THE DEMISE OF THE MARRIED DOGS

There are things people sell on markets that are awful. Others run from dreadful to crap. Others yet again border on the nasty or the sheer unmitigated cheesy. But you’ve got to go a long way to find something that is so naf that it’s hateful. And interestingly enough the people who sell it are likewise. This post is about one of those products and one of those people.

I want to make one thing clear straight away. Most traders who sell what may loosely be described as craft products, whether genuinely made by themselves or imported from China (which is a truth in most cases that they’ll dispute till the cows come home and swear on every Bible this side of the Orion Nebula was the handiwork of their wife in the studio attached to their rural country cottage in Romford) genuinely believe that their stuff is beautiful beyond all the senses, made strongly enough win an award for engineering and going for a price that barely compensates them for the effort and sacrifice they’ve put in to offering them to an undeserving public. And furthermore is the next best thing to sliced bread and the Crown Jewels.

The majority of craft-type traders really believe their own bullshit. The rest somehow know that what they’re selling is crap yet because they’ve been doing it for so long the line between lying and truth has become so blurred that they’ve become altogether delusional. Rather like Liberal Democrats who’ve convinced themselves that they’re honourable politicians!

And then there are people like us. We’re under no illusion about what we sell. We think our stuff’s great! Excellent value for money. We’re different. Joke… joke!

Above all else there has to be the plain likeability of the stuff that you’re selling and ultimately the only judgement that counts is that of the customer. Traders of course make their own judgements. About customers, about their stock and about things other traders are selling. But throughout it all there is a plain universal truth. Some people’s products are hateful! Even if they sell by the thousand it still doesn’t alter the fact! Added to this are the lard dripping words they use to sell it. Together, product and sales pitch combine to create something extraordinary. An experience so contemptibly cheesy that you can barely choke back the laughter.

We first met Graham, a Scotsman who sold little china dogs in little china bowls by accident. We’d been trading at one part of our main London market for over a year and had an established pitch there, a metal stall we rented on a regular basis four or five days a week. We had regular customers there and were well known. Then one day the management thought they’d do us a favour. Give us a better site on the other side of the market. It was better protected against the elements and our stuff would be more visible to the main through-put of people coming into the area. Besides, we were selling quality gear. We’d be in a much classier spot. We took in the sales crap and looked at it coldly. It had advantages and disadvantages. Different traders around us who might not like us being there and leaving a site that we knew. Making a judgment wouldn’t be easy.

The owners made the decision for us. They wanted to change the market around a little. Make it look different. We had no say in the matter. Sure we’d oblige!

In the coming days we learned to offload and stall up elsewhere. Naturally with our eyes all over the place. Taking in what people were selling, the verbals of each different sales pitch and what the other traders were like. We were friendly, affable you might say, but kept ourselves to ourselves. Above all didn’t tread on anyone’s toes. It’s what market traders are known for, having big toes. After a while they all began coming round on the snoop. How yer doin… Lovely stuff you’ve got there… Make it yourselves… and all the rest of it. Friendly faces hiding natural jealousies and malevolent dispositions. If they could get their nose up your arse they’d be there. We smiled as was required and told them every lie they wanted to know!

Graham was one of the snoop dogs who came wandering. Lovely gear and all that. How much was it all? He wanted to buy something for his wife! As though we hadn’t heard it before? The bastard was so stupidly transparent as his eyes took in our stuff, getting the prices fixed in his head and comparing them with his own. He was two stalls away from us on the opposite side. People would pick up our halogens, get first sight of our goods before his. Our presence was a direct challenge.

We were already getting used to his patter. The stuff he was selling was quaint. All kinds of dogs made out of china and painted. Around three inches long and two to three inches high, standing or sitting in little white china bowls with flowers and grass painted around both sides. Some bowls contained what he called Single Dogs. Others, with two dogs in a slightly larger bowl he called Married Dogs. He sold the Married Dogs as a couple. There were married Scots Terriers, married Boxers, married Spaniels, Alsatians and Poodles. You name it. And there he was rasping it all out… The Married Dogs are… The Single Dogs are… And all about how his wife made them in The Workshop, a hallowed place and part their thatched country cottage in Berkshire. She was naturally a practicing Veterinary Surgeon and only made the dogs in her spare time, more as an artistic side to her work. We had it all now! His wife an artist as well as a scientist. Naturally she had a stall at Crufts, the Chelsea Flower Show and the Badminton Horse Trials. Places no common market trader could get into unless they knew royalty. The Queen herself had once stopped for a while to look at the Married Corgis he told us. Graham the Scots market trader, half way to the stars with his head up his arse. We listened, purred respectfully and came close to pissing ourselves soon as he’d gone.

The first signs of secret enmity came after three weeks with an enquiry from the market manager about the brightness of the halogens we were using. Naturally management never gave any names but someone had complained. It was nothing really but could our lights be less bright? Naturally we knew who it was. Yes, we’d tone them down a little and did. Another two weeks went by. The management again. Didn’t we think our lights were still a bit bright?

Louise and I took it all in. The light was crucial to our display. It made the stones glow only now wasn’t the time. Okay we’d tone down our lights a bit more. We could see Graham listening in. He wanted to get us into a row but we weren’t playing his game. Even so, tone down we did. It would keep him sweet for a week but a man like that wouldn’t let go. Time to prepare an attack. Over the next few days we alternatively stopped at his stall, extra nice, carefully perusing his stuff. Dogs, bowls, sales patter and product design. We soon discovered an astonishing weakness. Something so obvious we couldn’t believe it. Right, the artillery would open up at three that afternoon, when the market was busiest. We checked out our target. A full scale assault on the Married Dogs!

