Category: Shopping

Shop ‘Til You Drop

Shop ‘Til You Drop

With the weather finally on the up and blossom dripping from the trees, the citizens of Norwich were out in their droves doing what the Brits do best – shop and sup. Purses and plastic were loosened in a brave attempt to drag the economy out of the abyss. Technically, the economy is as flat as a witch’s tit, rather than triple dipping and the patient needs all the TLC it can get. Market stalls toppled out onto the pavement, till queues weaved round Primark, the M&S food hall heaved with Norfolk broads and we couldn’t find a table in Pret a Manger when we bagged a baguette.

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We escaped the madding crowd by browsing the floor show in the Forum. Modern art isn’t everyone’s cup of char but Liam loved it.  I left him to peruse the exhibits and ordered a couple of drinks at the bar. Cheers!

Anally Retentive

As Perking the Pansies has been going for a couple of years, the blog is no longer seen as a here-today-gone-tomorrow flash in the internet pan. This credibility helps with Google rankings but also attracts dubious offers from a posse of anonymous advertisers trying to promote products on the cheap. Cue the latest offer to drop on my virtual mat…

“Hi there – I’m emailing because I’d like to send you a free product to review on your website. First, I’ll tell you we make pleasure devices for men – yes – sex toys. I realize your website is not exactly in the “sex” niche, but your site is geared towards men who have all of the equipment needed to use our products. I saw your site and thought that although it is in a different niche, you may be able to include a review of one of our Mangasm prostate simulators as a bit of a change from your normal content. We also make a product called the Autoblow and are coming out with a new version soon. Anyone who posts a Mangasm review would be included on a list (only if they wish) to receive a free Autoblow when it comes out, for review purposes, of course.”

*I assume the writer meant prostate stimulator, not simulator. My mind boggles at the latter (and, I suspect, many other minds boggle at the former). 

A bit of a change from my normal content? I’ll say. This less than tempting offer fails on two main levels. Firstly, most of my readers are the fairer (and fairer) sex. With the best will in the world, ladies will never know the pleasure of a stimulated prostate or a blow job – auto or otherwise. Secondly, when I bang my gay drum,  it’s not about gay banging. This is a family show, after all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude (how could I be?) and I’ve nothing against clever little plug in plug-ins to satisfy the lonely or to spice up the matrimonial bed. Whatever pops your cork, I say. But what if Liam and I did take one of these handy little appliances for a spin? What would we do with it afterwards? Hose it down, drop it in a jiffy bag and pop it back in the post? One slip of the finger and we’d be buggered. 

I’ve always said that God has a wicked sense of humour. When he placed a prostate up a man’s bottom, he knew exactly what he was doing. It’s all a bit of a bummer and something’s that caused no end of trouble ever since the Creation. Think on, ladies. Christmas is just around the corner. Why not treat the hubby to a pulsating prostate rub? It’s not just for the ‘gays.’ And It just might put a pep in his step.

Never Knowingly Undersold

Yes, I know it’s a garden table

John Lewis is one of the grand old dames of the British high street (Marks and Spencer is the other). The company’s enviable reputation for quality and service has enabled the group to weather the lashings of recession better than most. Not that you’d know that from our experience of the Norwich branch. There was a cute little corner of our kitchen crying out for a bijou table, a place for Liam to listen to Radio 4 and munch his early-morning muesli before a busy day at the doc’s fiddling the data. We found just the thing in a little corner of the local John Lewis. After the bruising press gang trials of Turkey, shopping in Blighty is an eternal joy (except at Christmas, when it’s every man for himself). But things are not always as they seem. There’s a Grand Canyon of difference between being bullied into submission by the pretty boys in skin-tight shirts and being ignored completely by the snotty partners who are too busy gossiping with their co-workers. It took a lifetime to get hold of our goods. And while I’m ranting, what’s with the take-the-ticket-to-the-collection-point business? It’s just like Argos but not nearly as fast or efficient. ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ boast the John Lewis adverts. ‘Never Knowingly Served,’ more like.

