Yesterday marked a new way of looking at the world for me. We are used to watching documentaries of people in high-waist, crème shorts peering through the undergrowth of a Congolese jungle, watching nomads live as they did thousands of years ago.
The way they walk is unique, the way they talk is peculiar, and the way they socialise is far from our own standards of interaction.
Unfortunately, the cost of this privilege in the flesh (quite literally in some cases) is in excess of most people’s budgets, and so we only get to see these fascinating civilisations on screen, unless you know where to look domestically.
I think I may have just about found a culture so diverse and dissimilar to our own, that a documentary on it would fly through BBC commissioning offices.
On a rather gluttonous mystery shopping adventure around Lincolnshire, I arrived on the single-carriage cardboard box train, which are rife in this part of the country, to a place called Market Rasen.
Now, Market Rasen has some interesting facts about it. First, it has a racecourse. And second, the town is named after the close-by River Rase. Well, wasn’t that intriguing. It’s all Wikipedia will tell you anyway. Unfortunately, my outlook on the town was, how shall I say, a little more ‘extensive’.
I arrived in Market Rasen very thankfully, as I saw the supermarket just by the station, and so knew I wouldn’t be around for long. What I had not done was check the train timetables; I was stuck for two hours.
‘Well,’ I thought ‘I might as well look around and see what’s here, since I’ve come so far’. So, I set off back past the train station and into town. The first thing that struck me as odd was a sign by the station; it had two arrows, one for the racecourse, and another for the toilets. ‘Looks like there’s a lot to do in this place’, I thought.
But I gave my prejudices a nudge and told myself I had nothing better to do, so I followed the road and found another sign, simply saying ‘shops’. ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘a little shopping spree in Lincolnshire surely can’t be turned down’, and so I decided to try and buy some gloves, seeing as it’s getting towards spring and so the obvious thing to do is to buy winter clothing (nice one Joe).
I kicked myself as I walked into the first shop, having not realised it was a charity shop before I’d passed the door. For I did not, in any means, want to buy second hand gloves. But out of respect for the shop, I meaninglessly plodded around the place, blankly looking at utterly pointless figurines of dolphins and gnomes and all that faded, lifeless shit old people put on the mantelpieces.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” Ah shit, they’ve seen me. Thinking on my feet, I said I was looking for gloves, which I shouldn’t have done because the old lady behind the counter picked up a box of them; not paired, but single gloves (lesson to self, don’t think on your feet). I seriously wanted to stop her and ask why the hell would anyone want to buy a single glove, and why would they go to a second hand shop to get them? Who on Earth wants someone else’s mouldy sweat congealed on the inside crevices of their mitts?
Eventually, I managed to sneak a question in on the whereabouts of any clothes shops in the town. I wish I hadn’t. The woman gave me a list of bloody charity shops instead! ‘Help the Aged’ was just round the corner, but if I wanted a good set of gloves I should try ‘The Lincolnshire Cat Trust’ (There are too many things wrong with this last one to even begin trying to understand).
Having slowly backed out of the shop, I turned and headed for the high street, hoping to find a vaguely respectable shop. But I was wrong to even consider it. The town looked as though it was gearing for a mass-evacuation. The buildings that weren’t shut were either knitwear outlets, tearooms or, you guessed it, charity shops. The whole town is run on the bloody things! I looked for a good half hour for a clothes shop suitable for someone under 50, and found nothing. The only clothes you can get are second hand from charity shops, it’s as though the town simply recycle all their stuff again and again.
I eventually stumbled upon the ‘market square’, and this made me laugh. The market consisted of two plant sellers, one of who was sat in the front seat of his car, with a tray of annuals on his bonnet. What is the point in that? That’s not a career, that’s not a living. Selling annuals at 75p a pop on you car bonnet does not consist of aiding the economy! You can’t even tax that!
There was also a solitary burger van, presumably anticipating the hunger of the crowd that must be racing to get to the car bonnet flower man. A sign was stood by the side of the van; ‘Top Chef Touring the Nation’. Now, I am no expert in the catering industry, nor is food-tasting a speciality of mine. However, even the calorie-uneducated proletariats such as myself can see that Derek the hairy, 18 stone meat flipper is not a ‘top chef’!
I decided to leave the market square after seeing a portly family plod towards the burger van, licking their lips are they went, and went back up the road towards the station, having killed bugger-all time at all.
On my way back to the station, I saw two old gimmers sawing some wood outside a run-down theatre hall. It looks like the average age of the workforce in this town was about 60, and being that chavs were rife at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday, it looked like they were supporting the younger folk, rather than the other way round.
Much alike the Congolese nomads, the people of Market Rasen seemed different in their ways. I mean, I’m not having a go or anything, but every person seemed to have a limp, or massive glasses, or generally just looked knackered. I admit hypocrisy here on the fact that I am physically defunct myself, but still, why are these people out? What are they doing apart from moving from one charity shop to another to see if any new tea cosies have arrived (I say new, in reality anything with under 4 stains on it will do).
Finally I get to Lincoln, and set off on a trek to my next supermarket. Lincoln itself is a very nice city indeed. The cathedral dominates the skyline, the old town is wonderfully scenic, and the chavs shout “suck on it” as you walk past.
I was so tempted to turn to this 11 year old sewer dweller and ask exactly what he had wanted me to suck, and on what should I be performing this act? I also wanted to ask ‘what are you?’ Unfortunately, polysyllabic words and full sentences can be dreadfully challenging for sub-species, and so I left it.
So this is what I came away with from my experience of a day in Lincolnshire. The knowledge of a town run on its own recycling of goods, its charity shops and the resiliently hardworking 60+ year olds, and a hopeful thought for the future; that our children, and their children, and theirs after that, will have to put up with nauseating little shits who swagger the streets, expostulating with such elegant poetry as ‘suck on it’.
Well, looks like the untouched Congolese rainforest communities are relatively more civilised than a hopefully soon-to-be untouched community just outside Lincoln.
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