THE CRYSTAL THAT SANK THE TITANIC

Hello! Hands up those who think the Titanic was sunk by a gigantic cheesy on a stick floating in the North Atlantic on a dark night in April. So many of you eh! Well that’s alright. You just keep buying your half rotten organic vegetables from the local farm shop and putting your marker against the name of the Liberal Democrat candidate in the elections. Alternatively how many of you think the ship sank because its Captain was mainly interested in breaking Atlantic crossing records for his company, disregarded weather reports and had his head up the arse of all his society and celebrity passengers most of the time? Hmm, about the same number. Finally, hands up those who believe that the rivets in the hull were made of third rate steel and that the maritime pride of the British Empire, despite all the fanfare publicity, was just a big accident waiting to happen?

The floating coffin theorists may have a point. The rivets holding the steel plates together sheared under pressure allowing the initial gash to extend along much of the hull. This more likely possibility, however, has been submerged in recent weeks under the glossy romanticised 100^th anniversary commemoration coverage of the Titanic’s sinking, turned by the media into a revolving morbidity fest of upper class swells in dinner suits and their jewelled ladies, palm court orchestras, the lavish opulence of the décor of the first class state apartments, the Dining Room, the Ballroom, the Billiards Room and the Library. A bit like Cluedo on Water with the ship as the victim!

Then of course there were the many hundreds of lackeys provided by White Star Line to doff their hats, curtsy or stand by waiting on the whims of their masters and madams. Exactly the way it was in 1912 in a deeply servile British society with the servile knowing their place, a situation reflected precisely in the social order maintained on the vessel. And just think, two years later, millions of this same class dressed in khaki were sent over the top by the same masters and mown down like flies on the battlefields of France, giving up their precious lives for the monstrous cracker motto lie, Those Who Die Fighting So Shall They Have Increase.

How little has been said of the deep contempt shown by the Company and maritime regulations at the time towards the steerage passengers locked up below all this froth, providing lifeboats sufficient in number only for the glittering few. Worse still, the hateful attitude of the merchant mariners aboard towards the poor and unfortunate bound for America and a new life. No, the recent media fest was more a demonstration of the wealth and celebrity of 1912 society for the wealth and celebrity of our own deeply divided society of 2012. Only for the wealth and celebrity of 1912 there was something more than a cheesy on a stick waiting in the freezing North Atlantic waters that one night in April. A great big ice crystal was heading their way carrying a serious message. You may be the Titanic, with all that publicity about being unsinkable… the best that there is… BUT DON’T FUCK WITH ME BOY OR YOU’RE GOING DOWN!

So there it was, just a great big crystal bob-bob-bobbing along in the ocean minding its own business and doing its thing. Having a free ride down the current without a care in the world. A free spirit you might say. Maybe giving shelter to some North Atlantic wildlife. For those who believe in the spiritual power of crystals, think of all that clear pristine power, all that vast concentration of energy packed together in an infinitely complex lattice. Just think of it! Can’t you feel the energy of this wondrous phenomenon of nature? Such a marvellously energising free spirit!  

Then along comes this tin coffin, inside of which are all those dressed up swells and their ladies, sitting at the Captain’s table guzzling champagne and talking superior cobblers.

I really must get all those wretched men in my factories to work harder. Can’t afford to have any of them idling about for what we pay them…

I wholeheartedly agree with you my dear fellow… If we’re to sink more money in on the Exchange those bloody workers must be taught they can’t have a free ride…

Oh I so agree with you Percy. It seems that even the chambermaid thinks she can get above her station these days…

Good God! You having trouble with your servants, George?

Yes, there’s this long tin coffin, thin as a pencil with four funnels on top all puffing out smoke.

Toot toot! We’re the Titanic and were unsinkable so piss off you dirty big water ice crystal or I’ll run you down like a dog!

You can see it all, can’t you readers? This unsinkable, glittering, unchallengeable cross section of British society with a handful of their upstart American cousins aboard. Absolute wealth, power and contempt for everyone and everything. Riding the Atlantic with supreme confidence because no-one else counts and then this little crystal bobbing along in all that expanse of water. No engines, power or steering. No vanity or boasting. Just unpretentiously drifting along in the current.