Post Script: I used to know a handsome young Spaniard called Juan Luis Salle, known about town as the ‘John Lewis Sale’ because he was never knowingly undersold.

Other posts on a shopping theme include:

Nick It!

Retail Therapy

Gran Canaria, Sex Emporium

Gran Canaria, Sex Emporium

Eight hours after leaving Norwich, we turned the key on our digs at Playa Del Inglés. Aside from a few up-market hotels, Canarian apartments tend to be standard fare – concrete boxes with a small dark bedroom, an enclosed shower-room with barely enough light to fix your face, a stark balcony with nasty plastic seats, an ill-equipped kitchenette and a wipe-down living space decorated with lopsided Athena prints. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our concrete box was a comfortable cut above, with laminate flooring, trendy fittings and a flat screen TV. Liam flicked through the channels. The only one in English was CNN. They were showing an interview with Mitt Romney’s sons – all Hollywood teeth and apple pie. I wanted to throw up. At least the Osmonds could sing. I swept open the balcony door and the first thing to catch my eye was a sign for the ‘Garage Sex Shop – Cabins, Cinema and Video.’  It does exactly what it says on the tin, a metaphor for the entire mid-Atlantic rock. We’d arrived.

Gran Canaria October 2012 037

When it comes to a turn around the dance floor, location is more important than lodgings. Happily, we were spitting distance from the Yumbo Center, the throbbing epicentre of gay Canarian low-life. The Yumbo is a naff treat for all the senses, a crumbling multi-layered open air shopping and sex emporium. It started to fall apart as soon as it was built (some twenty five years ago). By day, it’s an over-sized pound shop patronised by ancient slow-lane Germans in busy shirts and socked sandals. But, at the stroke of midnight, the racks of tat are wheeled away, the garish bars throw open their doors and the entire place is transformed into a gaudy cacophonous neon-lit cess-pit of drunken debauchery. After four years of tranquilising sexual ambiguity in Turkey, the no nonsense in-yer-face, up-for-anything style was right up our alley.

Our photos couldn’t possible do justice to the wonder that is the Yumbo Center (we must get ourselves a better camera) but this certainly does:

Next Holiday Post: Sucking on a Woo Woo

Jack and Liam Go To Gran Canaria

Jack and Liam Go To Gran Canaria

Perking the Pansies will be off the air for a few days. Liam and I are taking a well-deserved mini-break to Gran Canaria, that scurrilous mid-Atlantic duty free rock to catch some rays, stock up on Clarins essentials and celebrate my 52nd birthday in dipsomaniac style. I’ve been many, many times before for a little winter warmer and furtive fun in the sun. Now I’m older, wiser and firmly married, I’m content to observe the boozin’ and cruisin’ from the safety of a bar stool and shady sun bed. Notes will be taken and reports will be written. No doubt, the odd geriatric German will wave his crumpled old do-da at us on the beach, flopping out from a well-clipped grey bush. My wrinkly old British do-da will remain safely under wraps. I like to keep the boys guessing (or from throwing up). Normal transmission will be resumed shortly. Salud!

The Scene Of My Undoing

A few weeks ago I wrote a little piece on the etymology of Norwich’s River Wensum (old English wandsum). I got quite excited at the prospect of a poetic connection between my current digs and Wandsworth, in South London, where I spent my late childhood and most of my teens. I saw a link between ‘wandsum’ and ‘Wandle’, the Thames tributary that runs through the heart of the London borough. It was not to be. Ye Olde Wandsworth was known as Wandesorde or Wendelesorde at the time of the Domesday Book which means ‘enclosure of (a man called) Waendel’. Shame, but it did take me on a gentle mince down memory lane.

