Market forces
Last week I had to go to a conference in Leeds. I had half an hour to kill before it started, and wandered around the area, ending up in an indoor market. And it struck me, while I was there, that there is actually only one indoor market in England. OK, it might seem as if there is one in most towns, but they are really just trans-dimensional gateways that all lead into the same ur-market.
Walk in any door, and you are in the same place.
It is full of stalls that sell sewing machine parts, and jigsaws with a thousand pieces, wedding cake decorations and every kind of battery that you can think of and many that you can’t, a tool for every job, albeit one that will fall to pieces when you are half way through it, wool, ribbons, and ribbony wool and woolly ribbons, diamante cases for mobile phones and unlocking services only ten quid, the smell of frying eggs, Irish music cassettes including every Daniel O’Donnell album ever made and some he probably didn’t, butchers that you’re not sure you’d want to buy meat from that use those tinted lights to make the greying meat look redder, cheap trainers, curtains and nets and venetian blinds and roller blinds and those sideways ones that no-one knows the name of, sweets in plastic jars, birthday cards made of the flimsiest cardstock ever invented, bath-mats with football team crests on, camouflage trousers and jackets and fluorescent hi-viz waistcoatsm food for hamsters and flea combs for cats and cheerful cafes and buttons, buttons, lots of buttons, everywhere buttons.
Tags: indoor markets, markets, Weirdness