE 2 - 9/9/07

Well, it was an amazing shop, really old school, just stuffed with lenses and camera parts, and two blokes hunched over a workbench. I was told that the camera would need a new focus mechanism and that this would cost £79 plus VAT.

So I went and bought a new Samsung L700 from Curry's for a ton, and gave the old one to my mate, who reckons he can fix it. I remain to be convinced.


UPDATE - 7/9/07

Well, if you know me, you can probably guess how the repair went...

Those screws are tiny and I lost the first one I took out almost immediately. Ho hum.

I am going to pay a visit to these guys later on.

I feel a tad pissed off because my camera is broken. No biggy in the scheme of things I know, but I have been starting to really enjoy taking pictures and posting them to Flickr.

I bought the camera, a Nikon Coolpix P2, back in February for £109. It's not particularly high spec, and I admit that I never even used the big selling point of the Wi-Fi connectivity. But, it did more than enough for me.

I dropped it (more than once, as it goes) and finally it came up with a Lens Error message which I couldn't make go away. I took it back to the shop for repair, but alas there is much evidence of the drops it has endured, so it would 'fall' outside the warranty terms for free repair. Get this though. The rather severe lady behind the counter told me that a repair would cost anything between £150 and £200! Where is the sense in that? The damn thing only cost a one-er when I bought it.

"That's the thing with digitals," she said, "lenses, displays, you've had it. Sorry."

What a load of bollocks. Anyway, I've bought a set of watchmaker's screwdrivers and I'm going to have a bash myself. Nothing to lose after all.

Trandals

I will be able to update my Twitter location soon, as I am off to Port Aventura (warning - intensely irritating sound on this link) on Monday. In the usual panic I realised that I had no clothes or shoes suitable for a hot climate (or, well, anything, really) so went on what was for me a shopping spree.

There was a sale at Next, and it was... horrendous. I will say no more, except that shops don't thrill me much, and sales even less. I can honestly see very few reasons to wear shiny grey pinstripe trousers. There was a sale at M&S, but, despite my age, something rankles about wearing M&S clothes. Silly, I know, but there you go. And despite that, I did buy some super lightweight chinos and 2 pairs of swimming shorts. All well and good.

There was a sale at Clarks. And there I made what I consider to be the purchase of the year. Oh yes. I have even coined a new word. You see, I have never been one for sandals. I accept that they have their place in some societies and I even accept that they are indeed useful, but I find it hard to accept that I should wear them. Then I saw the light! My Eureka moment! A cross between trainers and sandals. And here they are, in all their glory.