After my father was discharged from the army, he took the tenancy of an off licence cum general grocers. It was called a ‘Bottle and Basket’ for those who may remember the chain, part of the Watney Mann brewery company. We lived above the shop and it surely must have been the start of my love affair with the Devil’s sauce. I used to pilfer bottles of Bulmer’s cider from the shelves to share with my spotty pubescent pals. The liquor trade provided a decent living and kept me in booty hugging florescent loon pants and five inch platform shoes. My canny Dad made a killing during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. We had a booze, bench and bunting beano in the street and Geordie Jack wisely kept the tills ringing for the duration. For my sins, I earned an honest crust as a Clark’s shoe shop Saturday boy in the Arndale Shopping Centre. It was the scene of my undoing and a slippery slope from which I was never to recover (thank the Peter Lord). I had a torrid fling with one of the maintenance men. His name was Dave. Dave was married, of course; it was always the way back in the day. My midday breaks were misspent sampling his greasy cut lunch in a lift shaft machine room on the roof, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Going down?’

The Spirit of the Games

As the sun sets on the Friendly Games (bring on the Paralympics), I bring you an accidental guest post from an ancient friend and co-host of the Olympic Opening Ceremony knees-up we attended. It’s accidental because it’s actually an email he sent to the good, the gobby and the inebriated who graced the penthouse pad party and emptied his wine cellar.

Hit it Ian…

Following on from the AMAZING opening, this last week just seems to have transformed London from the mildly aggressive and pushy city we all know and usually love, into something rather special. Just wanted to share some of my ‘all warm inside’ moments of this historic week.

One was my fairly usual 9am-ish District Line ride to work. Alongside the 2012 tracksuit wearing larger men and womenfolk who look like they could only win Gold in a pasty eating competition, 2 Austrian Olympians joined the carriage at Mile End in their matching white tracksuits complete with Austrian team logo and dangling Olympic passes. A young lad in his twenties and an older (well mid-thirties) tall guy with cropped hair (very Teutonic). As I glanced up from my Metro (could that paper be any duller?) the young lad had his arm around cropped hair and when they looked into each others eyes, they had that look that only people in the honeymoon period of a relationship have –  a mix of lust, anticipation & hope. Of course no-one batted an eyelid in the carriage, and it was as normal as delays on the Central line..I bet they didn’t do that in Beijing.

Another transport trip earlier in the week saw us sharing a Docklands train with a mass of nationalities returning from the Greenwich Park Eventing. a middle aged Irish guy was using the blarney on some loud and tipsy New Zealand wenches and telling them that Ireland’s 5th place result was the best ever and to celebrate he’d been asked to a drinks reception at the Irish Embassy. Now that’s how to impress tipsy Antipodeans.

Then the most heart warming happening of all followed on the next day. A morning trip to Boots in Piccadilly Circus on the way to work to get some essentials (no, not those…). As I was perusing the men’s toiletries aisle a smart young lad with suit and badge asked me if I would like some help and then not only took me to the item on the shelf, he picked it for me and offered it in said basket all with some witty banter and winning smiles. He signed off by wishing me a nice day. I was momentarily stunned.  Normally you could have collapsed in the feminine hygiene aisle in this Boots and been walked over for ten minutes before Security’s arrival to remove you. I almost skipped to work.

Add on to the above the smiling and funny volunteers who guided me through security at the North Greenwich Arena (02 to us) within ten minutes from tube to seat, the mix on the streets and shops of Olympics bods, fans and tourists, the genuine (and noisy) fans filling all the fantastic stadia even at 10am in the morning..and the fact I seem to be permanently glued to Claire Balding or Gabby Logan on the magnificent BBC (abuse it at your peril Jeremy *unt) and it all completes my warm glow for this beautiful city I call home.

Even the weather has been on our side.

Arise London for you are putting on a winning performance as I always believed you would, from the energy of the Olympic stadium, the noise of the Velodrome, the beauty of Hyde Park and the majesty of Greenwich. And you and your welcome are the true star of this 30th Olympiad so far.

