The shining beacon of my disenchanted retail existence, a Turkish rude boy with a heart of the most precious platinum, gold and cushion cut Swarovski.
We shared a mutual love of sour candies, and on our breaks from work or when we got bored of putting t-shirts on hangers, we bought Pic’n’Mix bags from Woolworths or mini Haribos from the off-license to surreptitiously share. I had Sour Patch Kids and Sour Cherry Blasters shipped out from Canada and when he got hooked he would trek down to the Canadian market off Leicester Square and pay double the price for a bag of Fuzzy Peaches.
On sunny summer days, we had lunch in Notting Hill parks, drinking Strongbow, smoking cigarettes and eating Walker’s Ready Salted crisps. He would outline his plan to built a house in Turkey and move there with his girlfriend, renting it out in the summer to maintain his life in the UK, preferably selling fake Nike sneakers and knockoff designer bags at the Portobello Market. With his former experience in stolen cell phone dealing, he already knows his way around the business a bit.
One afternoon he watched a child plummet fourteen stories from a kitchen window of a council flat. He died on impact at Nazmi’s feet. He explained to me later that he had been retrieving a parcel of oily black hashish from his Kappa sock, and the stooping motion had prevented him from being hit by the falling boy. He didn’t really feel like smoking after that.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Nathan
Old before his time, condescending in the utmost, incomprehensibly loved by many, asexually approached. He wears skinny jeans with the cuffs rolled up, exposing several inches of sock between his loafers and the hem. The socks are always colour coordinated to his t shirt and he walks with a rat-like expression on his face and his glasses perched over a thin moustache and even thinner lips. His cheeks bloom like the English rose his mother might have been, and he walks in a quick forward trajectory - almost a shuffle - with his head leading and a hint of a stooped back predicting his future form.
He spent a year in China teaching English to under-privileged children, which I felt was his primary redeeming feature when looking for any qualities in him that would counter the way he ignored me if I approached him in query or conversation, how he evaded conversation with new hires except to briefly and brusquely call them out on minor infractions, how he appropriated my West Coast slang and mannerisms with no awareness of whence they came.
I avoid him at all costs. Occasionally the previous-night’s indulgences would crash over me in the new day’s paranoia, sending me cowering in corners when the whippet-thin Nathan approached. He is the least like anyone I would aspire to be: demeaning, ingratiatingly sweet with an aftertaste like Splenda to customers, business oriented and dismissive.
However, his favourite film as a child was Fantasia and he and his brother would practice the Russian mushroom dance together in his Nan’s living room. I liked that about him, and in the last few weeks before I fled Portobello he started calling me “V.”
He spent a year in China teaching English to under-privileged children, which I felt was his primary redeeming feature when looking for any qualities in him that would counter the way he ignored me if I approached him in query or conversation, how he evaded conversation with new hires except to briefly and brusquely call them out on minor infractions, how he appropriated my West Coast slang and mannerisms with no awareness of whence they came.
I avoid him at all costs. Occasionally the previous-night’s indulgences would crash over me in the new day’s paranoia, sending me cowering in corners when the whippet-thin Nathan approached. He is the least like anyone I would aspire to be: demeaning, ingratiatingly sweet with an aftertaste like Splenda to customers, business oriented and dismissive.
However, his favourite film as a child was Fantasia and he and his brother would practice the Russian mushroom dance together in his Nan’s living room. I liked that about him, and in the last few weeks before I fled Portobello he started calling me “V.”
Monday, November 17, 2008
Notes from July
I stepped out of the Tesco and polished my Pink Lady apple on my shirt. As I stepped in to Whitechapel High Street, a man called me over and asked me for change. “Just for cup of tea,” he said, and I shook my head “no.” He had clear powder blue eyes and a green checkered shirt, and he shook as he spoke. “I’m going to kill myself,” he told me. “I’m going to kill myself tonight,” he called, as I walked away.
At the crosswalk to the Bell Foundry I thought about what I’d done. Back home, none of this situation would happen. For one, I wouldn’t be eating an apple, a simple orchard fruit. Back home, I wasn’t poor, and I wouldn’t buy basic ingredients and eat them as a meal. Back home, I would have a soy latte and biscotti for sustenance, a soy misto to maintain.
Back home I wouldn’t have to answer no for a request for change. I seldom offer money to the panhandlers that litter the streets, but I heartlessly, and naively, thought that they didn’t need it. Here, it’s clear that the people asking for money are completely penniless, but I know now that their requests for tube fare or coffee money are just covers for their fix. And here, I can’t afford to share my change, because I need it for the same. That 70p might not get me on the train but it might tomorrow, when I find another pound under my bed in an accidental cleaning blitz. The loose dimes and nickels might translate into a paper cup of filter coffee at a later date.
