Goodbye.

The point of this post was just to say, simply - thank you.  The last 7 and something odd years (7 yrs & 10 months exactly, when we close on August 16th - but who's counting) have been incredible.  

We know people always say the same kind of things at these times, usually about roller coasters and the such like, but it's probably because clichés are sometimes true (at least as many times as we've had hot dinners) and a roller coaster is about as perfect an analogy as you could get - certainly in our case.  Or perhaps, more accurate might be a roller coaster travelling through sunshine, storms, rainbows and hail, sometimes all at once. Sometimes with no safety harness. Sometimes with a loose bolt on the rails coming up ahead, with no functioning break. Sometimes getting stuck upside down on the loop, with all the blood rushing to your head. Sometimes ...well, you get the picture.

If we'd known a fraction of what lay ahead when SHOP first opened in 2006, we would have told you to stick it, but luckily we didn't, and therefore went ahead blindly, yet openly.  We've learnt an immeasurable amount about ourselves individually and collectively, about running a small company, about people and we've had experiences that we wouldn't have had anywhere else. We've learnt the value of relationships; relatedness and autonomy (would have been so cool if that last one began with an R). We have very much participated in our experience and experienced our participation in it.

That is just the tangible stuff, with the intangible stuff it's hard to know where to begin. It really is kind of impossible to express and to summarise the influence SHOP has had on every area of our lives, nothing has been exempt and clearly, none of it would have been possible without the people, as in our customers and supporters, as in - you!  Although at times it felt like SHOP was indeed an island, before the Christmas Steps were enjoying the beginnings of the resurgence they are now (and which we're extremely proud to have been a part of), obviously we aren't and it is the sublime, the beautiful (and even the occasional grotesque!) that have walked through our door everyday that have made SHOP what it is.

Thank you - it has been a privilege.

Our first Christmas at SHOP, celebrating with our fellow traders in the defunct Didiers, now Harry Blades and Angry Daves

 

 

 

It's Goodnight From Me

... but not quite goodnight from him - yet.  Jayne here! Director, Founder and one half of SHOP along with that there Brett, and this is my last ever SHOP-blog.


In case you are wondering what I'm talking about, SHOP is currently entering its victory lap as we prepare to shut-up-shop for good.  They say that you get itchy feet every 7 years and after nearly 8 years of SHOP that's exactly how it feels.  We are lucky enough not to have been forced out by evil landlords or adverse trading conditions, we're simply ready for a new adventure - it's just the way we are.  To that end we are moving to Madrid! 

However, we're not quite done yet.  I have a one-way plane ticket booked for the next week, but Brett will remain in Bristol for some months more to find a suitable successor to SHOP, and before then we have lots of exciting stuff going on.  Including a massive sale and an entire festival!  The Festival of Football Ideas will take place in the At-Bristol Planetarium this summer (see more info here: FOFI) and will provide info on the massive sale when we have it.

Anyway, enough of the logistics, the point of this post was just to say, simply - thank you.  The last 7 and a half years (almost to the day!) have been incredible.   I know people always say the same kind of things at these times, the word rollarcoaster come to mind, but I know why now, 'cus cliches are true sometimes and rollarcoaster is about perfect.  Or perhaps, more perfect would be a rollarcoaster travelling through sunshine, storms, rainbows and hail, sometimes all at once. If I had known a fraction of what lay ahead when SHOP first opened in 2006, I would have run a fookin' mile, but I'm so glad I didn't and therefore that I went ahead blindly, yet openly.  I have learnt an immeasurable amount about myself, about running a small company, about people and I've had experiences that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had in any other walk of life.  I've learnt the value of relationships, relatedness and autonomy (would have been so cool if that last one began with a R).

That is just the tangible stuff, the intangible stuff I wouldn't even know where to begin. It really is kind of impossible to express and to summarise the influence SHOP has had on every area of my life, nothing has been exempt and clearly, none of it would have been possible without the people, as in our customers and supporters, as in - you!  Although at times it felt like SHOP was indeed an island, before the Christmas Steps were enjoying the beginnings of the resurgence they are now (and which I'm extremely proud to have been a part of), obviously we aren't and it is the sublime, the beautiful (and even the occacional grotesque!) that walk through our door everyday that have made SHOP what it is.