At the appointed time Louise wandered over to his stall just as he was getting into his stride with a group of Americans. Oldies, already goggle-eyed with tales of how some of his dogs came from the Highlands! Yes, and the Married Dogs in this particular bowl were the ones who’d helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from the English! Louise saw they were Boxers and got in soon after he’d ended his sales pitch. She really liked them herself but was a little confused. If they were Married Dogs as he said, then which one was the boy? She couldn’t see anything to tell! There was a deadly silence. She’d opened up a whole chasm. The ‘boys’ all had something missing. There was a little smooth patch where his things ought to be and you couldn’t see a bitch anywhere!

As she reported soon after, the man’s face turned ashen. You couldn’t have Married Dogs in a bowl if you didn’t know who did what. Dogs had to be dogs and bitches had to be bitches! The American geriatrics muttered among themselves then just wandered off. Louise told him how much she liked them again then returned to our stall. You could already hear the death rattle! He’d have a problem now using Married. He’d know where customers might look and what they might think.

A week or so later we were called in by management. Queering another trader’s pitch… There’d been a complaint! We were nonplussed. We’d always got along so well with people. We were entirely at a loss to know who we might have offended. It couldn’t have been the Dogs man, our friend Graham? We got a wry smile by what of return. “It’s those Married Dogs,” I said sadly. “He keeps on telling people they’re married and the punters are beginning to twig.” The man laughed and so did we. The anomaly was infectious, even so we had to go easy. He was there to make a living same as everyone else.

And that’s where it stayed for another few weeks. He must have had a really bad Friday because late in the day he let it all out on Louise then called me some names and threatened to personally boot me out of the market. Yes, he’d do it as well. He was a hard boiled bastard. They knew what to do with people like me up in Glasgow. Ate four letter words like me up there for breakfast and he’d do the same. I couldn’t help smiling. If he thought I was quaking he was badly mistaken. I’d never got into that kind of thing but he shouldn’t even think of it or he’d get hurt. We were both there to make money. Nothing else counted so cool it.

I knew that he wouldn’t. Our stuff was selling well over there and undoubtedly harming his trade. It must have been busting his gut. Whenever we passed his stall we gave him a smile and I held my nose. After that we got talking loud in the vicinity. Who’s cleaning up all that dog shit… Christ, those dogs really stink. His wife should come down and check… You don’t know who’s shagging who in them bowls, or which one’s got the tits… And worst of all… two married dogs in a bowl, sounds like a gay couple. It was the last that really got under his craw. Even the traders round us were laughing. Graham and his gay dogs! You just never knew with traders these days!

When he passed us in turn we were silent but the epithet stuck and went round the market. He was middle-aged with grey black hair and a furious temper. He hated us and it showed. We didn’t hate him. It was just those dogs he was selling, all with ludicrous expressions on their faces. Strangely offensive and in the end, quite frankly hateful. And what made it worse was that he was so deadly serious about them. Our stuff was good but we couldn’t get worked up about it. The gem trees were just decorations and the crystals things people believed in. Live and let live. If they wanted to believe let them get on with it as long as it did no-one harm. It was just a means to an end. Paying for Louise’s studies and occasionally buying me time to write. It wasn’t a religion, just a way of earning a shilling. Graham on the other hand had given his dogs the status of icons. And then there was all that stuff about him getting the china clay on trips down to Cornwall and his wife the vet doing all that work with a kiln in a garden shed somewhere in Berkshire. Most traders had husbands or wives who one time or another put in an appearance but no-one ever saw Graham’s. Maybe she was all part of the lie. A vast construct waiting to have a pin stuck into it.

His increasing irritation badly affected his temper which in turn affected his sales. As they continued to drop he became morose. Caught in a downward spiral. He became his own worst enemy and took it all out on us. And all he got back was cheerfulness and laughter. It began driving him crazy. We just couldn’t take him or his stuff seriously. We couldn’t even take our own stuff seriously. It may have looked good but it was a job not a bloody vocation. Life was more than the markets while he and his gear came straight out the bible.

In the end he turned into a joke and we helped it along. Made up a song which we sang that outraged him. He soon got to know it. “The Married Dogs are three, the Single Dogs are two… A Married Dog for me and a Single Dog for you…” Sung in a merry Scots accent that sounded slurred and ended in a cacophonous roar of laughter. He was outraged and ordered us to stop. We responded by begging him not to turn his dogs on us! And even after we stopped we kept on humming the tune.

It must have initiated some kind of moral collapse. A month later we were back at our old stall and Graham had to face a new and far deadlier challenge. Someone nearby selling Dancing Flowers, the latest craze. They were an ultra naf novelty item. An upright flower with a face on it sitting at the top of plastic stalk that shook, twisted and swayed in time to music while sitting in its pot! Now the Dogs weren’t three quid or two. We’d only stuck that in because it rhymed, but the Dancing Flowers, for the novelty they were, came seriously cheap and the guy selling them didn’t have too much to do. They must have done him in because when I passed his stall later that month to give him a smile he wasn’t there anymore. Someone selling teapots had taken it over.

No-one ever saw Graham again on any market nor his Dogs. His face is a memory but the concept he sold remains unforgettable. The Dogs had gone only to be replaced by something even more hateful and not just to us. We were entering into the era and hegemony of The Dancing Flowers. A time that drove so many traders on markets all over London into a frenzy! They became a hate object unlike any other and made a fortune for many. Bless their little electrical connections.

