VINTAGE STUFF

Saturday began with a loud click from somewhere in the house fully waking me up from my dozes at ten past five in the morning. I looked across at the clock and the LED digits were not there which meant that I very quickly realised that a mysterious power surge had tripped the trip switch and that there was no power. I staggered downstairs, flipped the switch back to its “on” position and, when all the lights refused to leap back into an instant blaze of glory, went back to bed to lie there worrying that the house was now going to burn down around my ears.

At ten past seven, the sound of the boiler finally leaping into life told me that there was now power again and so I got up, made a cup of tea, and went to check that none of the electronic devices that had been plugged in overnight had been zapped by the surge. Normally in the fuzzy dawn of a weekend morning I would have spent some time putting the bare bones of a few of these random nonsenses together in preparation for the coming week, but with the delights of even semi-digital living having been denied me for those two hours, there may be one or two gaps in the schedule over the coming weeks that will quite possibly never be filled.

Instead, half an hour later, the rest of the household was rudely awakened by the need for us to go out and catch a train for the big city, “Big Plans” for the day having been made weeks ago which hadn’t taken into account the ongoing excessive sleepiness of those involved. Those same “Big Plans” had, incidentally, meant that I had to refuse a kind offer of a free ticket to a concert on Saturday evening, which is, quite frankly, the kind of offer that I never get and which came as a massive and pleasant surprise and the refusal of which also probably meant that I am unlikely to ever be offered such a thing again.

Still, the household surfaced, clothed itself and sipped its tea before driving to the station and putting itself into the dubious hands of the increasingly rare public transport system for the duration and, three quarters of an hour later, we were deposited in the big city, and we hopped on a free shuttle bus. This gave me the opportunity to ponder upon some of our own signage after my adventures abroad lately, and I mulled over the question whether the “Bar and Grille” really does have a mesh at the front of the bar much like the one when “The Blues Brothers” appeared at that Country and Western club, or whether that’s  just the point of that typo, or whether it’s just something that I think is a typo but which actually never was…

Then I spotted a supermarket advert bearing the slogan “Helping you spend less every day” which I really doubted the truth of. After all, it’s not really their job to help you spend less, is it? And, by definition, if you’re in their store you are spending more than you otherwise would be… but I suppose that it’s just semantics, when you come right down to it, isn’t it…? I was also perplexed by the word “Wagamama” hanging from several lamp-posts because I’d genuinely never heard of before, much to the beloved’s doubting surprise. Mind you, I also find myself asking why, in the advert for that shiny new smartphone/tablet thingy, do they extol the virtues of “doing something nobody else can” whilst showing two people colouring in exactly the same picture...?

I’m a marketing executive’s dream, me, aren’t I...?

Shortly after this, we found ourselves at the “Patiserrie Vallerie”, where we had always planned to be at, and ordered breakfast because there was still a good hour or so before the doors of “Judy’s Vintage Fair” - the main purpose of our venturing out that morning - opened for the day. In fact there was still a good half an hour even after we’d eaten the breakfasts, and I did end up wondering whatever happened to the mushrooms, but didn’t comment upon it at the time. After all, any visit to an eatery, including all of the ones I visited that day, managed to confirm to me my own suspicion that I am indeed “The Invisible Man” when it comes to being noticed by the staff, a problem other people do not seem to suffer with quite so much. After this, a mighty bookshop called me through its tempting portals which is always a mistake as I immediately spotted at least a dozen volumes which I’d love to read, none of which I had previously been aware of, but, luckily, I was able to resist them, although, having scribbled down a few titles as I strolled around, how long I manage to resist at least some of them remains to be seen.

Nevertheless, strengthened by this rare victory over the powers of retail spending, we strolled over to the Ritz and joined the queue for the opportunity to buy some “Vintage Stuff” and we mooched around the fair for a couple of hours, looking at the “vintage” clothing and listening to the “vintage” music and spending some cash (for it is cash only – some kind of tribute to vintage shopping methods, I suppose) on old stuff. I’m rather surprised to discover that “vintage” now seems to include at least three of the decades in which I grew up, and also rather alarmed to discover that many of the “funny looking” clothes still lurk in some of the darker corners of my wardrobe…

After this we sought out thirst-quenching drinks at “Eat” (well, it does what it says on the sign) whilst we waited for our cinema tickets to become valid, and then actually went to the “AMC Cinema”(the one built inside the old warehouse and with interior design that resembles the “Overlook Hotel” in “The Shining”) to see the new Mr Johnny Depp movie “Dark Shadows” which was okay, if not quite what we have come to expect from Mr Tim Burton, although I’m sure it appealed far more to the kinds of bright young things who go “Squee!” whenever that tiresome old cliché of the vampire movie (and “being young and pretty forever, sigh…” wish-fulfillment nonsense) turns up. I did like the cameo from old Mr Dracula himself, Christopher Lee, though.

Nice touch…!

I’d been rather impressed at 10.30 AM at how empty the city had seemed. By 4.30 PM this was no longer the case and we had to negotiate ourselves along Market Street through thousands of miserable-looking people all shopping miserably or shouting pointlessly. Still, I simply have to accept that this is what people do. However, as I’m usually fairly disappointed by what people do for most of the time, it shouldn’t have surprised me that it bothered me so much.

Happily, we then tracked down “Bakerie” in the Northern Quarter with surprising ease. We had fully expected to be traipsing around for hours looking for the place, only one of us having been there before, and that being some time ago and with someone who actually knew where they were going. Anyway, having found the place where they had left it, we managed to have a rather excellent meal before heading home on one of those rare trains out to the wilds, arriving home, having had a lovely day out, far too late for me to have possibly used that ticket.