Earlier today I walked through Ladbroke Grove, up a street I don’t usually take on my way to work. I ran into my coworker, the stock boy who struts in a sort of cartoon sitting motion as his jeans fall lower off his hips. He didn’t see me right away, with his ball cap and shaggy black hair covering his face, Pendulum and Incubus pulsating in his headphones.
At 10am he brought me a coconut coffee from the fair trade organic where I spend my nickels and dimes on special or miserable occasions. When we talk, it’s usually about work or girls or our weekends… nothing in particular, now that I think hard about it. But he’s still one of my favourites, soft spoken and funny, unassuming in the way that he spends his nights getting high in his friends’ living rooms playing video games, or in Farringdon to see his Thai “girl.”
He never tells us her name and I know nothing about her, but I hear she’s quite a looker “if you’re into that sort of thing.” When he goes out, it’s to Fabric, or Sports Bar for pound-ninety-nine drinks, or to the pub after football. He has the best style out of anyone I work with but his clothes never quite fit.
In the morning I worked the tills, chatting with customers, finding out how they spend their time in Notting Hill. A stylist, a publishing agent, a couple taking a break from their family in North London for a day browsing the market… An attractive forty-year-old came forward with a stack of sweatpants and I suppressed the urge to josh him on his choice of casual wear. Turns out it’s not appropriate to make fun of people’s purchases.
I asked what he was up to this afternoon, a little sooner than I intended, but I couldn’t back out now. “Spending the day at the recording studio, actually” which perked my ears up. “What do you do? Are you a producer?” I asked. Everyone in Notting Hill is a writer or producer or production assistant or something that finances celebrity-based entertainment. “It’s mine,” he answered. “I’m in a band.”
Not wanting to pry, and not wanting to pry to discover that it was nothing worth prying apart, I asked “what type of music?” “Pop,” he said, so I knew I should probably ask more. You don’t make pop music if you don’t want to be known, so I went ahead. “What’s your band called? Do you have a good name?”
“Have you heard of Take That?” he said. I blushed really red, which I never do, and suddenly felt a bit star-stuck, a mix of self-conscious and ambitious, curious, and wry. “I should know who you are,” I mumbled, “I’ve heard of you guys but I don’t know what British pop stars look like, coming from Canada.”
“I guess we weren’t very big in North America,” he said. “No, you weren’t,” was my immediately-regretted reply.
He took his sweats and headed into Portobello, off to lay new tracks with Gary Barlow and the rest. The first British pop star that I’d spoken to casually and who had once graced my walls from a poster out of Bunty made off into the street.
At the crosswalk to the Bell Foundry I thought about what I’d done. Back home, none of this situation would happen. For one, I wouldn’t be eating an apple, a simple orchard fruit. Back home, I wasn’t poor, and I wouldn’t buy basic ingredients and eat them as a meal. Back home, I would have a soy latte and biscotti for sustenance, a soy misto to maintain.
Back home I wouldn’t have to answer no for a request for change. I seldom offer money to the panhandlers that litter the streets, but I heartlessly, and naively, thought that they didn’t need it. Here, it’s clear that the people asking for money are completely penniless, but I know now that their requests for tube fare or coffee money are just covers for their fix. And here, I can’t afford to share my change, because I need it for the same. That 70p might not get me on the train but it might tomorrow, when I find another pound under my bed in an accidental cleaning blitz. The loose dimes and nickels might translate into a paper cup of filter coffee at a later date.
Earlier today I walked through Ladbroke Grove, up a street I don’t usually take on my way to work. I ran into my coworker, the stock boy who struts in a sort of cartoon sitting motion as his jeans fall lower off his hips. He didn’t see me right away, with his ball cap and shaggy black hair covering his face, Pendulum and Incubus pulsating in his headphones.
At 10am he brought me a coconut coffee from the fair trade organic where I spend my nickels and dimes on special or miserable occasions. When we talk, it’s usually about work or girls or our weekends… nothing in particular, now that I think hard about it. But he’s still one of my favourites, soft spoken and funny, unassuming in the way that he spends his nights getting high in his friends’ living rooms playing video games, or in Farringdon to see his Thai “girl.”