THE POWER OF THE QUARTZ GROUP: ACTING TOGETHER ITS CRYSTALS GUARD YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP

Quartz crystal groups can be amazing things or they can be dull as ditch water. Most come from Brazil, others from Arkansas in the USA or the island of Madagascar. Their crystals can be large or small but they’re most often transparent, with fine unbroken points at their ends. We’ve all seen them in the windows of shops that sell minerals . The crystals grow out of a matrix and are bunched together in vertical or perpendicular fashion. They’re not to be confused with calcite which is a different mineral and whose crystals are usually opaque, being given name dogtooth in the trade. Quartz, however, has a trigonal crystalline system and most of its crystals are prismatic.

Good quality quartz groups are not uncommon. They are reasonably priced on markets but less so in shops. They are popular with collectors and crystal healing enthusiasts alike. Gathered together on a matrix their healing energy is strong and its function straightforward. Central to purpose is amplification of intention and programmability. This is achieved through its power to magnify ambient energy for cleansing, healing, and memory enhancement; I should also add the cleansing of confused pathways. These operate through all the chakras. Its element, well known to many, is Storm.

My customers and healing enthusiasts alike enjoy placing their hands over the groups on my table and communing with the energies transmitted. There is always that noticeable degree of anticipation immediately prior to the positioning which, in my experience, never fails to be fulfilled. Arkansas Quartz groups are the most neutral. They have great clarity and a pure clean energy that is easily programmable and used mainly for healing and prayer. Brazilian groups, the most common and popular, have an extraordinary variety of energy. Their crystals have a soft heart frequency and are ideal for healing work. They are where beginners usually begin and progressively develop their skills. Adepts, on the other hand, seeking sources of knowledge and learning deep in our ancestral past find energies from Madagascan groups more satisfying.

The varieties of possibility are endless. Each person will find an energy wavelength in tune with their essence. Communication is instant and uncomplicated which explains why quartz crystal groups attract such interest and sell so widely, giving pleasure and meaning to many. Quartz groups whose crystals are plain uncomplicated silica dioxides contain no additional minerals such as iron to make them amethyst, or titanium to make the quartz rose. They are somehow the purest, most pristine and dare I say it, the most glamorous of all the quartzes for their simple beauty alone.

I admit to having one of my own. Something unusual in the extreme. A thin two centimetre wide matrix, six inches long and three across, covered on one side with thousands of tiny crystals on which lie two complex groups of transparent double terminations towards the centre. The other side is almost indescribable. Two amazing clusters of transparent vertical, perpendicular and horizontal double terminated crystals at each end joined together by a fabulous quartz crystal bridge, all the crystals of perfect clarity throughout. Some are like tiny needles, others radiate outwards like tiny spokes from a hub. And the whole thing set in another bed of thousands of tiny crystals. Extraordinary! And it came my way because of golf!

It was a gift from Neville, a tall, gangly mid-forties Jamaican Rastafarian who ran a mineral stall at Camden Lock Market in London and had great pitch at the top end of a cobbled drag that looked out onto Camden High Street. Neville only sold minerals, I sold gem trees, minerals and crystals. Even though my Sunday stall was not too far away across the market we had a live and let live relationship and soon got to know each other well. I liked Neville. He had a great sense of humour and was bright. He liked me because I once helped him sort out some bigots. Neville was married to the sister of Moroccan Brian who wasn’t Moroccan at all but the main importer into the UK of fossils, minerals and crystals from that country, hence the name. Neville’s stall was one of his outlets. Now Neville’s great passion in life was golf. He played it and loved talking about all the greats in the history of the game. I took it all in and one day, in a junk shop somewhere, I came across an ancient set of clubs dating back to the early twentieth century along with a collection of golfing books from that era. I bought them and gave them to him as a gift. The man was totally over the moon. Speechless, which for Neville wasn’t easy. He reciprocated with the quartz group which he knew I’d appreciate.

One Sunday Neville never turned up. I looked for him in the following weeks but I never saw him again. I hope he still plays his golf and still has the clubs. As for myself I still have his wonderful gift. It stands upright on a bookshelf in an alcove so I can see the crystals on both sides glowing under the spotlight. It’s a marvellous thing. I’ve never seen anything quite like it!

As a stallholder on various markets, people have told me why they buy quartz crystal groups. A trader gets to hear many things, talking to so many people. The healing power of quartz crystals and groups is a topic of frequent conversation. Women in particular like to have a group in their living room and often their bedroom. They like its beauty, but also it seems, somehow find it comforting. Maybe it’s the clear uncomplicated flow of energy they feel emanating from the cluster that conveys such a sense. Perhaps they find its clarity reassuring, even protective. A purity, I’ve been told, that provides a protective healing energy that surrounds them and guards them while they sleep. Something that will be there in the morning when they wake up.

Maybe they are searching for the same kind of thing in a man.

TOILETS AT POP FESTIVALS

Let me make myself clear from the start. This post is definitely not for the squeamish so be warned. Don’t read it unless you really want to. I’ll understand. Something for you to think about though! If you need a strong cast of mind and even stronger stomach to write about the subject, try to imagine what it must be like to experience it. But then countless millions of music lovers have! In fact it’s true to say that given the huge number of people who attend pop festivals every year, far more British citizens are acquainted with the inside of a stinking portaloo than the name of their equally odious Member of Parliament.

Okay, if you’ve got this far let me draw a picture for you. Imagine a rock festival with a hundred thousand revellers. Now think of the food that they’re eating. Tens of thousands of paper plates dolloped up with chili-con-carne ladled out of a gigantic drum like container onto a baked potato and topped with a spoonful of cream that hasn’t seen the inside of a fridge in memory. You’re feeling famished so you want something hot and spicy straight out of Mexico. Yum Yum! Alternatively it could be noodles with an oily stir fry or greasy chips or any other culinary treat mass produced for endless cider-heads that don’t care too much what they shove down their gobs as long as it’s filling.