I wanted to include my favourite picture of SHOP here, but it has been packed and shipped along with all my belongings.  It is of me and Brett at the launch of SHOP on 16th October 2006 and we are standing on the red step having just cut the ribbon, I'm leaning forward to kiss Brett and he has his hands nonchalantly in his pockets (the swine!).  We look well young and when I think of that night I think of how we were on the verge of something scary and wonderful, and that is exactly - with just 5 sleeps until I emigrate - how I feel right now.  If the next 7 years are anything like the last I will feel myself to be extremely lucky and very very happy.

Well, I'll shut up now and just say again, thank you - it has been a privilege.

THEN: Our first Christmas at SHOP, celebrating with our fellow traders in the defunct Didiers, now Harry Blades and Angry Daves

NOW: Me 5 minutes ago writing this

January Newsletter: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

 "SHOP, bloody hell!"

It's a new year, which means change, which means we thought the January newsletter would be a good way to tell you that this is SHOP's last year.

We are lucky that this has been our decision to take, we haven't been forced out by recession or the biggest Primark in Europe, we simply believe in positive change.

After 8 glorious years, we are looking for new adventures in new lands, but a bit of SHOP will follow us, in a new guise.



Our first ever bit of press!


You're stuck with us for a bit longer, though - business as unusual for the foreseeable - but rest assured when we are off-off we will make a big song and dance about it!

For now, we'll leave you with some of our favourite philosophers, talking about change:

Alain de Botton:
“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.”

A.C. Grayling:
"Life is change, stasis is its negation."

Harry Hill:
"If it's going badly, get off.  If it's going well, get off."

SHOP's Guide to the Economic Crisis

We were sent this a long time ago by a SHOP-club member and having rediscovered it recently, thought it might be nice to share ...  All you ever wanted to know about economics but were afraid to ask!

 

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINK BONDS.

These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINK BOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.

They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.
Sound familiar?

SHOP likes this:

Valentine's Day Post: Brett got Daddy Issues!

We love Valentine's Day at SHOP, but that doesn't mean we celebrate the tyranny of two, oh no!  We celebrate ALL types of love.  For example, Jayne's mum still sends her a Valentine's Day card each year and we give our cat a special treat for breakfast for Valentine's Day.

You get the idea, basically we're a sappy pair.  However, Brett wins hands down when it comes to sappiest, he even cried at Neighbours! ..... when he was 26!!  He'll cry at anything lovey dovey, so on that subject below are a *SMALL* selection of clips from films that make Brett cry.

Oh, and the reason for the title of this post, is that, in the making of this blog, we found that films that make Brett cry have a propensity towards plots where children are separated from, and then later re-find, their parents.

Home Alone
Blart rating:
10/10 (gets him every time)



Life is Beautiful
Blart rating: 
10/10 (also gets him every time) 

Sean of the Dead
Blart rating:
4/10 (if feeling tired and emotional and/or hungover)


Moulin Rouge!
Blart rating:
8/10 (all the songs! The Lovers Secret Song!)


Miss Potter 
Blart rating:
6/10 (stop it Ewan!)



Brassed Off
Blart rating:
7.5/10 (Ewan again! - okay, getting worried now)


Slumdog Millionaire 
Blart rating:
6/10 (Hmm, directed by Danny Boyle, another kind of Ewan connection)

As Good as it Gets
Blart rating:
6.5/10 (Jack Nicholson (father figure) comes good in the end!)

Rocky Balboa
Blark rating:
7/10 (Adriannnnnnnnnnnnnn!)

 
Scrooged 
Blart rating: 
7.5/10 (Bill Murray. That's a full stop right there)

BIRTHDAY BLOG: THE JOY OF 6!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US, HAPPY BIIIIIIIRTHDAY TO UUUUSSSSS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

Yup, you guessed it ... it's Christmas!  Not really, sillies - it's OUR SIXTH BIRTHDAY!

We always get very excited when our birthday comes around, not only because it's an excuse to consume only sugar ALL DAY, but also because when we opened way back in 2006, we told ourselves we'd give it a year and see what happened, so (and you're probably sick of us saying the same every year) we never presume that we will reach the next birthday, and the next, and so 6 years old feels like we've really 'done it'.

:-)

Anyway, 6 also feels like a nice even number ... the kind of number that lends itself to a countdown, mate.

