I never got into town over the weekend. I meant to, but in the end a combination of lethargy, apathy and chores defeated me.
On Saturday afternoon I was beguiled by the TV, watching Sky Sports News with continued apprehension that faded only when the results were confirmed and Wolves’ promotion became official. For a team that has scored so many goals this season, they couldn’t have got a second on Saturday to calm everyone’s nerves, could they? That would have been too simple.
On Sunday, I intended to wander down to Camden Town to wander around Mega City. This is a ritual I like to indulge in from time to time. If I really want to but comics I go either to Orbital or Forbidden Planet in the West End, but if I want to pretend that I am buying comics, I go to Mega City. Don’t get me wrong, now, I have spent money there in the past, just lower amounts and less often. This is because they have a display system that defeats me: the shelves labelled ‘new comics’ seem permanently devoid of any title that may catch my interest and the reprints or graphic novels are generally placed high up on the wall out of reach, so impulse buying is generally out.
If you have to decide and then ask an assistant to get the damned thing down for you, you (or at least I) rarely bother. It’s a cheap but ultimately unsatisfying way of browsing. Everyone knows that the ritual involves taking something off a shelf or rack, looking at it, replacing it, walking off, coming back, re-examining it, wandering around the shop seven or eight times clutching the item and then either paying for it or chickening out as you realise that on balance, you don’t want it.
Involving the shop staff in the mulling process ruins it and I’m sure it cuts their overall sales level significantly.
That and the fact that there is almost nothing that grabs my attention anymore; I think I love the idea of comic books more than I do the reality of them.
Oh God. Maybe I’m growing up: something I swore I’d never do.
Anyway, instead of that we spring cleaned the kitchen. Any odd sound you may have heard between about 12.30 and 3.30pm would have been my morale slowly dying as time marched by and still we cleaned.
It didn’t look that bad, but it still took time. Lots of time.
In the evening we went out for dinner. We have been promising ourselves that we would for some time and having blown far more time than we wished sorting the kitchen out (and it looks no different), we decided that last night we would actually go out and eat. It was very tasty, too.
I might have overdone it slightly by having the trifle to finish despite absorbing a steak plus half of Furtle’s chicken…
