Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

“He did that deliberately, didn’t he?”

Its amazing what you can see if you’ve already decided what you’re looking at, isn’t it? I was accused, earlier this evening, of sneaking some items into the previous buyers shopping….as if I’d choose that non-name junk if I thought I wouldn’t have to pay for it? Pah! Sadly he’d failed to notice there was in fact another shopper (between me and his wife) who quite graciously owned up to actually putting her shopping inbetween, kinda stole his thunder.

Back to work today, deathly quiet in the office, except for our little enclave of mercinaries. I often like working between Christmas and New Year because you can get so much work done without the distractions of having to deal with people. Of course, this is less effective if the people who spend all day distracting you come in to work too.

The last couple of days have been spent wrestling with the crowd in Cambridge, Monday meeting sushidog and sheepthief for lunch at Clowns – its nice to catch up with them both, and good to hear that I’m not the only one intimidated by Hesters friends.

Yesterday was another lunch, this time with simonsatori and meme_me, followed by an assault on the shops, then “House of the Flying Daggers”, a relatively plotless Chinese film with great fighting. btw, whats with the daggers being held behind while advancing? Is that normal?

When is it going to be safe to go shopping again? The last couple of days have been hordes of people all frantically fighting to get to the next bargain, with huge piles of chirstmas novelties lying completely untouched, even at 75% off. Do you think people are cottoning on to the idea that this stuff is junk? Or has it always been like this and I never noticed before?


Categories: Memories.

/ 6 Comments

6 comments

  1. ex_lark_asc

    Yeah. Having gone from scruffy goth to respectable middle-class girl and back at least twice in my life, it’s fascinating to watch the difference in the way people react. When I wander into somewhere in my nice smart fur-collared cord jacket and jeans and ask a question, they’re smiling at me before I’ve even started speaking; do the same in a biker jacket or a black long skirt and T-shirt and they’ve half decided you’re a timewaster as soon as you walk in the door. Though you do also get barged into a lot less in the street in a bike leather. I once made a little old lady serving in a teashop nearly faint by walking in in my leather jacket and asking in my cut-glass Cambridge-university accent whether they had Earl Grey..

    Reply
    • pjc50

      Mm. I’ve been trying for “smart” recently; I’ve managed to find “smart and trendroid-compatible” and “smart but compatible with a casual office”, and am wondering how to do “smart but intimidating”. Lee van Cleef does this very well in For a Few Dollars More…

      Reply
    • neilh

      It cuts both ways, doesn’t it? I /think/ theres more fun to be had by looking like you’re not the kind of person who can afford it, and then being dreadfully civil when they try to talk you out of something too expensive. I remember a conversation in an estate agents that went something like:

      “I’d like to rent a house”
      “Whats your budget?”
      “Doesn’t matter, show me what you’ve got”
      “This one is only 750 per month”
      “But its not convenient, haven’t you got something better?”
      …etc, they stopped showing me things in the end ‘cos they thought I was wasting their time (like they really had anything better to do, it was a wet thursday afternoon in Ely…maybe I was intruding on their lunchtime).

      Reply
    • neilh

      They are nice on the whole, but I find myself feeling all stupid and ineloquent when I’m around them, I can’t imagine you have that problem, you’re more on their level than I am.

      Reply

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