We've never done anything like this before, as we try to maintain an outlook akin to that of a kitten playing in a meadow on a sunny day, but here's our TOP 6 and WORST 6 moments of SHOP, over the past six years...

In no particular order....

*cues up Tops of the Pops theme tune (the 90s one (that was the best))*

BAD SIX

1.  PEOPLE

People are great, don't get us wrong, and people are at the very heart of what we do.  However, just very occasionally you can get a person that is a right stonking bumhole.

From the man who once posed (on crutches) as a neighbour's brother needing £20 to pay his taxi to the hospital (hence crutches - he was clever!), which we gave him out of our grocery money for the week, and then when enquiring with our neighbour how his brother was doing, were met with confused 'but, I'm brotherless' expressions.  To, the people who bustle in and aggressively try to sell a ragged old binbag 'of crap' (their words) and then get arsey when you (amazingly) aren't interested.  To our very own Advisory Board (which we ourselves set up - doh!) which turned out to be an awful, just AWFUL idea (buy us a pint one time and we'll tell you the real, full story).

So, very rarely, there are some days when you just wish there was a way of running a shop without any people in it.

GOOD SIX

1. PEOPLE

Yup - that's right, people are at the heart of what we do at SHOP and we wouldn't want it any other way! In addition to that, there have been so many people over the last 6 years who have added immeasurably to SHOP itself, and also to lifting our souls. Some people will never know just how much a beautiful compliment on a bad day has given us the will to go on, and others know just how much they mean to us and how grateful we have been, and continue to be, for their support. We would make a list, but we reckon you all know who you are :-)

BAD SIX

2.  BIBLICAL FLOODING

Above SHOP there lives a lady who likes to run herself baths .... and then forget about them so that they overflow and flood the shop.  We're not talking a few drips here and there, back in April 2011, this forgetful lady actually, literally FLOODED the shop FOUR TIMES!!!!  Sometimes, she had even left her flat with the bath running (we know, right?!) so there was no way of turning these spewing faucets off!!!

This led to a lot of nervousness, and loss of business, and damage to the shop, whilst her landlord fitted a sensor that switched off the taps automatically.  For a month back then, we would open the door tentatively each morning, waiting for a tsunami to hit us.

 

EPILOGUE: no-one would take any responsibility for it, so we were left with soggy walls, floors and rugs and no way to replace them.  Boo!

GOOD SIX

2. LLP to CIC

You down with LLP? Yeah you know ... we're not anymore! After three years as one of those out-moded 'profit-making' companies ;-) we swapped our shoes for sandals and threw out our deodorant to become a non-profit company! The long version goes like this, SHOP is: a Social Enterprise, Community Interest Company Limited by Guarantee (so we just say non-profit). Often, profit means putting money before people and we just couldn't get behind that, so found our true identity in a CIC and haven't looked back since!

This change in structure also changed our outlook, and eventually our horizons too, as we moved from the small shop (now the Arts Space), to the shop space we have now, but we didn't stop there - we eventually moved back into the small shop (it became the Arts Space) and even took over The Christmas Steps themselves with community events like the Artisan Market, Christmas Lights Festival and the bi-annual Night of the Year (outdoor cinema funtimes!).

BAD SIX

3.  DRUG OF THE NATION, NO MORE

Oh, television! How we used to love you!  How many happy, stupefied hours we spent in raptures with you.  How ecstatic we were when the very first 'telly-person' contacted us about filming part of a well known antiques programme in SHOP!

*Poof!*

That was the sound of the magic of telly disappearing, as soon as we realised ... none of it's real! (we know, right?! (again)).  Yup, sorry boys and girls, it's true - you now those bits when your favourite telly presenter is walking down a road and the voice over says, "Kate is looking for some jewellery," and Kate, wonderfully, magically! Finds a shop where they sell jewellery, just at that very moment. You know that bit? Well it's, fake!  All fake!

Okay, we probably all knew that one, but what about those buying and selling programmes?  All our telly  experiences have gone a bit like this: call from researcher asking if we want to be on telly (Us: YAY!), assuring us it will only take a little while and not be too disruptive (Us: YAY!).  Day of filming: enter rambunctious film CREW (that means lots of people), who ignore you entirely, bash your shop around and bully you into saying or buying something you don't want to, or can't afford, or won't be able to sell on (Us: erm, Yay?).