Now I ask you, who’s getting in who’s way here? How much publicity has been given over to the crystal itself in recent weeks? You all know about Lady Farthingale and her silk knickers, the wretched do nothing Captain with the beard, the Dining Room with the Mirrors, the plates, the crockery and the seating arrangements. Everything down to the menus. Every little detail about the coffin and its clientele, the honourable this one and lady that one, then all the steerage. There’s even Di Caprio playing a broth of a boy in a flaky romance that you all think could have happened to you! Then there’s all the underwater exploration of the wreck. Talk about morbid obsession! Perfect for suburban lower middle class housewives dripping snobbery, nostalgia and more. Yes, it’s all been there, all the way down to the last monogrammed bog roll, but how many of you know about the crystal that gave it the kiss off?

I’m not talking about something that took a hundred years to pop out of a glacier in Greenland. The kind of thing you see in a science reality program presented by some cheesy northerner with a gratingly erudite accent. Nothing like that. I’m talking more about energy levels. All those crystals of ice compacted together. I mean you know what it’s like when some kid chucks a well-made snowball at you and catches your ear. Little bastard! Your hands immediately get busy working up something much bigger. You’ve been smacked in the gob and you know all about it. Well now, think of the snowman the kids made in the garden, the one with a carrot for a nose. They put your old hat on it and it looks like Vince Cable. The one next to it’s even more innovative. With the inverted plant pot on its head and a geranium sticking out the top it’s a dead ringer for Oliver Letwin! Now think of that snowman being the size of your house, or more realistically ten times as big as St Pauls. All that crystal power and energy drifting along in deep water and coming towards it some shiny new biscuit tin out of Belfast.

Well who’s kidding who here? You may want to call it an iceberg, the thing that fucked over the pride of an Empire, created a whole new souvenir industry and gave you a belly full of puerile nostalgia, but there are many other folk out there who know better. With all that locked up energy drifting along waiting to be released, countless millions of alternative therapy enthusiasts with a far better understanding like to think of it simply as… THE CRYSTAL THAT SANK THE TITANIC.

So let this post be a message for all of you in that great army of believers. TRUTH IS ON THE MARCH!

THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE : USING CRYSTALS TO IMPRESS THE IMPRESSIONABLES

With a few simple questions and a market trader’s ability to put on a friendly face it’s possible to ascertain just how impressionable crystal healing enthusiasts actually are. I know, I’ve been doing it for years and can tell you that experience shows the existence of a genuine spectrum of impressionability from those who believe anything to those who ask stupid questions and accept stupid answers as long as they’re delivered with earnest, well-meaning good intention.

When I say ‘believe anything’ I don’t mean just about anything but ANYTHING. Like Napoleon was into rose quartz or that Lenin’s pet monkey wore a quartz crystal pendant!

Hmm, I didn’t know Lenin had a pet monkey. Just goes to show…Sorry to disillusion those of you who have any faith in humanity but there are people out there, lots of them, who actually believe that kind of shit. And guess what, they can vote!

Understanding impressionability and its various levels among crystal healing adepts is an important key in the armoury of those who make a living selling crystals, semi-precious jewellery and minerals for unlocking sources of cash. The important thing to remember is that wherever you are along the spectrum with whoever you’re dealing with, it is crucial to convey absolute sincerity and a certitude of knowledge. As a trader you simply must come across as both authoritative and honest. In a word, unchallengeable. You are there to enlighten as well as assist. That is what enthusiasts want most. Enlightenment. Enlighten first then take their money!

No need to try selling. Your knowledge of an enthusiast’s needs does it for you. You’ve made them understand they’re at the right place. That your market stall is their spiritual home and you are the master! In the universal world of the spirit, what some might call the psyche, there is the darkness and the light, and how easy it is to present these as two separate spheres of existence, the dark side and the light by which you can characterise the human condition, each side having its own qualities, energies and powers.

Okay, just a little question for you now. Who said, “you don’t know the power of the dark side?” Could it be Dracula, or Satan in the Bible? Or even some politician like Gordon Brown? You just never know with these guys! Well actually it was none of these! Do I need to tell you who it was then? Of course you know. He’s as much a part of popular culture as any of the above! Right, so what about Darth Vader you’re asking and what does he have to do with this post? Fair question, but consider an impressionable crystal healing enthusiast in front of my stall asking me about the power of crystals and what effects they have, and me telling him or her how they have different healing properties and energies and may act upon the light side or the dark depending on what they are!