He never tells us her name and I know nothing about her, but I hear she’s quite a looker “if you’re into that sort of thing.” When he goes out, it’s to Fabric, or Sports Bar for pound-ninety-nine drinks, or to the pub after football. He has the best style out of anyone I work with but his clothes never quite fit.
In the morning I worked the tills, chatting with customers, finding out how they spend their time in Notting Hill. A stylist, a publishing agent, a couple taking a break from their family in North London for a day browsing the market… An attractive forty-year-old came forward with a stack of sweatpants and I suppressed the urge to josh him on his choice of casual wear. Turns out it’s not appropriate to make fun of people’s purchases.
I asked what he was up to this afternoon, a little sooner than I intended, but I couldn’t back out now. “Spending the day at the recording studio, actually” which perked my ears up. “What do you do? Are you a producer?” I asked. Everyone in Notting Hill is a writer or producer or production assistant or something that finances celebrity-based entertainment. “It’s mine,” he answered. “I’m in a band.”
Not wanting to pry, and not wanting to pry to discover that it was nothing worth prying apart, I asked “what type of music?” “Pop,” he said, so I knew I should probably ask more. You don’t make pop music if you don’t want to be known, so I went ahead. “What’s your band called? Do you have a good name?”
“Have you heard of Take That?” he said. I blushed really red, which I never do, and suddenly felt a bit star-stuck, a mix of self-conscious and ambitious, curious, and wry. “I should know who you are,” I mumbled, “I’ve heard of you guys but I don’t know what British pop stars look like, coming from Canada.”
“I guess we weren’t very big in North America,” he said. “No, you weren’t,” was my immediately-regretted reply.
He took his sweats and headed into Portobello, off to lay new tracks with Gary Barlow and the rest. The first British pop star that I’d spoken to casually and who had once graced my walls from a poster out of Bunty made off into the street.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Fake addresses
I used to pal around with this kid from Central St Martins that hung around the skate park, stalked foxes (the British equivalent of raccoons) and never had a cell phone because he was the most broke person I've known since my own arrival to the City.
We would lurk around Hampstead Heath on Thursday nights eating Sainsbury's pies and buying matches for underage smokers and sit in Tower Hamlet council estates until sunrise.
The last time I spoke to him, I had returned from a week in Barcelona to find our resident mouse dead on my duvet. It had climbed into one of the perspex boxes that I used to sort my makeup and expired in a pile of Bourjois blush and cuticle oil. My impoverished pal would have come to Settles Street to stuff it and wear it as a trophy if I had given him my address, but in the end I put the transparent coffin and the bed sheets in the trash outside and said a little prayer for the rodent's family.
He painted me on a mirror and swore he would break it before it was finished. I can't tell if I'm offended or honoured and I feel a little arrogant putting it online.
Source: Oszar (UK)
We would lurk around Hampstead Heath on Thursday nights eating Sainsbury's pies and buying matches for underage smokers and sit in Tower Hamlet council estates until sunrise.
The last time I spoke to him, I had returned from a week in Barcelona to find our resident mouse dead on my duvet. It had climbed into one of the perspex boxes that I used to sort my makeup and expired in a pile of Bourjois blush and cuticle oil. My impoverished pal would have come to Settles Street to stuff it and wear it as a trophy if I had given him my address, but in the end I put the transparent coffin and the bed sheets in the trash outside and said a little prayer for the rodent's family.
He painted me on a mirror and swore he would break it before it was finished. I can't tell if I'm offended or honoured and I feel a little arrogant putting it online.
Source: Oszar (UK)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
and justice for everyone!
Since cloistering myself in Canada for the season, I've started creeping London street blogs, looking for my friends and all the people I used to run in to at parties still out after 3am in E1.
My favourite night in London started with several flats of free beer and pretzel sticks in Portobello with my favourite coworker and my BFF. We ditched early, trekked to the Central line, and alighted at Bank to pee in an alleyway before resuming our Underground journey to Old Street. Upon arriving, we began the search for sold-out Stag & Dagger festival tickets, which ended the second we arrived in Shoreditch and were ushered into the Ed Banger party by a fortuitously situated, soft-spoken and well-connected friend from my first night at Hoxton. Showing up in time for SebastiAn and DJ Falcon's set, we settled in for illicit activities in a back corner with some acquaintances and their boyfriends - motherfucking Busy P and his black leather jacket-wearing Justice crew.