That’s the food side of things. Get the picture? Now for the toilets. Portaloos. Rows of them often with multiple compartments. Six, ten or twelve. Each with a lock on the door so you think it’s all very private! Joke, joke! Go in the one at the end and you can hear the seriously vile character of what may be going on eight doors away let alone the horror of the one next to you, but get into one in the middle and you’ve got it in stereo! And for the love of God I’m not just talking about smell, of which hydrogen sulphide is only the basics. Oh no, I’m talking sound here! A whole symphony of effluent in its various forms hitting metal accompanied by the rich vibrant wind section of the London Philharmonic. And there you are, sitting and shitting and taking it in. Aren’t you the lucky one. You’re part of it all! And remember, these toilets are not always emptied on an everyday basis. If the organisers are doing things on the cheap or something goes wrong it may happen on alternate days or even not at all. Just consider what that creates!

So, take into account all the food, then consider that festival goers are not necessarily the world’s most hygienic people. Use a portaloo at night and you could easily park your posterior on something you didn’t expect. Use it by day and you’ll need to gird your loins to combat the stink. Do whatever you’ve got to now that the spicy whatever it is that you’ve guzzled has taken hold of your guts. You’ve got no choice anymore. It’s either you and your underwear or the horror of having picked the worst cubicle!

The portaloo panic at pop festivals usually strikes around midnight. Eat at eight so its four hours’ grace. Unless you went ‘organic’ that is and the green save the planet people who sold you that delicious looking vegetable dish forgot to mention where their fertiliser came from, in which case the problem’s more immediate. Generally speaking however, the queues for the loos build up around midnight and run on till two in the morning. The music’s stopped. The stages are empty. Crowds dispersed back to their tents and darkness all around because the people running the show are invariably too mean to have lighting. And then you see them! Like Aliens they come at night! Mostly! Hundreds and hundreds of solitary desperate looking figures clutching bog rolls. They’ve staggered out of their tents hoping above hope they can hold it in and now they’re trying to remember the way to the toilets. Many are carrying torches so innumerable beams of light penetrate the gloomy and often freezing night air. All thoughts of the stink ahead are banished in the serious need to get there and I’m talking pooing not pissing. As far as the latter’s concerned just about anywhere will do. I’ve seen countless desperados getting rid of their rough cider behind food stalls though the ladies are often a bit more discrete. Just a tad!

Twelve at night till two in the morning… Those magical hours! Queues at the cabins and up it piles. The cess-tanks below un-emptied from yesterday and already full. All that half cooked, part digested chillied up mincemeat pouring out of thirty thousand bum holes and you’ve got what passes for a very realistic aspect of our British way of life. The British at their best you might say. Well, it’s only sauce for the goose! What with politicians shitting all over the electorate and the bankers shitting on just about everyone, the festival habit is very much a part of it all.

I remember one of my own experiences only too well. Vile isn’t the word. It was a Steam Festival and there were no traders’ toilets i.e. toilets that only the traders could use not the hoi polio punters. They’re supposed to be cleaner because fewer people use them but that’s only a myth anyway. Traders at festivals invariably eat the same offerings as everyone else and are often too much in a hurry to be fastidious. Speaking for ourselves we often prefer to go hungry. It tends to sharpen you up but this time I succumbed to temptation.
It was a good looking burger frying with onions that did me in. I crawled out of our camper van around three a.m. after eating something that smelled good but turned out to be hatefully disagreeable and staggered up a slope and half way round a field to a row of Dr Who lookalike cabins. And there ahead of me were hundreds of other people waiting.

Definitely an oh-my-god situation. The smell hit me thirty yards off. I retched but somehow had to control it. I bit into one of my fingers but that didn’t help. What did was holding a finger each side of my nose and squeezing hard as I could. I’d reached the end of the queue and had to wait. Soon came the sounds, even with the main outside door closed you could hear that uncontrolled rush. I just couldn’t bear it. When I took my fingers away from my nose to block up my ears I felt gassed. Then everyone looking at everyone else in the dark. Their deepest innermost thoughts their own yet still everyone else’s! The plain bloody horror of it all. Standing there waiting your turn to do the same thing. Make the same noises. And everyone looking at you when you came out. Oh the shame of it all! Well at least the panic was over. I returned to the camper van and crawled into bed feeling all sticky and thinking only of our shower at home.

But that’s me. Maybe it’s not like that for most. Maybe festival goers in general love the disgusting food, the stink of the portaloos and the sounds their guts make. Maybe it’s all very normal for them. What they think of as the festival experience. Something that goes with the mud, the dirt, the filth and the squalor. All of which are complemented by festival food. That’s it really. Apart from the bands and the music that’s what pop festivals are all about… mud, filth, questionable food, ghastly toilets, drugs and stalls selling an endless variety of tat. And yet the worst parts of this are somehow elevated into virtues. Taken together they become the festival spirit. Things that make a festival a great experience! As individual characteristics they can be criticised, even condemned, but collectively they are romanticized into its essence. Its sights, sounds and smells! You forget the single awfulness of a thing like a grown woman pissing near her tent and think of it as a totality. In that way it becomes majestic! A fond memory you have six weeks after it’s over. You forget how horrid it was treading on fresh human poo and think about the cool people you met! You minimise the individual awful experiences and transmute them into a rosy construction.

Pop festival toilets and the experience of using them are things you have to turn into something else because they’re disgusting and you need to do away with the disgust. Rid yourself of it because you don’t want that memory. In short you fantasize it. Much the same way as the present Coalition Government of political jack the lads fantasize that robbing disabled people of their benefits, charging our youth who want to study at university extortionate fees, attacking the standard of living of elderly people and increasing child poverty is really for their own good and in some way helps them. Having said this however even such vile double-think pales into insignificance when set against the anal dance of the current leadership of the Labour Party that has now given itself over to the belief that the best way of opposing all the things they supposedly hate is to support those who perpetrate such moral injustices. The key word here, of course is supposedly.

