Sunday 4 October 2009
How I love unlovely Lewisham. It is an uninspiring landscape where dreams can come true. If you urgently require an incomprehensible object yet have no idea where to begin looking, simply visualise it, hold that image in your head... then get the 185 to Lewisham. Last December I required a pirate coat and pirate’s parrot at exceptionally short notice. Lewisham Primark (which is officially one of Dante’s circles of hell) stocked just one pirate coat (it was lying on the floor, naturally) looking exactly as I had envisaged it. Mere minutes later I walked into the 99p store and spotted a binful of parrots. And not just any old parrots. Oh no. Foul-mouthed parrots of putrification. Parrots that proclaimed “I’m going to rip off your head and shit down your neck”. Parrots of infamy… do read the hilarious Daily Mail article below. I fail to understand how this woman ‘missed’ the warnings on the packet. I think she bought the parrot on purpose just so she could tell the Daily Mail how disgusted she was...
Other things I love about Lewisham:
1. The triangular brick wedge on the roundabout by the sorting office. A monument to Toblerone? A relic of ancient Mayan culture? Who knows.
2. The shop by Wetherspoons that sells whole plucked chickens – and mobile phone SIM cards. Come on – you cannot deny that buying one invariably leads to a craving for the other.
3. The DIY shop where the men are so wildly incompetent they even make me look like I know what I’m talking about. “I’d like a 13-amp fuse please” – “Oh. err. Is that a fuse then?” They also have an impressive display of condoms and Rizla papers on their counter… in fact, I think this is where they make all their money and the tools and fuses are a less lucrative sideline.
4. The Quaggy. Ah, rural Lewisham. A river runs through it you know, and it’s name is the Quaggy – truly the best name for a river ever.
5. Muffin Break. A shopping centre forecourt coffee shop run by the legend that is Debbie. She of the shaggy perm. I must have been to Muffin Break more than 50 times now. Every time I go, she slips into the conversation “...and did you know, ALL our food is made on the premises?” Debbie, I do, I do, I do. And I believe you. Nothing as ambrosial as your vegetarian quiche could ever have been mass-produced in a factory. But would you please stop telling me? She has a knack for worsening a hangover through sheer repetition does Debbie.
6. Chilli Box. Purveyors of freshly squeezed fruit juices. Magical stuff. Mends hangovers. And comes in one size and one size only, so you don’t have a line of harassed shops dithering around shouting “Grandé – I mean medium. You know... regular? The one in the middle?”
7. TX Maxx. Before The Wife returned to the Welsh Homelands, many a Saturday morning was spent in here sniffing the scented candles in the homeware section and gagging. Vanilla flavour always smelled like margarine and Sea Fresh always smelled like cheap washing powder. Hours of fun. I am now trying to get Two-Woman, Chap-A and Floozie similarly hooked…
That’s only seven things. I feel bad: it should have been a top ten. And most of them are shops. Sorry Lewisham for not loving other things about you. The Jammy Dodger loved you though. In three days spent reciting her constant mantra of “I hate London”, she was finally silenced by the size and scope of your Primark, and the cheesy depth of Muffin Break’s finest bacon and egg (freshly made on the premises – yes, thanks Debbie, we know).
Units dodged: Two. It would be dangerous to handle liquids in the deranged free-for-all that is Primark on a Sunday afternoon. None needed in Muffin Break, which already does an excellent cup of coffee. If I owned a hip flask I may have been tempted to swig from it on the way home when the Jammy Dodger started bemoaning the state of her feet after I’d lent her my comfy boots – but we were nearly home by then. The Jammy Dodger finished off the stray half bottle of Pinot Bollocks that was still lurking in the fridge later that evening. I was half-tempted to have a large glass… but not that tempted. It does taste of rust, after all.
The Unit Dodger
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