Ideal Home Show day 7

Day 7  Thursday. I woke up feeling really tired this morning although I had slept well. After an hour or so I was ready to get the tube to Earls Court, listening to Exile on Main Street by the Stones in a crowded carriage for nearly an hour. It seemed appropriate somehow. It was certainly enlivening, and I felt I would need to be lively. Thursday is the late night day at the Show so I’ll be at work until 9.00 tonight. It was a busier day as well, although a rep for the organizers told me that they had already had over 120,000 people through the doors since the start. So many people have told me "it’s a great idea" that it’s easy to let the impetus to sell go away, and rest on my laurels. But in a way I like the challenge of a long day and a busy crowd.

One chap came up to me and said “Go on, give me the spiel; explain what’s special about it.” So of course I did. Then he commented on the knickers we hang on the line to attract attention and said that if he was Jimmy Saville he would be laughing in his grave. “What it would be like to have lived such a bad life, then die before people discovered what a bastard you were.” He went on at some length, glad to find someone who would listen to him, I guess. “Imagine if I was the Sutcliffe, the Moors murderer but I never got found out.” After five to ten minutes I really wanted him to go away. Eventually he did; vanished while I talked to someone who was actually interested in the Dryline and not their own opinions.

Another guy, older and greying, said he was getting more rebellious in his old age – we had been talking about the tyranny of the computer – and we speculated about gangs of senile delinquents roaming the streets. “We have the power now, and evil only requires good people to stand and do nothing to flourish. Wedgewood-Benn and Bob Crowe; there’s two good men gone. Who’ll stand up for us now?” It got much quieter after 7.00, although the crowd had not diminished after 4.00 as it had previously; a new intake after work must have replaced the daytime crowd. Interestingly, they are not as receptive as earlier in the day. Perhaps they are as tired as I am and a re going through the motions rather than actively looking for new ideas.