Okay, okay, we're being televisionist, they aren't all the same and there is one particular exception, a film company called Quattro Production, who were lovely in the extreme.

Ps.  This applies to other media, the written ones are the same, for example, they often only write about you if you advertise with them (so those opinions your reading aren't opinions at all, they're editorially compromised by being funded through commercial advertising, yeah that's right, you heard!) or rewrite what you've written about yourself to give you 'more personality' (thanks a lot!) and so make you sound, kinda, sorta, like an IDIOT!

GOOD SIX

3. SARTORIAL SPLENDOURS

At it's most fundamental level, what we do for a living at SHOP is basically, shopping. Which suits us, cus we love seeking out those vintage design classics. It also has another up-side - not only are we helping make the peeps of Bristol EVEN MORE attractively dressed, sometimes we find things for ourselves too!

We think you'll agree, this photo of Brett doing his best Howard Moon impression, demonstrates the above rather wonderfully:

Moreover, when we're out and about, seeing people wearing clothes or accessories they have bought from SHOP really, really makes us proud AND makes us feel like we're doing a teeny bit to redress the balance between the big bullies at places like Cabot Circus back towards the little people, like us.

BAD SIX

4.  THE ICE-AGE CAMETH

SHOP's home on The Christmas Steps is beautiful and picturesque and generally wonderful, it is also really old.  So old that central heating hadn't been invented when they were built in 1669.  The buildings are also really damp (they must have liked that kind of thing in the olden days), which all added up doesn't equal nice winters.  It doesn't even really equal bearable winters.  As soon as it hits about, well, about the first of September, a little oil filled radiator goes on behind SHOP's counter, and then we either stick to it like glue until June, or if we're both around at the same time, fight long and bloodily over it (like Peter Griffin and that chicken).

GOOD SIX

4. CREATIVE CHANNELING

It is our hope that part of what SHOP has been about has been enabling people to find, or encourage, their creativity - in many and varied ways. We have been told over the years, by people who have had a show, or attended a WorkSHOP, or had a stall at an Artisan Market, how taking part in these became an integral part of their flourishing. This - in a nutshell - is what it's all about for us.

(Similarly, Brett started out life as an 'Artist', and Jayne started life out as a 'Writer' - okay, well, we both started out life as tiny, screaming, hairless infants, but about 18 years after that, we both went to University and studied the above, respective subjects (Fine Art and English Literature). As is fairly usual with art/humanities degrees, as soon as we graduated, Brett became a gardener and Jayne an office temp, until that is SHOP came along and we have SHOP to thank for also flushing out and reinvigorating our own creative channels. This year, we both used the Arts Space for shows of our own and since then have not been able to stop, well - creating stuff!)

BAD SIX 

 

5.  BOYFRIENDS OF GIRLFRIENDS

Yes-yes-yes, boyfriends are possibly, *technically* people, and so should maybe come under item number one of this countdown, but it is ONLY boyfriends and not all PEOPLE that tell their girlfriends not to buy lovely vintage clothings that they look beautiful in.  Hello?!  It's the 21st century, girlfriend can spend her money on whatever girlfriends wants!  And, what happened to compliments?  To our mind, "Urrrrrrm, I don't know, it looks a bit funny." IS NOT A COMPLIMENT!

Postscript exclusively by Brett: Hey boyfriends, what's with greeting the beaming face of your loved one - wearing something she's found that she loves - with an awkward, insolent shrug? She can have another you in a minute - matter of fact he'll be here in a minute! So don't you ever get to thinking you're irreplaceable!

GOOD SIX


5. WHEN OUR PRIVATES BECAME PUBLIC

After five years of being our landlords (and only five years into a twenty five year term), our landlords decided they didn't want to be our landlords anymore (what did we do?! Maybe it was the couch surfing ... or could it have been all the (*slightly* illegal) gigs, or perhaps the constant spray painting of our step (red/gold/red/gold))!

Well, whatever it was, it worked out fabulously for us, as we went from paying private landlord rates (ie. high ones!) to becoming tenants of Bristol City Council - a social landlord! And, as your old Dad always says, you can only speak as you find, and we have found BCC to be helpful, sympathetic landlords, supportive of our vision and mission.

There is a downside though, we signed up for that remaining twenty years, so Bristol may well be stuck with us until Brett's beard turns grey.