Speaking of, here is a nice fifteen minute mix to dress to for fall:
Justice - Dior S/S 09
Source: Glamcanyon (UK), Missing Toof (USA)
My favourite night in London started with several flats of free beer and pretzel sticks in Portobello with my favourite coworker and my BFF. We ditched early, trekked to the Central line, and alighted at Bank to pee in an alleyway before resuming our Underground journey to Old Street. Upon arriving, we began the search for sold-out Stag & Dagger festival tickets, which ended the second we arrived in Shoreditch and were ushered into the Ed Banger party by a fortuitously situated, soft-spoken and well-connected friend from my first night at Hoxton. Showing up in time for SebastiAn and DJ Falcon's set, we settled in for illicit activities in a back corner with some acquaintances and their boyfriends - motherfucking Busy P and his black leather jacket-wearing Justice crew.
Speaking of, here is a nice fifteen minute mix to dress to for fall:
Justice - Dior S/S 09
Source: Glamcanyon (UK), Missing Toof (USA)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Topshop Unique A/W 2008
It's getting chilly.
I hope these are made from a really scratchy cashmere wool blend.
Source: Marie Claire (UK)
I hope these are made from a really scratchy cashmere wool blend.
Source: Marie Claire (UK)
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Chicken stacker
Hoxton Kitchen - the easiest place to spend a Friday night with a heated patio, bar, restaurant, full stage and dance floor under one roof.
The New Yorkers from that exceptional night in Kew Gardens following their set in Kilburn flew in for the weekend and I returned the guitar that had sat collecting dust (but looking really cool) under the [legally acquired] palm plant in our living room over the summer.
We hit up the Commercial for a round of lager and limes with Salt and Vineager Real McCoys (they're rippled) and I got the call I'd been crossing my fingers for all week - an invitation to the Hoxton Kitchen 10th anniversary party. The place was closed down for the night and they opened the bar and kitchen to anyone who's ever played Boombox, Style Noire and all the amazing live sets over the past decade. All night, we drank as many mojitos, champagne and vodka tonics as could drown out the miniature hamburgers being handed around the party by [little people] dressed in KISS makeup and Afro wigs while Paul Simon remixes reverberated.
Outside, the Jew stood waiting with an entourage of eight, and I left in an unmarked cab - the kind most frequently found outside clubs when the last thing you want is a ride from a stranger with a 1997 sedan hissing "taxi taxi" under his breath as you pass.
When I awoke the next morning (afternoon), my head was buzzing, my hair was a shambles, and my cell phone was missing from my bag. I buttoned an oversized flannel shirt over the previous night's dress and pulled on pair of men's brogues to shuffle outside and find it.
I called from a payphone (the one next to the park that tactfully does not inform its patrons that under its lawns are buried over a hundred hanged criminals from the 1700s) and a Middle Eastern voice ansdwered. My sweet little Samsung with the joystick scroll button had fallen under the taxi seat in my haze and haste, and the driver offered to bring it by my apartment later that night.
Most British people live their lives through their cell phones, much like Americans do with the Internet, and I felt disoriented and cut off from the world without mine. I spent the day in bed eating 99p KFC sandwiches and leftover mixed garlic- and mandarin-stuffed olives from Harrods, reading Mexican graphic design blogs and watching the mouse that until now had shyly rustled out of eyesight running back and forth across the room and under the covers of Joanna's unoccupied bed.
At 8pm, the driver arrived and rang the doorbell. As many times as I've been pickpocketed, ripped off, duped and hassled in the city, it was a reassuring moment that reminded me there are still people who are kind and helpful and inherently everything that I associate with the utopian world outside the dirty East End.
The New Yorkers from that exceptional night in Kew Gardens following their set in Kilburn flew in for the weekend and I returned the guitar that had sat collecting dust (but looking really cool) under the [legally acquired] palm plant in our living room over the summer.
We hit up the Commercial for a round of lager and limes with Salt and Vineager Real McCoys (they're rippled) and I got the call I'd been crossing my fingers for all week - an invitation to the Hoxton Kitchen 10th anniversary party. The place was closed down for the night and they opened the bar and kitchen to anyone who's ever played Boombox, Style Noire and all the amazing live sets over the past decade. All night, we drank as many mojitos, champagne and vodka tonics as could drown out the miniature hamburgers being handed around the party by [little people] dressed in KISS makeup and Afro wigs while Paul Simon remixes reverberated.
Outside, the Jew stood waiting with an entourage of eight, and I left in an unmarked cab - the kind most frequently found outside clubs when the last thing you want is a ride from a stranger with a 1997 sedan hissing "taxi taxi" under his breath as you pass.