Indeed I stress that crystals have both positive and negative energies, a light side and a dark. And here I might say in a deep meaningful voice that cannot be challenged, you just don’t know the power of the dark side!

Maybe you think I’m having a bit of a joke, well I’m not. I’ve never had a crystal healing enthusiast to whom I’ve said this tell me I’ve got to be kidding. My comment about the power of the dark side has always been unfailingly accepted. It’s never been challenged or questioned, and no-one has ever laughed either.

Okay, now hands up all those who’ve still got any faith left in humanity! Right! It’s time now for you to go and put a pound in the sin bin for voting Liberal Democrat!

At the same time, pardon me for asking. Don’t you find the above a bit scary? It wasn’t Darth Vader’s eyes that mesmerised. You couldn’t see them. Neither was it really his voice, though it certainly helped. No, it was the notion of darkness, particularly intent. It is the notion of a dark side that provides fascination, and what is there that is best suited to counter it? Yes of course, it’s the light side, the side of the good, a power provided by quartz crystal energy. Something that’s all around us and whose ways we must learn! It is our understanding of their ability to heal. That first! After which we ourselves can become healers, knights no less of crystal healing. Teachers with our very own apprentice!

The line of enthusiasts queuing for training can be considerably long. I often have them returning to my stall seeking advice. Even though I make it plain and with all sincerity that I just run a business and am certainly no healer, many adepts simply refuse to believe me. They think I’m trying to mask my identity, that I’m really some kind of wizard with special knowledge of the light side of the crystalline spiritual force. Otherwise as they say earnestly, why do they feel so compelled to come back to the stall?

It’s a kind of circular logic that’s difficult to break but then why should I want to if it helps me minimise the dark side of my bank balance. The fact is that the impressionability of large numbers of crystal healing disciples is indeed scary although it’s rarely a product of inspiration or insight. It’s more typical that any big moment is likely to fit into a pre-existing psychological framework of need. A place for connections that spark off the magic! Crucially it’s the framework that sustains belief then directs social conduct. If you are taught to perceive something or someone in a certain way then loving or hating both become easy. A whole nation is taken in. They’ve bought into a package.

Conversational charm relating to crystals is one thing but a whole people judged, that’s quite another. It takes special circumstances for a whole race of people to become demonised and it takes a special kind of psychopath to make it happen. It is one thing to believe that crystals possess physical properties, quite another to believe they possess occult powers independent from their aesthetic attributes. Occult power introduces a propensity for judgement so these things can be given qualities they do not intrinsically possess such as lightness or dark, good or evil.

And before you know where you are you’ve bought in. A whole spectrum of mind games surrounding the black arts of indoctrination awaits you. It’s a wonder to behold! If you convince people you also buy them. Sell them an idea and you buy their freedom along with it. Remember, your freedom to be free is one of the few things you’ve got and there are so many people out there who want to take it away.

But there again, it’s one thing to be impressionable, another to actually need to be part of a group, a collective of enthusiasts and adepts. You’re part of something bigger than yourself. A place where people are mutually supportive. You won’t stick out like a sore thumb anymore. Your belief is a passport into the club. You’re safe and secure there along with your views. It’s not a crime to be impressionable and have these only too human needs but it’s a weakness not to recognise them in yourself. One that can be easily exploited. Street market traders and clergymen, party political jerk-offs and psychopathic dictators all have this ability in common… They are all geared to read the impressionability of the impressionable a mile off!

So how can a market trader with any claim to integrity sell crystals to impressionable middle-aged ladies you’re asking yourself? Especially after everything I’ve said here. Well I’ll tell you. I DON’T. Furthermore I don’t even try. I tell them what my crystals are supposed to do then point to a large collection tin on my table marked LIBERAL DEMOCRAT ELECTION CAMPAIGN. If they still want to buy one they can pop the correct sum into the tin which I send off every month to Party Headquarters.

So, after everything I’ve said in this post isn’t it really the most honourable thing I can do? Well isn’t it?