Indeed, to step into any political debate about who should pay for the economic crises caused by a handful of arse holes is much the same as stepping into a filthy portaloo at a pop festival. And true there might be a difference but I’ll leave it to you to decide what it is.

ARRANGING A STALL SO THAT FRENCH KIDS CAN STEAL THINGS

When most people think of France and the French they think of wine and cheese, Paris and the Eiffel Tower. They think of food, and good holidays somewhere or other. There are the Impressionist painters. Great writers and scientists like Emile Zola and Louis Pasteur. And of course there’s Napoleon. So much that’s great has come out of France. There’s even the Liberty, Equality and Fraternity of the French Revolution let alone rugby and football! But for market traders it’s different. When market traders think of France they think of French kids. Thieving little French kids with hands that move faster than light speed who come to their stall in groups and expertly nick stuff right in front of their noses without them even knowing it’s happened!

It’s only later, when they’ve all disappeared and gone off to do another trader that you find gaps on the table where things used to be but have somehow amazingly disappeared, almost as if by magic. Derren Brown please take note! You just don’t know how it happened. You swear blind that they were there before and think you must have got it wrong only you haven’t. They were there and now they’ve just vanished.

It’s not as if you’ve been done by some brilliant professional. A master craftsman who can crack a safe as easily as a cockney can do a tub of jellied eels. Oh no, those gaps only appear after they’ve pissed off back to the youth hostel and you hear wails all over the market. It’s the school holidays again and the French kids have magpied your stock.

Thieving from a stall is a great art. Don’t underestimate the genius it takes! I was once stalled out on a paste table at Leather Lane street market, small trees at the front, willows in the middle and foot tall giants at the back where I was standing. There were lookers and there were customers but whatever I was doing my eyes were all over the stall. Taking in everyone’s movement and knowing where everything was. Suddenly I blinked. Something that had been there before seconds earlier, no more than six inches away, had gone. I blinked again. It couldn’t have! It was impossible. The giant Chico with orange leaves simply wasn’t there anymore. You needed an outsize carrier bag to put it in. But how had it happened? Someone must have seen it being lifted. Now I knew all about being distracted only I hadn’t been. It was definitely the giant Chico with carnelian leaves. A real piece of crap but thirty quid all the same. To do that, lift it off the stall right from under my nose was pure magic. The army needs people like that. They’d make getting out of Colditz a piece of cake! Suddenly the Englanders aren’t there anymore and the Germans can’t figure it out!

Well I’d had my fill of a summer of French kids. I couldn’t stop them thieving and couldn’t catch them doing it either. What I had to do was minimise my losses. Come up with a plan. The more I thought about it the simpler it got. If their stealing couldn’t be stopped the best thing to do was control it. Encourage them to steal what I wanted them to steal by guiding them with small, cheap sparkly rubbish placed right in front of the stall. Stuff that would make them happy. I had the perfect thing in mind. Little golden pieces of iron pyrites costing me 50 pence each and laid out like temptation. Irresistible! Lovely and shiny! Perfect gifts for their brothers or mates. Nick one or two and they wouldn’t want anything else. Alternatively they could thieve my semi-precious tumble-stone pebbles piled high in a couple of basket that only cost me 5 pence apiece. Want some of those? Mes enfants you are welcome!

Behind these temptations are the extra tiny and tiny trees at four-fifty and six quid respectively. If they’d had their fill getting something for nothing from the front the urge might be satisfied. They wouldn’t bother going further back.

Okay I thought, I’d experiment. Lay up the stall on the main market and see how it went. Strategic thinking. Let them believe they were getting one over on me only it would be the other way round. I’d be stoking their desire. Little bright gold things out at the front along with polished pebbles of rose quartz, rock crystal and amethyst. So easy to take and stuffed in their pockets they wouldn’t break like the trees. I saw it all in my mind’s eye. My advance guard out there at the front tempting the French while I held my big guns in reserve at the rear. Hold on my son! Don’t get carried away. This was a London street market not Waterloo, and I wasn’t a duke either. Let the kids turn up and see how it goes. Then you’ll know if you’re right.

It was a mid-morning when the first party arrived. Past the bag stall, the teapots and masks. About fifteen of them, most early teens and all singing unzip a banana. The sparkle of the stall had caught their attention and they were heading my way. Suddenly they were milling around at the front. “Bonjour mes enfants,” I smoothed out in French. We take euros, no problem. Soon they were actually buying. Small trees for starters then a frog on marble. How much for the palm? Twenty-five euro? It was too much. Then one of them bought an amethyst willow for his mum and another, a tiger eye bonsai for his older brother. Wonderful. Sixty euros in my pocket. I was on a real roll and hoping for more. It never came. It was like someone had switched off a tap. Some chatter and they were gone. All disappeared in a group. My eyes ran along the front of the stall. Six out of the ten pyrite nodules vanished and the levels of pebbles dropped in both baskets.

I thought long and hard. It was amazing. I hadn’t seen any of it go but the trees were all there along with the quartz groups and jewellery. In minutes I replaced the whole lot from supplies under the table.

The same thing happened again three times during the week. The results almost the same. Sold five or six pieces on each occasion to large and small parties and lost the same stuff.

It took a month to fully establish the format. During that time I further livened the front with a scattering of ten-penny quartz crystals. Un-mounted single point giveaways that went like hot cakes. Stolen I mean. They were going for the crystals now as much as the pyrites. Three excellent things. Small, easy to nick and definitely worth the effort. In two months I had it down pat. I was right. I couldn’t stop them stealing so I’d help it along. It created a good feeling and actually encouraged others to buy.