When I awoke the next morning (afternoon), my head was buzzing, my hair was a shambles, and my cell phone was missing from my bag. I buttoned an oversized flannel shirt over the previous night's dress and pulled on pair of men's brogues to shuffle outside and find it.
I called from a payphone (the one next to the park that tactfully does not inform its patrons that under its lawns are buried over a hundred hanged criminals from the 1700s) and a Middle Eastern voice ansdwered. My sweet little Samsung with the joystick scroll button had fallen under the taxi seat in my haze and haste, and the driver offered to bring it by my apartment later that night.
Most British people live their lives through their cell phones, much like Americans do with the Internet, and I felt disoriented and cut off from the world without mine. I spent the day in bed eating 99p KFC sandwiches and leftover mixed garlic- and mandarin-stuffed olives from Harrods, reading Mexican graphic design blogs and watching the mouse that until now had shyly rustled out of eyesight running back and forth across the room and under the covers of Joanna's unoccupied bed.
At 8pm, the driver arrived and rang the doorbell. As many times as I've been pickpocketed, ripped off, duped and hassled in the city, it was a reassuring moment that reminded me there are still people who are kind and helpful and inherently everything that I associate with the utopian world outside the dirty East End.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Barnett Newman
Another day at the Tate Modern, with several GBs of unmixed music in my ears and a pair of vintage riding boots on my feet. I sat in front of these paintings for over an hour and thought existential thoughts and then sat by Tower Bridge until sunset.
Eve, 1950
Adam, 1952
Source: Tate Modern (UK)
Eve, 1950
Adam, 1952
Source: Tate Modern (UK)
Thursday, September 4, 2008
A blanket statement
If you live in East London you own at least two of the following: a fixed gear bike, a vintage camera from a Berlin flea market, a screen printed t-shirt from a Central St Martins student, an unaddressed case of body dysmorphic disorder, a pair of stereo headphones (for your iPod), a blue Ikea Oyster card wallet, Adobe Creative Suite
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Givenchy A/W 2008
Religious iconography, textural black-on-black, impossible shoes...
I believe tears fell from my eyes the first time I saw this.
Source: Marie Claire (UK)
I believe tears fell from my eyes the first time I saw this.
Source: Marie Claire (UK)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Dirty Christmas knitwear
Lucy and I saw Ted (the jumper guy) at the Macbeth tonight, which is sick because I remember reading about him in print and thinking he would be a nice guy to be friends with.
Source: Vice (UK)
Source: Vice (UK)
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thursday circuits
Art opening at B Store in Saville Row with the model scout, some architecture previews in Brick Lane and a light installation in Old Street with a Portuguese graphic designer.
I love Thursday evenings best of all. As long as you're dressed and sociable, the city seems yours for the taking. All the galleries are open and they're flooded with free drinks, snacks and fashionable people talking about fashionable things and how tiresome being fashionable is and what's going to be fashionable next and how they know the next big thing (and they must introduce you sometime... can they have your number?).
I love Thursday evenings best of all. As long as you're dressed and sociable, the city seems yours for the taking. All the galleries are open and they're flooded with free drinks, snacks and fashionable people talking about fashionable things and how tiresome being fashionable is and what's going to be fashionable next and how they know the next big thing (and they must introduce you sometime... can they have your number?).
Friday, June 13, 2008
Shoreditch House
A night with Carly and the girls at Shoreditch House, drinking wine by the roof top pool, overlooking the city in a sea of sparkling lights.
As amazing as the whole place is, my favourite spot is the Games Room, which is walled on one side with bookshelves of large format hardcover photography books and on another with a pool table. In the middle are Space Invaders tables with chairs facing the inset screens, and at the back, a wall of apothecary jars filled with candy, yours for the taking...
Source: GIS, New York Times (USA)
As amazing as the whole place is, my favourite spot is the Games Room, which is walled on one side with bookshelves of large format hardcover photography books and on another with a pool table. In the middle are Space Invaders tables with chairs facing the inset screens, and at the back, a wall of apothecary jars filled with candy, yours for the taking...
Source: GIS, New York Times (USA)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
A friend of Sacha Distel
Date with the installation artist that I met at Bistroteque after a trendy Hackney art show. We went to Nobu and spent more on mojitos and maki than Jo and I do on a month's rent, listened to The Rolling Stones on his iPod at a seedy member's club in Soho where Damien Hirst pays for his drinks in doodles, and took horrendous shots of butterscotch and liquorice vodka at Ghetto following iced coffee off Greek Street.