Or am I telling you a monstrous lie. Wondering about how impressionable you are.

STOP PRESS : LATEST NEWS FROM THE COBBLERS EXCHANGE : CITY OF LONDON

Ha! my dear frens, pray ’ow dee doo,
Hi ’opes I sees yer well,
Peer’aps you don’t know ’oo I is
Well, then, I’m the Crystal Swell,
Me Chambers is at the Cobblers Exchange
And I fancies I’m a Toff,
From top to toe I really think
I looks Immensekoff

Crystal Toff…Crystal Toff… I looks Immensekoff. Please join in the chorus if you fancies

The lads are gettin together
concerned about yer wealth
So we’re working on a caper,
to nick the National Ealth

National Ealth… National Ealth… We’ll nick yer National Ealth.

Gobbin down champagne
We’ve got it on the brain,
To grab your ouses, stuff your spouses
an go on riding the gravy train,

We’re on the Gravy Train… We’re on the Gravy Train…

It’s a catchy little tune we all sing at the Cobblers Exchange these days but there’s no harm having some fun. We’ve all been busy of late and my time is now divided between working the market stalls and financial matters in the City. However, no need to worry. Here on the Exchange we’ve all got your best interests at heart, speaking of which let me tell you that one of the lads, a senior executive with a Futures Broker, is planning on setting up a little venture of his own. Just the kind of thing the economy needs right now.

Want to hear more? Well it’s about organ donations on the Futures Market. Once the National Health turns private they’ll be hiving off control of organ donations, and what with everyone working till eighty sooner rather than later to get any pension it’ll be possible to calculate from medical records the volume of people being on their way out, so to speak, and their time of departure. Then my friend here, with his Fair Trade Organ Donations Corporation already up and running, will be able to harness anything useful for his wealthy contacts on the Russian and Chinese Bond Markets. They’ll get healthy organs and joints in exchange for dependents receiving a few years’ free interest on any mortgage repayments.

Like it? Well the shares haven’t been floated yet but don’t worry about that ’cos it’s all in the future which means you can invest in it now even though the company doesn’t exist. Except in his head that is, which is full of champagne right now and well down on the software of a Hedge Fund manageress in the gents toilet. But then, don’t you see, the company doesn’t have to exist! Nothing does. The values of companies and shares are only based on ideas about what people think things are worth, people with money that is!

Here’s how it operates. If we want to make something worth more than it is we just talk it up with our media connections, just before which we get together with a pretend chunk of borrowed cash. You know! Promises to pay back on paper. Then we buy the shit with a low value also on paper ’cos actually that’s what it’s really worth, wait for the talk and watch it go up. Okay, now we flog off the shares when they’ve reached a dizzy height, sign back the pretend loan from someone or other and we’re in at 100 k each. And what then? You don’t want to know but I’ll tell you! The share price goes down the tubes, which is where the paper belongs, the workers and small investors get hammered and we all go out and buy Bentleys!

But then that’s only small time. For the big players it’s town houses in Chelsea and an estate in the country, preferably Oxfordshire, with head down on a piece of celebrity software. Most of these guys are in their sixties and seventies but we’re now getting some of the best of the younger crowd here on the Exchange.

Jesus! And these bloody nurses, teachers and firemen think they work hard!

True, we do find time to relax here on the Cobblers Exchange, that is, when we’re not working on schemes to help the economy grow or meeting important people. We often have friends visit from the Bullingdon Club who take us to parties with Russian oligarchs and sometimes it’s big players in the Liberal Democrats. And please don’t tell me that these people aren’t important! Only a few weeks ago I had a serious discussion with a senior member of the Cabinet over the thorny issue of strikes and industrial relations. We already knew each other from way back when I’d sold him a beautiful single rose quartz crystal mounted in silver as a pendant for his wife and he’d bought a tie pin made of the immensely rare and powerful Sugilite, a mineral with an energy level to the 12th power. Something he already knew and astonished to see it was willing to pay my price. In fact it’s the Sugilite which gives him the power he needs in his Cabinet discussions so he’s told me.