BAD SIX

6.  DRAINING DRAINS

If you have ever walked into SHOP and been assaulted by a disgusting eggy poo smell, we swear to God and kittens, it's SO WASN'T US!  Another aspect to being on a lovely old street, is lovely, old, smelly, permanently blocked drains that have weird 'poocoustics' that means that instead of smelling by the drain, they smell everywhere, mostly inside SHOP.  So, once again, we didn't drop a silent and violent, okay?

GOOD SIX

6.  THE FUTURE!

That's right, the very best thing about the last six years is ... The Future!  We're looking forward to sticking around a bit longer, we're looking forward to some very exciting changes in 2013, we're looking forward to new plans and schemes, but most of all we're looking forward to not looking forward too much, and taking each new, strange and wonderful day at SHOP as it comes.

THANK YOU!

SHOP's Guide to Modern Life

Life can be a bit of slog sometimes can't it?  Especially in these dark days of capitalism, narcissism and lack of community.  There are days when you are at a loss to describe how you feel, or why you think like you do. Well SHOP knows how you feel and that's why we've created* this handy 'SHOP Guide to Life'

*we've actually just found some excellent passages from A. C. Grayling's 'Thinking of Answers' and written them out below

Schopenhauer - he had a point

1.  LIFE: MAKE THE MOST OF IT

*We're all gonna die*
Schopenhauer - alone of all philosophers, indeed almost alone among humankind, was able to stare the truth about the human condition in the face.  This, to be brief. is: you get older, and sicker, and then you die.  In the process you lose everything of value: first the broad range of possibilities that were open to you when young; the love you so passionately felt, also when young; then your slender waistline; then your sense of humour.

*So, waste not*
One of the more typically dour of Scottish Calvinist sayings is, 'Wilful waste makes woeful want.'  This certainly has the taste of last weeks porridge about it, all the sourer for missing a great point: that the true waste in life is the waste of life itself: in war, anger, wasted human opportunities through timidity, fear, ignorance, discrimination, unjust social arrangements, economic recession, repressive moralities, distorting belief systems, and all other mental and social wastages that we impose on ourselves or allow others to impose on us.

I would like to know who said the following : 'Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.'  This is one lesson about waste we should never waste the opportunity to apply.

*And remember not to be afraid*
Life is change, stasis is its negation. And, as Emerson said about any difficult circumstances rightly faced. 'They are opportunities no good learner would wish to lose.'

Money alone is valueless

MONEY: ITS REAL VALUE

The rational attitude to money is of course to wish for lots of it, but only because of what spending it provides.  Consider: a person who has ten million dollars in the bank and never spends a cent is a very poor person indeed.  A person who has a hundred dollars in their pocket and spends it on a good time is a rich person indeed.  Accordingly, one should estimate an individual's wealth by what they spend, not by what they have; for in this short life of ours - one should never tire of pointing out that the average human lifespan is less than one thousand months - wealth is experience, endeavour, enjoyment, energy.  It is emphatically not a bank balance, a sheaf of investments, a pile of bricks and mortar, for none of this goes into the grave with its owner, and while it exists in that illiquid form it is of little real use, except as a promissory of what it can be turned into: travel, laughter, learning, expansion of spirit through the acquisition of delights and memories.

The meaning of life: very similar to a Kinder Egg

THE MEANING OF LIFE

Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.

Butlin's: The Ultimate Vintage Experience

A SHOP contingent visited Butlin's in Minehead this weekend and whilst there discussed (like you do) the awkward romance of the British seaside experience.  There's nothing quite like it really; the soggy chips, the slightly decrepit buildings, the businesses that defy logic, the murky brown sea - the Costa Del it'll never be, which is of course part of it's strange charm

Both us have spent many a childhood family holiday at Butlin's, Minehead included, but it no longer resembles the particular glamour of it's heyday.  You can see some ghostly remnants, like the old army barracks converted into accommodation, but it's mostly been completely modernised.

In the gift shop, we picked up these old postcards, taken when Butlin's was in it's ascendancy, which are AMAZING and show Butlin's as it used to be:

Take a Leap!

Take a great leap forward this February 29th, you won't get another chance for four years!  Here's some SHOP suggestions to get you going:


A cat, leaping, earlier

1. Pretend to be someone else for the day, it isn't a real day afterall.  Remember though, that the laws of quantum physics dictate that every action has a reaction, so if you're pretending to be someone else, there may be someone else somewhere else, pretending to be you.