We met early at Green Park station, me in t-shirt as a dress, gold chain circlet and four-inch Oxfords, him in white jeans, grey tee, cowboy boots, and a weasel skull on a chain as a necklace. He is part Chinese (from his former Olympian father) and wears his hair long, black and glossy like an Injun chief. We spent most of the night talking about anthropology and primitive religion, and at one point he admitted that he was bummed because his parents had sold their summer home in Edinburgh to be converted into a hotel. I can relate.
We met early at Green Park station, me in t-shirt as a dress, gold chain circlet and four-inch Oxfords, him in white jeans, grey tee, cowboy boots, and a weasel skull on a chain as a necklace. He is part Chinese (from his former Olympian father) and wears his hair long, black and glossy like an Injun chief. We spent most of the night talking about anthropology and primitive religion, and at one point he admitted that he was bummed because his parents had sold their summer home in Edinburgh to be converted into a hotel. I can relate.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
London lite
Adele came in to work today to visit my favourite coworker/her videographer who is leaving on her US tour later this month - all expenses paid, plus a weekly allowance and all access passes to Bonnaroo. She was really chill and carrying the sort of Chanel handbag that's real but looks fake, something that Louis Vuitton has been specializing in since the early 00s.
I love all the celebrity sightings in Portobello. The paparazzi wear suits and carry telephoto lenses the length of my arm to train on Lily Allen and Helena Bonham Carter, Norman Cook and Ian Brown.
Kelly Rowland has come in a few times - on weekdays in sweatpants and a ponytail, on weekends with four inch heels, five inch extensions and two inch nails and lashes (for the cameras). Shaznay from All Saints was in twice last week for some casual clothes and Minnie Driver spilled her pregancy news as I helped her pick out some tunic-lenth tees.
It's easy to keep an eye out for the prime international targets, and the London daily rags are basically a flimsy paper Facebook of who to look out for in the market on weekends.
The market itself is a zoo. All the locals know to come on Fridays since tourists aren't told that it's open any day outside of Saturday. The antique books and prints and bric a brac have gouged a hole in my lunch money and I come back from my breaks with more skeleton keys and crane-shaped sewing scissors than egg-and-cress sandwiches.
As fun as weekends are, the security is also the toughest. We double our staff and the security guards are on high alert for the petty crooks and hustlers working on behalf of local gangs. The worst are the Spice Girls, a ring of 40+ immense black women in fluo spandex and fishnet monstrosities.
They come in pairs, usually with their kids in tow and a pram to stow their gear. They're exceedingly rough and ask obvious questions to distract the sales staff while the other stuffs racks full of clothing into the baby carriage. They favour all things shiny and metallic and use their children and their toothless mugs as deterrents to our protests.
The latest security guard, a tall, scrawny Nigerian who performs magic tricks during the lulls and chases children around the store, has had his pride wounded lately as stacks of clothing have gone missing while his back is turned. He's taken to hiding behind the racks near the side door so it looks like the store is empty, to lure the thieves in, wherein he will leap out from behind the clothes and nab them.
This week he caught the Spice Girls in the act near the back of the store, with some PVC skirts peeking out of their purses. When he confronted them, they lashed out and beat him loudly and roundly to the ground in front of the Saturday crowds. While one ripped at his shirt, another stole his watch and their diversion-tactic spawn kicked him in the shins. They made off before the police could even consider forging a path through the scrum of weekend shoppers.
After filing a report and accepting a shirt from the shop floor, he left and we haven't seen him since. It's sad because lately he's been on an apple kick for lunch - eating two or three at a time - and he left an entire grocery bag full of fruit near the fridge and we don't know what to do with it (or why he brought thirty apples with him that day in the first place).
I love all the celebrity sightings in Portobello. The paparazzi wear suits and carry telephoto lenses the length of my arm to train on Lily Allen and Helena Bonham Carter, Norman Cook and Ian Brown.
Kelly Rowland has come in a few times - on weekdays in sweatpants and a ponytail, on weekends with four inch heels, five inch extensions and two inch nails and lashes (for the cameras). Shaznay from All Saints was in twice last week for some casual clothes and Minnie Driver spilled her pregancy news as I helped her pick out some tunic-lenth tees.
It's easy to keep an eye out for the prime international targets, and the London daily rags are basically a flimsy paper Facebook of who to look out for in the market on weekends.
The market itself is a zoo. All the locals know to come on Fridays since tourists aren't told that it's open any day outside of Saturday. The antique books and prints and bric a brac have gouged a hole in my lunch money and I come back from my breaks with more skeleton keys and crane-shaped sewing scissors than egg-and-cress sandwiches.