Anyway our discussion! Yes there were serious industrial relations problems on the way. Strikes and marches over salaries and pensions. All that public sector kind of thing. He was clearly worried about the whole economic future and wanted to know what I thought. Well there we both were. Sitting in the foyer of the Exchange dressed smart casual. Him picking at his plate of lobster and caviar after outlining some of those pressing concerns that confront Liberal Democrats. Having talked about the nation’s problems with a crystal healing financial analyst I could see his worried face reflected in the mirror. Could there be other ways of healing the nation’s woes than giving these workers the increases they wanted? Why did it always have to be money? The Government couldn’t give them something they didn’t have, not after giving us the new fifty pence tax rate.

I thought for a while. This was indeed a serious matter. Helping the lads in the City was one thing but then my friend also had other concerns. He and his fellow Lib Dems had to think about those elections. People needed to be kept happy. That was why he was in politics. Just then, if only for a moment, I saw an expression on his face. What you might call a light in his eye, and I knew he was thinking of the welfare of the people, same as he knew I was also something of an expert in these matters. A kindred spirit at the Cobblers Exchange who understood healing.

Crystal healing for the masses, for all the public sector workers… Could that possibly be the solution?

Here we were then, two great minds thinking the same thing, the way it often is in a national crisis. He of course caring only about the welfare and happiness of the people like the good Liberal Democrat he was! Me only interested in the main chance. Distributing millions of rose quartz pendants to all those public sector workers. As long as they were full of love and peace they wouldn’t go on all those marches any more.

It would have to be carefully organised I told him. Most of the stuff would come from Brazil. Airfreighted into Heathrow in giant containers. He instantly liked the idea. It would save the Government a fortune and not only in wages. They could do it for all the pensioners too! Could it be managed?

I was suddenly more sanguine. I wasn’t just a crystal healing specialist he needed to understand. I was also a businessman and we were at the Cobblers Exchange in the City of London talking matters of finance as well as national wellbeing. The prosperity of the nation no less. Could it be done? Yes, I believe it could I said, but only if we could find a way of distributing the pendants. First though I needed a contract, and an advance payment. His manner changed slightly. He’d have to get it through Cabinet. With the Sugilite working for him it shouldn’t be much of a problem. George would love the idea. Anything to save money. Problem was, it would have to be kept well under wraps. There might be objections from the Unions.

It made me think. We could of course get all the Union leaders and their Executives to wear crystals first but where would that leave me? Some lousy little deal on a few hundred crystals, and even if I did flog them at fifty quid each it would be worth nothing compared to the four or five million I’d get out of all those teachers, civil servants, firemen and national health workers. No, if the masses needed healing there couldn’t be any short cuts. It was business, nothing personal.

My political friend had already anticipated my thoughts. It was also personal for me he murmured. Didn’t I also want everyone to be healed, just like he as a Liberal Democrat wanted everyone to be happy? So why couldn’t the two go together? Crystal healing as the road to national happiness! With everyone happy the crime rate would drop. The budget for the Home Office Department would fall same as it would for the Ministry of Justice. They could spend the money they’d save on reducing the National Deficit. Even donate more money to worthy causes like drought stricken Greenland or helping banana growers in Eastern Siberia.

We shook hands on the deal. Ahead of me, without saying anything, I saw the rewards. Elevation to the peerage perhaps! A job in Government! In my mind I immediately rejected the latter. There was still so much work to be done and besides, I was enjoying my time at the Exchange. I now had many friends here. There was so much to talk about, so much more to discuss if we were to save the economy and create David Cameron’s Big Society. I wasn’t just a jack the lad street trader anymore. Here at the Cobblers Exchange I’d come to know my worth. Crystal healing was set to appear on the national stage so talking crystal cobblers was everything. Crystal cobblers and financial cobblers would soon fuse together to make Britain great again.

Yes my friends there’s still much work to do. I’ll bring you more news as soon as I have it. Meanwhile I want you to know that there are people here on the Cobblers Exchange who really care about you. Good people. Decent people. People whose advice you can trust.

_______________________________________
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SELLING CRYSTALS TO AUSTRALIANS! AN ANTIPODEAN FAIRY TALE

For some reason, actually a very good reason, it seems natural to append an exclamation mark to the first part of the title and if you think of it, even for a moment, you know why it is. The very idea of an Australian buying a crystal or having the remotest interest in crystal healing seems so ludicrous, so far out, as to be a bit of a joke. Australians just aren’t into crystals. They’re mutually exclusive!

