Mushrooms

Talk of Many Things

This evening a friend of mine who works for a local bar sat down to take a break whilst nobody needed serving, lit up a cigarette, and said ‘thank god for lulls’. By some bizarre quirk of fate many of my friends over the years have worked for local bars, and I often feel the need to visit them, as I know how lonely such a solitary job can be. The concept of there not being anyone that needs serving immediately is not one that is familiar to anyone who, like me, has spent much of their life in Camden Town, but in Amsterdam it happens – honest.

His comment bought to mind the first job I had as a teenager working for a local greengrocer’s. This was a shop that had been in the same family for several generations and, as far as I could tell, had tried to remain faithful to the family gene pool whenever possible. As a result of natural evolution it has as, of course, long ago been taken over by an estate agent, whose products are (only marginally these days) less perishable. The idea of a lull when you could relax just didn’t happen in that shop. I remember the manager marching through when we were having a quick chat at a quiet moment and being outraged. He paid us to work for every single minute, regardless whether there was anything to do. I was led to the basket of mushrooms and commanded in no uncertain terms to ‘just count the ****ing mushrooms’. No problem in terms of the mental arithmetic, as the tills in those days knew even less about adding and subtracting then the average 30 year old does today, but not the most interesting job that I have ever done.

Like many foodstuffs that are readily available now mushrooms were a bit of a delicacy when I was young. Green peppers were had arrived, but after a long trip they were definitely not for putting into salad, and their skin made my grandmother look like a model from an Imperial Leather advert. I remember how delighted the whole family was when one of my sisters dated a mushroom farmer and he gave her a whole basket full. These were proper round flat mushrooms that melted in your mouth – none of your modern shit-ache stuff!!!

Having three older sisters (5, 7 and 9 years older than me) had its plus and minus points though. Dating and dumping my woodwork teacher was bad. At least if it had been the maths teacher the worst that could happen was a piece of chalk thrown at me but in a woodwork class there are far more options. “NOW OLNEY I WANT YOU TO TAKE THIS VERY SMALL PIECE OF WOOD AND THIS VERY LONG THIN CHISEL AND HIT IT WITH THIS HUGE HAMMER” On one occasion, as I sucked at my bleeding thumb, the boy standing next to me fainted as he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. The woodwork teacher was nicer to me after that.

Still – at least it wasn’t the PE teacher!

As I sat pondering on the obvious, and yet slightly obscure, meaning of this conversation the lord spoke to me saying (with a curiously perfect Essex/Hertfordshire border accent) “Partake of one more of the holy beverage in this place outside the inn and it is possible that a long line of young girls in tight white t-shirts will walk in front of thee”.

And lo it came to pass.