As fun as weekends are, the security is also the toughest. We double our staff and the security guards are on high alert for the petty crooks and hustlers working on behalf of local gangs. The worst are the Spice Girls, a ring of 40+ immense black women in fluo spandex and fishnet monstrosities.
They come in pairs, usually with their kids in tow and a pram to stow their gear. They're exceedingly rough and ask obvious questions to distract the sales staff while the other stuffs racks full of clothing into the baby carriage. They favour all things shiny and metallic and use their children and their toothless mugs as deterrents to our protests.
The latest security guard, a tall, scrawny Nigerian who performs magic tricks during the lulls and chases children around the store, has had his pride wounded lately as stacks of clothing have gone missing while his back is turned. He's taken to hiding behind the racks near the side door so it looks like the store is empty, to lure the thieves in, wherein he will leap out from behind the clothes and nab them.
This week he caught the Spice Girls in the act near the back of the store, with some PVC skirts peeking out of their purses. When he confronted them, they lashed out and beat him loudly and roundly to the ground in front of the Saturday crowds. While one ripped at his shirt, another stole his watch and their diversion-tactic spawn kicked him in the shins. They made off before the police could even consider forging a path through the scrum of weekend shoppers.
After filing a report and accepting a shirt from the shop floor, he left and we haven't seen him since. It's sad because lately he's been on an apple kick for lunch - eating two or three at a time - and he left an entire grocery bag full of fruit near the fridge and we don't know what to do with it (or why he brought thirty apples with him that day in the first place).
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Six degrees
Slow days at work can be measured in how many movie connections we make. There is a game that goes around the store where two seemingly unrelated actors are linked by the tenuous connection of costars in former feature films.
Today's surprise stumpers were "Former boy band members Mark Wahlberg and Justin Timberlake" and "Knighted actors Ian McKellen and Ben Kingsley." Inexplicably, almost every pairing this week crossed through a film starring Liv Tyler or Tom Cruise.
After the unforseeably arduous process of renting a place in East London, our lease was accepted today, which was some cause for celebration. Everything was finally coming together with Jo's finances sorted out and my payday coinciding with the afternoon that we needed to put down one-month upfront and six-weeks deposit.
Or would have coincided had I lived in Canada where pay is doled out every two weeks, rather than once a month. So the pittance that I have dutifully earned is not mine for the spending for another three weeks, including the minimum wage that I worked for to pay the rent and deposit so we could pick up the keys.
Today's surprise stumpers were "Former boy band members Mark Wahlberg and Justin Timberlake" and "Knighted actors Ian McKellen and Ben Kingsley." Inexplicably, almost every pairing this week crossed through a film starring Liv Tyler or Tom Cruise.
After the unforseeably arduous process of renting a place in East London, our lease was accepted today, which was some cause for celebration. Everything was finally coming together with Jo's finances sorted out and my payday coinciding with the afternoon that we needed to put down one-month upfront and six-weeks deposit.
Or would have coincided had I lived in Canada where pay is doled out every two weeks, rather than once a month. So the pittance that I have dutifully earned is not mine for the spending for another three weeks, including the minimum wage that I worked for to pay the rent and deposit so we could pick up the keys.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The people vs. the London Metropolitan Police
Spent the day with the Canadian High Commission and the Canadian embassy in Trafalgar Square trying to recover my stolen things (which were apprehended the night of the theft adnd promptly locked in evidence). The Metropolitan Police at Charing Cross, attempted to convince us of the following points:
1. My records aren't in the computer as I was only robbed a week ago (rather than three weeks past and reported within 24 hours)
2. A summons to collect my things is in the mail (and will be sent to my Canadian address in four to six weeks)
3. There is no record of any of my items being recovered
4. There is no record of any theft at the club in the past six months
5. The nightclub does not exist
Jo met me in town to pay our rent and damage deposit in Old Street so we can finally escape West London. Our appointment with the estate agent was at 530, so we left at 430 with plenty of time. When the bus arrived at Oxford Circus, we hopped on and settled into the air-conditioned main floor.
At that exact moment, there was a brutal stabbing two hundred metres away. Oxford Street was closed and we sat in the bus for forty minutes before finally realizing we weren't going anywhere except back to W12.
1. My records aren't in the computer as I was only robbed a week ago (rather than three weeks past and reported within 24 hours)
2. A summons to collect my things is in the mail (and will be sent to my Canadian address in four to six weeks)
3. There is no record of any of my items being recovered
4. There is no record of any theft at the club in the past six months
5. The nightclub does not exist
Jo met me in town to pay our rent and damage deposit in Old Street so we can finally escape West London. Our appointment with the estate agent was at 530, so we left at 430 with plenty of time. When the bus arrived at Oxford Circus, we hopped on and settled into the air-conditioned main floor.