Or maybe it wasn’t like that at all. Sales of other stuff to these groups was increasing. Maybe the kids who were buying were also those who were thieving! Come to think of it that was almost certainly the case. What was happening was simple enough. They regarded the stuff they were pocketing as a discount. Americans always asked. Spend two quid and they wanted twenty percent off. The French kids were different. They just took.

So who were the worst, I wound up asking myself. The thieves or the tight arses? You see, market traders aren’t just jack the lads who go around breaking plates and talking cockney. You know… alf a pound of tuppeny rice, alf a pound of treacle. They can also be generals on the quiet. And dare I say it, philosophers!

MY WIFE’S PASTA HAS A SPECIAL INGREDIENT: SELLING GEMTREES TO THE ITALIAN MAFIA

It was late afternoon in September when I saw three men walking together along the aisle between the stalls, casually taking in the various items for sale. Mid-twenties to early forties I surmised and between them a short little lady all in black. The colour immediately brought on another thought. The men were also dressed in black. Smart casual suits, nothing heavy. They looked different but in a way similar. Maybe it was down to the fact that they all wore dark glasses.

My mind did a double take. Men in Black! Maybe they were actors working on a film somewhere local. It wasn’t unknown. There seemed to be an intimacy between them however which led me to think they were a family group. Not English though. Dark haired, possibly Mediterranean. My intuition ran strong. More likely Italian than anything and definitely heading my way.

Men in black, dark glasses, Italian, with a little lady in between who had to be Mamma. A tune suddenly came into my head. You know the one! I panicked. What if they liked all the trees? Wanted to buy out the business? Made me an offer I couldn’t refuse? I kept on hearing the same bloody music.

Seconds later they were standing in front of the stall talking together. They were Italian all right. I even recognised the accent. The slow easy drawl was from the far south. Almost certainly Sicilian.

I don’t know what came over me. Siciliano? I enquired, praying I’d got the phonetics right.

“Si,” one of them responded with an easy smile then began talking to me in Italian. I guessed the questions. Was I Sicilian myself? Had I been there on holiday?

I smiled back then took off my cap to the lady. No, I said politely in English. My wife and I had travelled all over Italy but alas we’d never visited Sicily. One day we would go.

His English was good. “You should definitely go. It’s a beautiful country. You will be made very welcome.”

The others came across pleasant and relaxed. I instantly liked them. My wife and I have liked all the Italians we’ve met. “Are you a family?” I asked. Having a holiday in England?

The older man nodded. Yes, it was a holiday. They were his brothers. The lady with them was their mother.

I acknowledged strongly in her direction and bowed slightly, reaching out my hand which she took.

“You’re welcome Mamma. Please feel free to pick anything up. You don’t have to buy.”

Her oldest son translated. She liked what I’d said and nodded. I knew she wouldn’t touch anything herself.

The men began talking among themselves, occasionally glancing at me, then began looking more closely at the trees. Particularly the big willows with amethyst, rose quartz, and rock crystal leaves.

“Che bello!” the youngest exclaimed, turning to his mother. The lady smiled but said nothing. Then to my horror he picked up a palm tree and began pulling at the leaves. They were mainly aventurine, a light green translucent stone. I could only watch, waiting for them to fall off with my heart in my mouth. I was done for. In a minute they’d be laughing their heads off with scorn. Then I remembered. Thank Christ! It was one I’d araldited two weeks back for use as a head twirler. I asked him to hand it to me which he did.

“Now watch,” I said coolly, holding the brass stem with both hands and bending it almost in half. See! I held up a finger. Now watch! Slowly, carefully, I began straightening it out until it was the same as before. I handed it to him smiling. They were all looking at each other and I again heard the slow easy drawl.

“I’ve been here five years,” I said, thinking it was time for a break. “I used to be a teacher before. I’ve heard Sicily’s real nice. What do you do over there?”

Even as I said it I knew I shouldn’t have. “Working here you get to meet people from all over the world,” I added quickly. Doctors, scientists… Sometimes even politicians!”

“We’re in the olive oil business,” the younger man said matter of fact. “We export.”

My thoughts raced. The olive oil business! Whoops, there was that tune again in my head. Even so it gave me an idea. Italians liked to talk about food.

“I love olive oil,” I enthused. “Green, extra virgin. Hmm… some good olive oil, a robust peasant bread, rich red tomatoes, salami from Napoli and a glass of red wine.”

I’d spoken quickly, almost with passion. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and I was famished! The idea of an antipasto got me carried away. They were all smiling at me broadly now, even Mamma.

“So you love our Italian food,” the younger brother enquired. “In Sicily we think ours is the best.”

“Give me a good pasta anytime,” I enthused. “Ravioli, lasagne, and most of all spaghetti. Tonight when I get home my wife will make me a spaghetti. She makes the best spaghetti in the world!”

The news was instantly conveyed to the old lady. His wife makes the best spaghetti in the world…

She muttered something to one of her sons. “Mamma asks if your wife is Italian?”

I shook my head. No, she was an English lady. We’d been married twenty years. Her spaghetti was definitely the best.

The information was relayed back and I caught the sound of a word. Something like impossibile. “If your wife is not an Italian,” the older man said, “she cannot make the best spaghetti. Maybe her spaghetti is very good, but I am sorry, it is not the best.”

Whatever sales I’d hoped to make were fast going out of the window. Too bad. Louise was a great cook and her reputation at issue. “My wife’s spaghetti is the best in the world,” I insisted. “No-one can make it like she can.” Defending her bolognaise was a matter of honour!

It was all getting very Italian. Even so, I had an idea in my head.