Not like me to be effusive. Must be the warm glow (or the onset of senility). Back to Gary Lineker and Sue Barker’s helmet hair…

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Let the Games Begin

Rainbow Sporting Heroes

Devil Gate Drive

We made our great escape from Stalag 17 and dashed to Morrison’s Supermarket to stock up on cheap plonk, check prices and observe the local Suffolk wildlife in its natural habitat. The place was packed. It may have been a Sunday but Brits have long since abandoned praying for paying on the Sabbath. Despite many protestations to the contrary, we found prices more than comparable with Turkey, particularly meat, staples and non-food essentials. While Liam stalked the aisles for bargains, I went in search of a decent newspaper. Morrison’s sold neither the Guardian nor the Independent so I made do with the murky Murdoch’s Times. The queue was fronted by a Suzi Quatro looky-likey, all feather cut, tight ribbed vest and rock-chick tattoos. Suzi was in a heated debate with the check-out assistant, something about a pot plant. I didn’t intrude. I didn’t fancy a volley of expletives from the girl from Devil Gate Drive. We fled back to our bunker to get drunk.

Hit it Suzi…

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Next: The Voice Hits Pontins

London Turks

While looking for a new gaff to lay our hats we boxed and coxed with trunks in tow. Some of our time was spent with Liam’s folks in Edmonton, North London. The area has a strange familiarity, and not for the obvious reasons. As a world city, London is used to migration and transience. London is what it is because of it. Centuries of settlement and resettlement have reinvented and re-invigorated the city in an endless cycle of renewal. This constant shift in the cultural cityscape is not without its challenges but it is always enriching.

Forty years ago Edmonton was host to a thriving Irish community. Catholicism, the craic and the tricolour dominated the local scene. Forty years on, next generation Irish have moved up and out leaving a rump of the old who are slowly dying off. Nature abhors a vacuum; as the Irish up sticks to greener pastures, Turks fill the spaces in between. Of course, Turkish people are no strangers to London. The colonial connection to Cyprus established Turkish and Greek communities, now decades old. The partition of Aphrodite’s troubled isle following the 1974 Turkish invasion helped to bolster numbers on both sides of the Cypriot divide. Ironically, both communities live cheek-by-jowl in a way that is no longer possible on Cyprus itself. They don’t exactly mix but neither do they growl at each other from opposite sides of a thin blue line. When I lived in Walthamstow, my local convenience store was run by Turks and my greying hair was clipped by the Greek barber next door. I wisely avoided the Cypriot question while Stavros wielded a cut-throat razor.

Back in Edmonton, the ethnic influx is of a different kind. Recent immigrants tend to hail from Turkey itself rather than Cyprus. This has introduced a more traditional feel to the area. Grubby old pubs that were dying on their feet have been turned into colourful restaurants and locked-up shops have been given a new lease of life as tea houses. There’s even a branch of Doğtaş – a well-known (and horribly gaudy) Turkish home furnishings chain – in the local shopping centre. It’s all brought a new vibrancy to the vicinity. Unfortunately, as well as a fresh new Anatolian look, the Turks have also imported their truly terrible driving habits. Lollipop ladies leap for their lives.

Sleepy Norwich

Blazing June in Blighty is a damp squib. As Bodrum hit the low forties, we were welcomed home by angry black skies and our first walkabout around Norwich was blasted by blustery showers. We didn’t let it dampen our spirits. Norwich’s cobbled medieval quarter was classy, if somewhat ghostly. Perhaps the inclement weather conspired to keep the crowds at bay. Norwich people are a fruity cocktail – fake Burberry chavs, silver-studded hippies, scruffy students, chalky professors, smart-tailored henrys, well-appointed pensioners and middle England mothers in Barbour jackets and sensible shoes. We meandered casually through the smart shops without being dragged in by the scuff of the neck and browsed the shelves without being stalked by the retail police. English politeness reigned supreme; we overdosed on thank you, excuse me and after you.

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We ended a hassle-free day by feasting on Thai, toasting to our safe arrival and the adventures to come. We observed city street life from the warmth of the elegant linen-tabled restaurant. Norwich at night was strangely sleepy. Perhaps the deep recession has imposed a financial curfew on the worried masses. Squiffy and sated, we wandered back to our lodgings at a Premier Inn – the best in show of the low cost boarding-houses – to splash about in the reviving waters of a deep bath and canoodle in the comfy bed. We still need to find a roof over our heads. That’s for another day.