We just don’t think of Australians being like that. Connecting them with crystal healing is like associating them with Charles Dickens or Pablo Picasso and they themselves wouldn’t link these names with writers or artists. They’re more likely to think of them as brands of lager or sausage.

Yer mate there’s some really great Dicko on the barbie… Could be a real chucker with a chiller of Pico when yer ready sport..

Now as rule we don’t meet too many Australians. That’s because there aren’t many. Apart from the occasional tourist there’s a small colony of them living in London. Most of what we know about them comes from media sports casts or history programs telling us what good soldiers they were and how they all love the Queen and want to stay part of the Empire. That’s just the BBC, the British Establishment channel with its head permanently up its arse. The truth is that actually most of them don’t. Not anymore. Our knowledge is mainly around sport and that they seem to be a tough, outdoors, on the beach, kind of people. They’re not known for being philosophers, poets, composers, artists or creative thinkers in general, or being reflective and introspective. In a word having a soft side. The idea of an Australian being into crystals is more likely to be condemned with that well known Australian adjective, poofter, as much as anything else.

Good or bad, useful or not as stereotypes go, the above images are exactly the way they see themselves and just as important, how they like to be seen, poofters excluded of course. The market fraternity with all their ornaments, crystals and fancy paints can keep their Mozart whackeroo culture. We got Fosters!

But that said there is another altogether less wholesome side to Australia. Indeed, how much do you really know about it? We’re you aware, for example, that many thousands of Australian women from poor backgrounds were forced to give up their children for adoption into the households of wealthy families from the 1950s all the way up to the late 1970s. Were you aware that Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany who arrived in Britain hoping for sanctuary were forcibly deported to Australia and spent the war years interned in concentration camps in Australian deserts? You weren’t? Well there’s plenty more where that came from if you’re interested to say nothing of what was done to the aboriginal people, out of sight and a long way away in the deserts.

That said, please don’t be too hard on Australians. They come from an island big as Europe half way between China and the South Pole, eighty per-cent of which is desert with only one real river running through it. Ninety per-cent of its people live on its giant empty coastline with most of the interior empty likewise. For a place that big to have a population smaller than Hong Kong causes a bit of a problem especially when you realised that half are descended from convict labour. Irish who don’t care much for the English!

No, these are a tough hardy people who celebrate what they are so the very idea of them stroking a bit of rose quartz for tuning into their sensitive side can be cause for a chuckle. For them healing is something best done with a six pack, better make it twelve! I mean, the idea of an Australian lying on a couch and talking about his mother or even having the vaguest notion of Freud is silly when all that he wants is an hour in a massage parlour somewhere in Thailand.

Australia then is a harsh no nonsense place with a harsh no nonsense climate. It has a harsh no nonsense history with a tiny population in a giant empty land both far removed from the culture and cultural history of the rest of the world, particularly Europe. These are factors that do not necessarily encourage people to believe that crystals are best used for spiritual purposes rather than being industrially processed for the Chinese economy!

Okay, so where does that leave a street market trader with regard to Australians? I’ll tell it as it is. In all the years I’ve been selling crystals, gem trees and minerals, and of all the countless people of all nationalities and races all over the globe, from Pacific Islands to far away regions of Central Asia, from Tierra del Fuego to Timbuktu, from tiny Lichtenstein to tourists from Mali and Greenland, I can’t ever remember selling a crystal to an Australian, but once, maybe ten years ago, I sold a single gem tree from our Tiny range for £6 or so to someone from Melbourne. Ten years ago and I still remember it now!

Australians! The closest I can come to any analogy is this. Okay, close your eyes and think about me trying to sell a crystal to Rupert Murdoch. Let’s see now. It’s a Friday and the man himself is visiting London to install a new Government. Meets the Millipede at ten with a complete program for Labour Government policies over the next five years. Deal’s done by eleven. Next stop the Queen at twelve. Inspects Palace guard then tells her what he proposes over tea and homemade scones. Gets the nod by one but can’t stay for lunch. Sorry he’s having the afternoon off in London spending time with old friends. Visiting the National Gallery two to three then a walkabout in a famous market nearby with old News International buddies like Andy, Rebecca and Kelvin, and of course fussy fusspot James, still suffering memory problems, will also be there.