2.Start that thing you've been meaning to do, that you've been putting off.  If it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted anytime, cus this day is out of time!

3. Look up that bully from school and give them a massive wedgie.  Or find someone that looks a bit like them and give them a massive wedgie. Or, just give someone, anyone, a massive wedgie.

4. Give yourself a wedgie (just in case you once bullied someone).

5. You know that girl/boy that serves you your coffee every morning at the cafe near to where you work?  Ask them to marry you, it works in the films*
(*in real life this may lead to a restraining order, in the event that this leads to a restraining order SHOP CIC accepts no responsibility)

6. Don't be restrained by restraining orders and the like, this isn't a real day so all the police officers and judges and things aren't at work, they're all having a nice picnic together.

7. Don't waste this once-in-every-four-years-day reading this blog!  Skip to idea number eight...

8. Stroke some kittens (obligatory entry on any list, no matter what the purpose).

9. Don't put too much pressure on today, it's only really a day like any other, and all days are special if you make them!  Awwwwwwwwww!

10. Set up a blog and fill it with nonsense like this.

Bill says: 'Remember this ain't no Groundhog Day!''

Alisdair Gray

We live and have lived
And die and will die in this city
And millions have been,
And will be forgotten,
Each with a backbone and heart
We struggle to keep,
Before we are folded in sleep
And go rotten.
And most, before dieing, give blood
to a son or daughter
And when the bones of these children
crumble, remain as words in a document
Names cut on stones, otherwise we
are all a procession as featureless as water
And some sit late filling books
With tall words 'til the birds whistle,
Trying to see what we are and what we wanted to be.

The Longest Day

So, yesterday was the summer solstice and - without wanting to sound too much like a moaner - as the summer has been a bit shy in showing itself up to this point, I decided to take some positive action by making sure I made the most of every moment of the longest day, so even if the rest of the summer is murky and wet and when winter creeps imperceptibly into our lives again, I can at least feel like I made the most of what we had.

This is what I got up to yesterday.

04.30 - Alarm went off in preparation for the sunrise at 04.53. It was getting light already though, hit the snooze button for eight minutes.
04.38 - Hit the snooze button again

04.46 - Dragged myself out of the nice warm comfy bed (I am not a morning person) and opened the blinds so I could watch the sunrise out the window from bedfordshire. It was quite cloudy though, so it was more just watching the light grow, but that was okay.

04.53 - Once light was all around, put the radio on and snoozed on and off for a few hours.

07.30 - Got up and got ready in a relaxed fashion, as opposed to the usual mad rush due to inherited lateness gene and aforementioned not-a-morning-person-ness.

Me at my dressing table - stop that laughing at the back!

09.00 - Left home for a walk into town along the river. It was kind of blustery, but sunny and warm enough to have to shed a few layers during the journey.


09.30 - Arrived at Watershed for a nice big coffee and beans on toast. Don't know if it was the sleep deprivation but me and Brett became philosopical in mood and did a kind of eulogy to the year past and talked about how we imagined SHOP would be before we actually had it and how the reality is different, but in no way inferior. We also talked about the future a bit until deciding that was utterly pointless and just sat there in that moment and enjoyed our coffee instead. 'Eff you future, you don't own us!



10.30 - Went for a little wander around the floating harbour, then went to buy snacks 'cus me and Brett were both still hungry for some reason. We have of late become jointly addicted to the vegetable samosas that our local shop sell, so when we saw an Indian snack platter, even at 10.30am in the morning, we decided we had to have it. And have it we did, for FREE! Brett was holding it, and holding it, and holding it, and he was still holding it when we left the shop - he accidentally twokked it, tsk tsk. Brett does this I've noticed, he finds himself holding things and doesn't know why or how. Like when we went to Scotland in February. He walked through security at the airport, joined me at the other side, looked at me, then looked down at his hand, then looked at me again, we both looked down and found ourselves gazing at a massive masonry hook.

11.00 - Opened up SHOP, on time!

The day at SHOP was a particularly nice one, no exact reason either, which seemed to add to a general atmosphere of wellbeing. It got sunnier, on and off, which helped. It was cleaning day and rather than begrudge it as usual, I took pleasure in making SHOP clean and pretty. Eddy our resident, erm ... resident came in and was in particularly amusing form with his random musings.