At that exact moment, there was a brutal stabbing two hundred metres away. Oxford Street was closed and we sat in the bus for forty minutes before finally realizing we weren't going anywhere except back to W12.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
No avocados
Bright sunny morning in Angel. I unfurled myself from an unfamiliar couch following a late night reunion of the whole motley Canadian crew - a textiles designer, a hot mess and a colleague from our gallery im Gastown. A backyard barbecue, an incognito male model and a turntable stacked with house would be the overarching themes of the evening.
Enjoyed breakfast in the garden with my lovely hostess and reluctantly left the house wearing the previous night's all-black, goth-lite mini dress, tights and plimsolls.
My high school friend Jules was in town for the weekend, returning from a family vacation in Barcelona. We met Angel for milkshakes and burgers, and a sun dress so I could justify going to a picnic in a park rather than a scenester's funeral.
With little money to my name after the robbery, I was nervous about shopping in the pretty, boutique-lined high street but we cobbled together a £4 oversized pinney and hot pants affair and ventured into deepest Hackney.
Enjoyed too many apple sausages on the homemade coal barbecue in the sun at Victoria Park with the widest gamut of 24-inch waist East Londoners imaginable strewn across a variety of blankets on the vast expanse of lawn.
Having Jules around has been a saving grace. We spent an afternoon in Kensington drinking champagne and eating organic food near Hyde Park discussing steel drums and DJ sets, Japanese literature and charitable work. Between him and our Canadian family, I'm feeling happier and getting excited for my move to Brick Lane at the end of the week.
Jo and I found a sick apartment with hardwood floors, high ceilings, a vintage bathroom with tiled floors and an art store that would put Opus to shame around the corner. It costs more than my family's mortgage back in BC, which would make it a fair price for the cost of living and the gentrifying neighbourhood that we've been perving on for ages. All it needs are some signature pieces on the wall and a fully stocked wardrobe and I'm set to Settle for the summer.
Enjoyed breakfast in the garden with my lovely hostess and reluctantly left the house wearing the previous night's all-black, goth-lite mini dress, tights and plimsolls.
My high school friend Jules was in town for the weekend, returning from a family vacation in Barcelona. We met Angel for milkshakes and burgers, and a sun dress so I could justify going to a picnic in a park rather than a scenester's funeral.
With little money to my name after the robbery, I was nervous about shopping in the pretty, boutique-lined high street but we cobbled together a £4 oversized pinney and hot pants affair and ventured into deepest Hackney.
Enjoyed too many apple sausages on the homemade coal barbecue in the sun at Victoria Park with the widest gamut of 24-inch waist East Londoners imaginable strewn across a variety of blankets on the vast expanse of lawn.
Having Jules around has been a saving grace. We spent an afternoon in Kensington drinking champagne and eating organic food near Hyde Park discussing steel drums and DJ sets, Japanese literature and charitable work. Between him and our Canadian family, I'm feeling happier and getting excited for my move to Brick Lane at the end of the week.
Jo and I found a sick apartment with hardwood floors, high ceilings, a vintage bathroom with tiled floors and an art store that would put Opus to shame around the corner. It costs more than my family's mortgage back in BC, which would make it a fair price for the cost of living and the gentrifying neighbourhood that we've been perving on for ages. All it needs are some signature pieces on the wall and a fully stocked wardrobe and I'm set to Settle for the summer.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Fabric
GET FAMILIAR
Switch, Surkin, Sinden, A Trak, Curses! and Jean Nipon at Fabric.
The place is massive and looks like a giant sewer. At any point Donatello and Rafael will jump out from behind a pillar in the drum and bass room looking for some pizza, dudes.
Don't try and drink there and definitely don't acknowledge any unknowns. One gentleman was dancing to minimal house like he was being born (in slow motion).
Curses! - Birthday Party Berlin DJ set
Switch, Surkin, Sinden, A Trak, Curses! and Jean Nipon at Fabric.
The place is massive and looks like a giant sewer. At any point Donatello and Rafael will jump out from behind a pillar in the drum and bass room looking for some pizza, dudes.
Don't try and drink there and definitely don't acknowledge any unknowns. One gentleman was dancing to minimal house like he was being born (in slow motion).
Curses! - Birthday Party Berlin DJ set
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