Rupert’s been living in America for so long that he’s forgotten what London is like from his time there in the eighties when, with his dear friend Maggie’s help, the police dealt with picket lines of striking print workers at Wapping where he was shifting the Sun. That said he needs a bit of assistance finding his way around these days and who better to step up to the plate than an old friend of News International from the Yard.

Now remember, before Rupert gets to the stall… I want you to think about how much you enjoyed Rolf Harris being on your screens four decades or more – almost longer than seems humanly possible – but then he’s a media creation after all. About as Australian as Muffin the Mule. No, if it’s a real Australian you want, albeit with American nationality, Rupert’s your man.

So, the great man at the stall four-thirty sharp and Rebecca’s curlies already over a basket of crystals. I don’t feel overawed in any way as so many might but maybe it’s the affable reassuring smile of the nice policeman making me feel that all is well and that I’m in the company of friends.

“How yer doing sport?” I ask in my best imitation Sydney accent. “ Nice to see yer looking good for a change, Rupe, what with all that shit that’s been coming your way lately. Thought you did a great job on that Sunday paper. S’got your hands all over it mate. A real professional job.”

And I tell you that right there in that market Rupe lit a real cracker. The man smiled like he hadn’t a care in the world. All those troubles of his lifted.

“Nice of you to say it mate,” he came back.

“Pleasure, I acknowledged. “All those celebrities saying all that shit and wanting money out of you and all. None of them bothering to think they wouldn’t even be worth hacking unless your papers made them into the media celebrities they are today sport.”

Kelvin capped it all with a blaster. “Too effing right mate!”

Yeah I was right, sure I was right and everyone nodded appreciatively. You didn’t need to be a genius to understand the truth of the matter. Even this humble guy on the market they’d come across knew what was what. A plain ordinary Englishman who knew the real truth! Out of the corner of my eye I saw the smiling policeman nodding his head like a donkey and the pasty-faced Rebecca showing me a full set of pearlies. David Cameron knew them all. It brought the Conservative Party so close to the Sun and thereby the people. Four million working class readers! Couldn’t be bad! Sorry Milliboy, you’re kissing the wrong arse right now. You need to find something really good to give away like a television channel.

Anyway, back to selling Rupert a crystal, or dare I think of it, possibly a gem tree! I wanted to suggest something nice but felt I should best leave it to him. He seemed indecisive. Maybe he had too much on his mind. So many journalists on his flagship newspaper arrested for criminal behaviour. What would old friend Maggie Thatcher say? They’d been so close back in the eighties, her, the Sun and Young Rupert. Those were the days and there was the Sun, shining out of her arse as it attacked the striking print workers and miners with the police naturally doing their bit. Later of course there was always New Labour with Tony becoming part of the family.

For a moment I thought I was going to lose a sale. Having eyed up some of the trees the man was about to move on. I kept on thinking about how many celebrity writers loved him, all those great novelists like Geoffrey Archer who’d played such an important part in Maggie’s Government and other stars of Harper Collins, the book publishing company Rupert owned. Celebrities! Apart from television that’s where the money was. The man understood what people wanted. He understood the working class better than they understood themselves and gave them all what they wanted. I’d really like to have sold him one of my gem trees. He could put it on the desk in his office and think of England!

The majestic sweep of his hand interrupted my thoughts. There, his finger had stopped at small piece of rose quartz. Madagascan. Good colour and quality. “Nice piece that,” he chuckled. “Give you a fiver for it.”

“It’s a healing stone,” I said soothingly. “Helps you relax. Rekindles all the warmth of your spirit.”

“A fiver then?” he said looking sharp.

“It’ll bring harmony. Make you feel peaceful,” I chattered. “Five pounds is a fair price.”

He didn’t want it wrapped up. After James gave me the money in coins his father walked away from the stall holding the piece in his hand. And I knew even then that he was already picking up powerful vibrations. Good on yer mate, I thought. Now everyone would see him for the man that he was, an Australian with a warm, caring side to his nature.

It’s something that brings me back to the point of this post, a question I meant to ask you at the beginning. Hands up all of you who believe in angels and fairies?
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