Eddy in SHOP in 1977 - he's sitting by the window in the women's section.

17.30 - I went home a bit early to see the cat and collect some sewing equipment, as me and Brett were going to see some friends for a solstice bbq/sewing session/band practice. The cat was in a massive HUFF because there had been MEN working in HER house ALL day! But I managed to win her round with tuna and by the time I left she was giving me face bashes.



19.00 - Came back to SHOP to 'help' Brett vacuum, but more just watched as I decided that as it was the longest day I was going to wear the shoes I bought in April and hadn't had a chance to wear yet. They are quite high. Not really sewing-machine-pedal friendly, or transit van driving friendly, but whatevs man!

Shoes pictured are not my actual shoes

19.30 - BBQ time! Our friends have a garden full of green stuff and although they are unemployed they put on luxurious spread of homegrown tasty stuff. I even ate a nasturtium! Along with more traditional BBQ foods such as hot dawgs and burgers. We stayed resolutely in the garden drinking wine and smoking cigarettes until the light finally faded to inky blue. The longest day was over for another year. NB. Brett did band practice, but I failed to sew even a stich, whoops!

My dinner

Psychogeography: This Is Ours

A few weeks ago, or maybe it was months, a nice young man came into SHOP having unintentionally found himself on the Christmas Steps (he was visiting a friend in Bristol for the day). He read about the Zine Library on SHOP's a-board and being very friendly and enthusiastic came in to chat and find out more.

We talked for a while about Zines and the shop and then he gave me three different Zines , which he had made and which he just happened to be carrying when he just happened to be passing the shop when he just happened to be in Bristol.

As he was leaving, he stopped, came back up to me at the counter and gave me a painted, yellow treasury tag with some round coloured stickers on the back. He said 'have one of these. They are for anytime you are somewhere and you feel you don't belong. Mark it with a sticker to remind you that it's yours too."

Look out for them.

It did occur to me that this might not work so well in commercial art galleries.

Psychogeography: Jayne's Lonesome Night Walk

Last night, I was at home, alone and at a loose end. It was late-ish, but I wasn't tired so I decided to go for a walk.

Two things nearly stopped me; it seemed Autumn had asserted itself leaving no hope now of going back to Summer. The nights felt to me to have drawn in quickly and walking in the dark seemed suddenly menacing. In addition, I would be forced at least in part to follow the route I take six days a week, to SHOP, which I thought would be all too familiar.

Once I started walking, these things didn't matter at all as I had forgotten that the route, the city and the establishments would be in reverse; the places that aren't open at 10am, are open at 10pm and those that are open in the day, at night have their lights dimmed and shutters pulled. There were no potted shrubs outside the gym and the strange motorway barrier that acts as security for the local shop was firmly in place. Yet the normally darkened bars and restaurants were full of light and life.

And people. Far from being intimidating, the streets were exciting and interesting. An open window allowed me to eavesdrop on music and voices, I passed a man wearing shorts and flip flops with nothing else, carrying a plastic bag, going - where? Two old ladies with arms interlocked and some staggering drunks. The lights on the boats on the river looked Christmassy - at one point the smell of the river mixed in with a smell of frying and vinegar from a takeaway, to bring to mind childhood holidays.

The vignettes I glimpsed are my favourite: a man in a pub shakes a finger in a exaggeratedly comic manner across the bar to another man, who is nonchalantly leaning on a beer pump. The people around them all laugh. Suited waiters, waiting with hands clasped in front of them for late hungry diners. A man smoking and swaying outside a house.

At the same time as I look, smell, walk, I think. I think of my sister, I haven't seen her for ages. Part of an old love song is playing languorously on loop in my head, 'when we first met, I surprised to get, that feeling'. I try and guess what my loved ones are all doing right now. I try and imagine what strangers in faraway places are doing right now. I think about something I heard on the radio that interested me, I briefly consider learning Japanese. I remember something hurtful, I see a car that reminds me of a old boyfriend. Things like that.

I turned back at at the roundabout and made my way home, following the same route on the opposite side of the road. Eventually, I turned from the main road into the gloom of a side road, a last car's beam lapped my back, surging up round my ears to sting my eyes, before receding and leaving me in the dark. At home, everything was as I left it; a book thrust aside, the cat, asleep and unmoved on the bed, and silence now. I got into bed and wrote this.