My support for Louise was conveyed to the old lady who began talking to her sons. I got a direct translation. Who was I to say it was the best in the world? The women in Sicily knew how to cook. Her mother had taught her and she had learned from her own mother before. Sicilian women had been making pasta for generations, always to please their men, not just to feed their bellies. In Sicily it was a family tradition.

So that’s where it stood. The reputation of my wife’s spaghetti on the one hand and that of Sicilian cooking on the other. No, it was more than that. It was the reputation of Sicilian women and that was altogether more serious! It had become a matter of honour. The honour of Sicily! Of Italy itself!

An Englishwoman could make a better spaghetti than an Italian woman? I could see how bad it was getting by the look on their faces. It was turning into what Italians love best. An opera! It gave me an idea.

“My wife’s spaghetti is best,” I said slowly, “because it’s got something secret in it. An ingredient she puts in specially for me. No-one else’s spaghetti can have it.”

Mamma again shook her head. I heard garlic muttered, and oregano. A secret ingredient? What was this? Mamma didn’t know of any secret ingredient!

I was sorry, I had to insist. My wife made her pasta with a special ingredient. It was a secret.

The little lady seemed agitated. “Mamma says there cannot be anything special,” her son came back. “If it is true then you must tell her.”

The brothers looked at me squarely. Yes, if it was true I should say. Out of respect for their mother.

We’d reached a far higher level of seriousness. Now it was a matter of respect for their mother. If I didn’t watch out I could find myself down with the fishes. I put on a look of desperation. I couldn’t I said. I’d made my dear wife a promise.

“If you just let our mother know we won’t tell anyone else.”

They were all in agreement. There’d be a code of silence over Louise’s pasta ingredient. That was the way things were in Sicily. Either the secret of her spaghetti was kept or it was death. I saw it all in my mind’s eye. Someone sitting in a bar in Palermo sipping a grappa and talking too much, next thing he knew he was in the boot of a Fiat on its way down to the docks.

Alright, I said wearily. “But only to Mamma.” I was at the front of the stall now in the middle of the group of brothers, finger on my lips and ready to whisper the secret. “My wife’s pasta is the best in the world because she puts in it…” I waited for the translation then bent down to whisper…

“Because she puts in it AMORE…”

The woman’s face took on a puzzled expression. “Amore?”

Suddenly her whole face creased with a smile. “Amore!” … “Amore!” the brothers caught, on turning to me and laughing. It was true! I’d made a very good joke but it was true all the same as one of them said. If a woman loves a man then she cooks for him with love one of them said. I shook his hand. Very good! It was so very Italian!

They really loved that! Curtain down and the audience all happy. Minutes later their eyes turned to the trees and they began talking again. I heard names being mentioned, mainly women. Sisters, wives, girlfriends I wondered? And of course the little lady herself. Soon I’d bagged up two palms, ten large willows, including a giant for Mamma, and a dozen or more tinies for friends. Close to four hundred quid all in euros. My performance was worth it. With a little psychology I’d made a real killing.

Before they left I picked up a malachite bead necklace. “A gift for Mamma,” I said, handing it to her eldest. “Will you put it on for her please.” He did and she was delighted, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze.

As for me I wondered how much it would help if any of the leaves fell off between the market and the Straits of Messina.

THOSE AUTUMN LEAVES : DEMONSTRATING THE STRENGTH OF OUR GEM TREES WITH AN ARALDITE SPECIAL

As I’ve said in an earlier blog, apart from crystals and minerals, most of what we sell on our stall are gem trees of various kinds and seen together, with all their translucent tumble-stone leaves, they make a magnificent display when laid out on a black cloth under halogen spotlights. It’s easily the most sparkling and unusual sight on the market and catches the eye of people walking nearby in every direction. They’re curious. They just have to come over and look.

Collectively the trees look brilliant but as individual pieces they also look delicate, even fragile so the questions we get asked most is how do you pack them or do the leaves ever fall off? Our prices are cheap, what you might call customer friendly, so the biggest issue in selling them is durability and transportation. In the eyes of people who like them, who want to buy for themselves, family or friends, is it worth taking the risk? Shelling out money for something they’d never get home in one piece. This is always the central issue in selling them. The doubt that we have to overcome. It’s the absolutely key element in our sales pitch.

Whatever the trees, from miniatures and ‘tinies’ with their six and twelve hanging branches of twisted brass wire with loops at their ends onto which the leaves are glued, to the ten inch tall spidery Chicos (named after the man in whose factory they’re made) whose leaves are like little cubes, their frames are all strongly glued onto their bases with a powerful epoxy resin and wire hidden by crushed crystals so no problem there, The customer can see that it’s strong. The weakness then was the leaves, all of which are glued on with a dab of All Purpose Bostik. Out it went from the tube onto the loop, six at a time, and on went the stones. A little press with the fingers and in seconds it dried. The bond strong enough but never a hundred percent guaranteed.

We import the wire frames glued to the bases and with the exception of the Chicos stick on the tumble-stone chip leaves we buy locally ourselves. All easy enough, but how about the fragility problem? If we used epoxy resin to glue on the leaves there wouldn’t have been any, only that was impossible. Too sticky, too messy and too difficult to apply. Naturally we’d tried it. Making trees by the dozen that way takes ten times as long as dabbing glue out of a tube so the problem was always there with us.

“Will the leaves fall off?” or “can I pack it into a suitcase?” were questions that had to be answered.

And answered they were sharp and sudden. I’d pick up a tree and collapse the branches down with the palm of my hand then crush it all in my fist. Then I’d open my hand and let the customer see it was well and truly done in. Seconds later I’d straighten out all the branches and show that the leaves were all there.

