Sex and not shopping (okay, mainly not shopping)

Nobody believes me when I say I don’t like shopping.  But seriously, it’s true, I don’t.  Maybe I got it all out of my system when I was consumer editor for City Limits magazine (a bit of an oxymoron, many people thought but, hey, socialists like to shop too, it seems). I mean, I do shop, of course I do – but only when things are absolutely necessary (which, to be frank, isn’t that often).  James grows like a weed and so, yup, he needs gear.  But generally he sends me a link via email and I go ‘yeah, I guess you really do need new trainers if your old ones really are two sizes too small’ or ‘nah, not on your nelly, my little mate’ and it’s all done and dusted in a couple of clicks.

I buy food (reluctantly); I buy petrol (even more reluctantly). I buy a few books for research and, once in a blue moon, I will treat myself to a new CD. And that is it.  Oh no – I did buy a new sports bra about a month ago when the old one wouldn’t take any more darning. And four pairs of socks from Sports Direct to make it up to the ‘no need to pay postage’ limit.

Aha, I hear you thinking (you know I can do this) – she’s only saying this cos she’s stony broke and can’t afford to go shopping.  Well, yeah, I’ll give you the broke bit - but I’m working on that.  J But nah, even if I had the dosh, I still wouldn’t make a hobby out of shopping.

I just don’t get it.  I just can't be arsed. I don’t see anything fun about floating round a bunch of shops gazing at…stuff.  It just doesn’t rock my boat.  And I really hate trying on clothes with a vengeance. Seriously, the last time I went shopping for more than ten minutes was two years ago when I heard I was going to Israel.  I had literally nothing to wear (my wardrobe is far from extensive and, given I live on Exmoor, there really is no need for summer clothes).  

Luckily I had a wodge of vouchers from Next (thanks to you lot) and Monsoon (thanks to friends who’d bought them for a birthday a couple of years previously) and so I did the shopping thing and very tedious it was too.  But…job done.

Now then. If there’s anything worse than shopping it’s shopping with friends.  Why?  WHY? Why on earth would you traipse round shops with other people?  Watching them pick up stuff, trying to adjust your facial features so they don’t guess that you’re wincing inside and then trying to say the right things when they try it on and come out of the changing room expecting a dishonest opinion?  Is it some kind of masochism?  Now you're thinking I'm a bitch, right? But - be honest - you tell me you don't think that?  Truly? 

But there is, deep below that, a further level of hell which is shopping with men.  Actually I do make a bit of an exception here because shopping with gay men (as I recall) can be a hoot.  But, back on the straight and narrow (cos, lamentably, I don’t have gay male friends out here – because any gay men on Exmoor sadly have the sense to stay firmly in their closets) - shopping with boyfriends/partners/husbands????  YE BLOODY GODS.  

Why do women do it? You see them, these benighted blokes, parked outside the changing rooms, or shifting from one foot to the other, tapping listlessly into their smartphones – clearly bored out of their skulls – while their women flick through the rails. WHY?  Is it some power trip (“You will prove your love by enduring… total boredom”)  The modern version of courtly romance, holding hangers at Top Shop rather than poking poles in a jousting tourney?  Some weird kind of branding (“Hey, bitches, he’s mine – look, he even comes shopping with me!”).   Insecurity (“Shit, if I don’t keep him with me at all times, he might cop off with some bird in the hardware shop”)?  Or just general ickyness (“We wuv each uvver so we do evveryfing togevver”)?  Yuck yuck yuckity yuck.  I mean, I'm assuming the women want the men there?  Or do the men secretly enjoy it? 

Nah. I don’t get it. I really, really really don't. Please explain.

Don’t get me wrong. I like nice things. Not as much as I used to but even so… As I prowl round the Internet I see certain things that make me go …oooh, that’s rather pleasing.  But I know myself now.  It’s just a bit of a flirt – it doesn’t mean anything. There's no commitment. So I usually stick it on my Pinterest board – and funnily enough that is kind of enough.  And, here’s the thingy – when I go back and look at that board (every month or so) the things I posted have often lost their allure.  Because, basically, they are just things.  And really there ain’t no thing I really want that much. J

A message from Pisser summons me to the Past

‘Mum, are you ever going to answer that phone?’
‘No. If whoever it is wants to talk to us, whoever can damn well leave a message.’
‘But they’ve been ringing for four days now and, if you answer it, you can tell them to leave a message next time. It’s not some kind of peeing contest, Mum.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’

I snatched up the phone. ‘YES???’
A tinny voice emerged. Obviously a text message. ‘Blah, blah…Pisser…blah blah…three in a bed…ha ha…blah blah…Daddy wants to see you…’
What the…??? I threw myself over the machine so James wouldn’t hear what was clearly some pervy nutter. Fat chance.
‘Who is it? And why are you tackling the phone? And who’s John Warren and why isn’t he coming?’
‘I really don’t have the foggiest.’

But, hang about… John Warren. I knew that name. Way back in the mists of time. And, slowly, I deciphered it. It was my friend Fi, at Pisa (not Pisser) airport asking if I wanted to stay at her house as there would be room (because JW wasn’t coming). And Daddy? Another friend, usually called by her surname Dady (Daydee).  Stupid phone, as Milla would say.

Turned out that tomorrow, now today, was the City Limits reunion party, in London. City Limits was a London listings magazine, a worker’s co-operative, which started when Time Out stopped paying parity. I left my nice well-paid job doing the accounts for the Royal Tournament (where I was fed champagne and had my own pet Commander) to become the magazine’s office manager (on a pittance).

On my first day, I walked in and said hello to the first person I met. ‘Oh good. Glad you’re here,’ he replied. ‘The cellar’s flooded. It's full of shit - literally.’ Kinda set the tone.
I met some wonderful people there and, truth be told, some totally repulsive ones. I started reviewing (theatre, books, food and, weirdly, museums). Ended up as Shopping and Travel editor before being poached by the London Evening Standard. And, to be honest, by that point, it was all over. The spirit and soul of the place had been sucked out. It had lost its way.

But, in its heyday, it was wonderfully, blissfully bonkers and packed with some serious talent. John Fordham and Nigel Fountain were the editors. Duncan Campbell, Bea Campbell and Melissa Benn were in the news room. Ros Asquith and Lyn Gardner were the theatre editors. Sheryl Garratt was music editor. Kim Newman used to wander in swishing his black cape. And on and on..  Ah, the memories come flooding back… some good, some bad.

‘You are going?’ said Lyn (Gardner) on Twitter.
‘Yeah, I guess. Though I think I may be wearing dark glasses.’
‘I’ll have a wig,’ she responded firmly. I could her her voice in my head, clear as a bell.
‘Will we recognise one another?’

I wonder. I also wonder this, as I pack my overnight bag and try to erase the bags under my eyes. Should one revisit the past? All those people who shone so bright…will they still shine? Many won’t be there. Some, like my lovely mate Nicky Pellegrino, cos they live so very far away. Others because they are, not to put too fine a point on it, dead. Daddy sent me an email (she was always of a depressive bent) giving a list of our deceased former workmates. 14 of ‘em. Fecking sad.

Should one go back? I dunno. But I do know I’m looking forward mightily to going back to Dalston to stay at Fi and Andrew’s house (and seeing Daddy of course). Cos, in my twenties, I spent so much time there – at their kitchen table drinking wine; in their back garden chatting over the fence with the Jehovah’s Witnesses (and drinking wine). Arguing animatedly about art and politics, waving our arms around, laughing our heads off, occasionally shouting our heads off.

Should one go back?  Time will tell.