London For A Song
If you like cheap thrills, that is New York may be a great melting pot, but a witches brew courses through the streets of London. You can sample this heady flavour of the newest England at its ubiquitous street markets its a Cockney broth with a soupcon of Indian spice, Jamaican rum, Puerto Rican fun, Turkish exotica...
If youre a tourist in London, and if your tastes incline to the full-bodied rather than the skeletal, the earthy rather than the ethereal, skip the Victoria and Albert Museum. Put on those loafers, instead, and go for a very long walk. Through the Caledonian Market, down Portobello Road and Camden Passage to Petticoat Lane.
Street markets in London peddle everything from plants to Persian rugs, to antiques to ethnic food. The air is thick with atmosphere, uncontrived and lively. I found it instructive to take up position near the nearest lamppost and watch the scenes.
Typically, an unshaven cockney stands behind his stall and loudly trumpets what he thinks you should pay for his wares. Not many pay attention to him, as those treasures show all likelihood of sharing an intimate relationship with junk. An elegant gentleman in breeches supervises a hapless bunch of assistants as they unload pieces of Georgian furniture from a white Range Rover. His upper lip loses some of its stiffness as he mutters imprecations at the hired help. Nearby, an elderly woman with a poodle on a leash scrutinises a silver teapot through a magnifying glass for blemishes, or signs of genius. A nervous dealer hops from one foot to the other, hoping for magic in the magnifying glass.
Street selling has long been a tradition in London and the markets are a rich mix of the sublime, the tawdry and the downright ridiculous.There are over 40 street markets within a radius of 10 kilometres from the centre of the city. All cater to most human needs and tastes theres serious shopping, an afternoons browse and fun to be had. No market is quite the same some are world famous, some, tourist traps, and others, well-kept local secrets. If in an argumentative mood, there are great benefits that can accrue from haggling. In any case, let your mood chart your route.
Portobello Road is the most well-known. One respectable guide book calls the markets weekly Saturday spectacle an event as important as the changing of the guard for the serious visitor to London. For locals, however, Portobello Road is a good place to begin the hunt for the silver you found missing from the sideboard last Sunday. Stolen or not, theres plenty of fun junk, expensive antiques, almost-new Wedgwood tea services, handmade crafts and thousands of other odds and ends.
Enjoy this market at your risk keep one eye out for bargains, and the other on your wallet. Even if youre not in an acquisitive mood, theres entertainment with tap dancers, escapologists and Old Wally who has been there every Saturday for as long as anyone can remember carefully grinding his pen-leg organ with his faithful parrot.
Portobello Road is both prototype and blueprint of the classic street market. Genuine antique and unashamed fake contentedly share display space. Early one morning, in search of a cup of tea, I was shown into a cosy tea-room. Customers looked up from their bacon and eggs to stare at the interloper as I sat down timidly opposite a lady who smiled reassuringly. The men in tweed jackets resumed their conversations: As I was saying, Mr Thomson, I have some rum doos from Iran for you to look at. I'd like your opinion on them, one of them said to the other.
Eager to strike up a conversation, I asked the lady what a rumdoo was. She gave a furtive glance to her left, and whispered: It could apply to objects, that are, um, not quite, you know, not real...
You mean, I whispered back, that the objects are fakes?
Yes, thats right! she said, face beaming. Better, her face seemed to say, that you mouth the four-letter word, than me. I waited, but no head turned and there was no sudden hush to gratify me further.
The weekend is also a good time to venture into Camden Passage Market, which is the place to see and be seen in. There are a wide variety of stalls selling eccentric produce but the biggest draw are the second-hand clothes. Theres a bohemian smell in the air here, located as it is in the middle of an artistic community.
But the serious antique hunter should head straight for Bermondsey Market. No street performers dare show their faces here; this is strictly a dealers affair. It is the meeting place of all the middlemen in the antique trade in southern England.
Most transactions take place before six in the morning every Friday. Buyers and sellers crowd around in the pre-dawn darkness with flashlights, bargaining over goods that will reappear in the day in antique shops. Because of the peculiarity of timing, the market is not turned over to the general public until much later. This also ensures that Bermondsey is far less commercial than Portobello Road.
There are definitely bargains for the experienced streetshopper. A sign announces proudly : Reproductions All Guaranteed Not Genuine. The length of Long Lane and Tower Bridge Road is packed with open stalls of silver, glass, china, pictures and cutlery. The sight produces an insane never-felt-before urge in me to own a pair of silver grape scissors or a tortoiseshell dressing table set.
If youre the ethnic flavour shopper, Brixton Market it is for some anglicised Caribbeana. Theres everything from reggae records, exotic fruit, herbal remedies and inexpensive second-hand clothes. Or the vibrant and noisy Petticoat Lane Market, the oldest Cockney street market. Never mind that theres more Turkish and Bangladeshi than Cockney these days. One stall announces, We are the only stall in London licensed by Scotland Yard to sell stolen goods. Cockney humour to the fore at this East London market.
Street musicians abound Bob Dylans in the making all in virtually every corner. In the cobbled piazza, alongside the old central market building, it costs nothing at all to watch a busking acrobat stand on his head. A couple of oddballs, dressed as red-nosed clowns, mooch about playing a saxophone duet.
Sometimes a shade pretentious, studiedly outrageous or self-consciously twee these markets still manage to sustain an invigorating breeziness that defies cynicism. They are warrens of delight, filled with extroverts and eccentrics. Serendipity, I thought to myself, thats the thing.