The best was yet to come! To the disbelief of the customer I’d come out to the front of the stall, throw the tree 20 feet into the air and let it land with a crash onto the concrete to gasps from the punter and my fellow traders alike. Then I’d pick it up, straighten it out, smile and say something like “see!”

The demonstration with a spidery Chico was different. More sensational! I’d pick up a selected tree by one of its little cube leaves and swing it round my head. Sometimes quite fast! This little stunt always had the same effect. Gasps of amazement all round.

Okay you’ve now got the picture, so how was it done? Yes, I’m sure Derren Brown’s worked it out. For one thing, any tree I select is what I’d describe as an Araldite Special. There are always three or four out on the stall, usually at opposite sides of the display so when I casually select one it’s made to look random. These are indeed special. Their leaves glued on with epoxy which, when left to dry, creates an unbreakable bond between the polished surface of the chip and the wire. You’d need a Kango Hammer to do any damage! It was only the specials that were demonstrated to incredulous customers. In fact, it’s true to say that my performances often give other traders a serious laugh, and more important than anything, nearly always result in a sale.

Okay, so someone buys one of your trees. A pretty little number in amethyst with the leaves only glued on with Bostik. I mean, don’t you feel worried all the time about some falling off? You must have customers bringing them back by the dozen!

It’s a fair question though the answer may surprise you. In all the time I’ve been selling trees on the markets I could count the number brought back on the fingers of one hand and this out of a total of thousands. Why it is I haven’t a clue. If leaves fall off for whatever reason maybe customers think it’s their fault and glue them back on themselves. Or maybe they live too far away to be bothered. But then, speaking for myself, I’d like to think there’s something deeper at work!

Maybe it’s not a case of Autumn Leaves after all, but the simple magic and power of the crystals.

aka… Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it!

THE MONGOLIA CONNECTION : IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE SOMETHING COMES FROM TRY OUTER MONGOLIA

On a market stall you always get customers asking where a product originates. Like where it was made and who made it. Some people are very fussy. Have what may loosely be described as a conscience. They don’t like the idea of buying the beautiful garment they’ve seen being made by little Asian kids of eight or nine working 14 hours a day in a sweatshop for sixpence an hour, or some gorgeous furry bag from Peru made from the skin of a long nosed, short tailed rat, on an endangered species list.

No. They’ll ask first then have a think for a few minutes. Well at least those kids have a job and are bringing in some badly needed cash to help feed the family. Well, those rats… Just one out of circulation can’t do any harm, and it was probably a pest that ate all the crops those poor peasants were growing. Probably on its last legs anyway so turning it into something useful was eco-friendly when all’s said and done.

We also get the same kind of questions. They look at a rock and ask where I found it! If I say Bournemouth or Bognor Regis they don’t want to know. When I tried Manchester, Birmingham or Bristol they said uh-huh or hmm and were still unimpressed. That’s when I learned about the psychology of geography. When I began telling them stuff was from Botswana, Paraguay or the Congo it definitely got better but it still wasn’t enough. They needed somewhere far away and romantic. Some mountain range or desert that was totally inaccessible. Some country at the arse end of nowhere.

My experimenting continued. With increased fascination and results when I went through Uzbekistan, the Sinkiang Province of China and the Aral Sea region in South Central Asia. Then one day I hit the jackpot. Someone asked me where some crusty bit of rock came from and instead of saying out of a sack at the wholesalers I had a moment of divine inspiration. I don’t know what made me think of it but out it came off the top of my head. “It’s from Outer Mongolia,” I said matter of fact.

The look the guy gave me! “Outer Mongolia eh?” he was completely enthralled.

“Did you go there yourself?”

I struggled to keep a straight face. “No, a good friend of mine who was there in the desert brought it back. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t even think it’s got a name!”

“Mongolian hmm…” Sold for ten quid. It could have come from someone’s back garden for all I knew but from that time on it was Outer Mongolia. Not Inner Mongolia or even good old plain Mongolia. Outer Mongolia had a special kind of ring to it. I mean it was so far away, so inaccessible, that saying it matter of fact, it had to be right. There couldn’t be any mistaking it. Either I knew my stuff and the provenance of the thing I was selling or I was a damnable liar. And would I be such a damnable liar… say that just to take a few quid? No, if the man said Outer Mongolia he knew what he was talking about. Look at the stuff on his stall! So unusual! No. He wouldn’t say something like that if it wasn’t true? If he said Outer Mongolia then that’s where it came from.

Naturally I was conservative in using the ploy. Didn’t flash it around for everything on the table. That would have been stupid. Everyone knew that Amethyst and Rose Quartz came from Brazil like most of the quartz and the agates. Tiger Eye was from Southern Africa, Carnelian and Garnet from India and Malachite from the copper rich Congo. No, Outer Mongolia was only for special occasions. Mainly for mineral specimens I picked up from East Europeans who came to the stall wanting some cash. If they looked good or deadly unusual then it had to be Genghis Khan’s former patch!

Strangely enough it gelled far more with men than with women. Say Outer Mongolia to women and you got a dull stare. Say it to men and it’s different. Somewhere almost impossible to get to. Associated with adventure, horses, camels, trips through deserts, travel, strange people with fur hats who lived in tents, silver daggers… Women don’t want privation or tents. They want sunshine, the hotel pool and a sangria. A glass of something alcoholic with a little umbrella in it brought by a waiter, not a zinc bucket of yak’s milk. So if on a rare occasion a woman saw something unusual she wanted for herself I’d come out with The Congo. If it was for her husband or son, or it was a man who was buying, there was only one place. Outer Mongolia!

That’ll be twenty pounds sir, and yes, were planning to go there ourselves. First stop Ulan Bator for supplies then take the 4 by 4 that we’ve hired deep into the desert on a minerals hunting expedition for the stall. You never know what you’re likely to find.