Old Git (5)

Gulls and Dolts

O gull! O Dolt, as ignorant as dirt!, exclaims Emilia when she realizes that her husband Iago has tricked Othello into believing a pack of lies - with the most catastrophic and horrendous consequences.

In most story-traditions , though, being gulled is the stuff of comedy, and I have never found it particularly funny. For this reason, I do not like Don Quixote - to me, it is just a series of incidents, where a rather sad old man is either deluded or actually tricked. Being a perfectly cheerful old man, who likes a larf as much as the next old git, I do not see what is funny about it. Likewise, those novels by Smollett in which some innocent up from the sticks, or down from Scotland, goes to London, has his pocket picked, goes into a tavern not realizing it is a bawdy house, has chamber pots emptied over his head, etc etc. Ha ha ha.

But this week I had two experiences which made me realize that London really DOES want to trick and rip off the innocent visitor. I am not talking about the price of a ticket on the open-air bus, showing you the sights. I once tried to take two American grandchildren on that, and discovered it was going to cost us over £200 just to see Nelson’s Column and a few traffic jams. And I am not talking about the sweets-and-souvenir shops in the environs of Leicester Square where a packet of Polo mints costs you £5.

I have a bad habit of dropping handkerchiefs ,because I wear them in my sleeve rather than my pocket. (Army habit, inherited from my father). I normally buy spotted handkerchiefs from Shepherd and Woodward at Oxford; they have gone up in price and are about a tenner. The other day in Jermyn Street, I realized I’d lost my handkerchief and went into Turnbull and Asser to buy one. Having chosen a nice red and white spotted number I took it to the counter and was told, without a flicker of shame, “That will be £75”!!!! No ,thanks

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The next day, the strap on my bag broke. I love this carpet bag, which I was given by Barnaby Rogerson and Rose Baring - of Eland Books. They had bought it in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and gave it in lieu of an “advance” for compiling a little collection of verses in their Poetry of Place series.

I did “England”, and it is still in print, still available. I think it’s £6.99. That was in 2008, so it is no surprise that the strap has worn out.

The obvious place to get it fixed was Timpson’s in Selfridges. I like going there because, for shoe repair they have no rivals, and they are also good at cutting keys. Another reason I go there is Timpson’s policy of employing ex-cons. Mean of me to think of it, but you would expect them to be good at key-cutting or picking locks. If you took them a metal file , some eggs, flour and sugar, they could probably bake you a cake .

I was surprised that they could not mend my broken strap but they sent me on to another department of Selfridges - RESELFRIDGES. It was in the middle of the brightly-lit parfumerie , where the air is heavy with the mingled scents of hundreds of different brands, and where all the assistants, made up to the nines, have been made their faces resemble those of circus performers or bordello ladies from the Baudelaire era.

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One such was sitting by a lap-top at RESELFRIDGES, and when I showed her my dear old carpet bag, she stared at it with contempt, but said it would be perfectly possible to have it mended. She played a short arpeggio on the laptop and then added, “It’ll take eight weeks”. Really? To put one strap on a bag, whose buckles were intact??? Er, how much would it cost, I gingerly inquired. She pursed her lips into a seductive moue and said, “£320”.

I got off the bus early on my way home and went into RAWHIDE, the bag-and shoe-mender in Camden Town. He suggested doing it for £40, I said £20, it was a deal, and I walked out of the shop ten minutes later with my the dear old bag from my dear old friends over my dear old shoulder.