Saturday 12 April 2008

edinayse

There are only 3 things I remember about A level economics:

1. The words “demand” and “supply” which get mentioned together a lot;

2. If you put Robbo’s bag/files on the flat roof outside the classroom window, you can lock him out when he has to go out to get them… and he never learns to stop leaving his stuff unguarded, which means you can do it over and over and over again (which in hindsight may have something to do with his somewhat limited appearance (15 mins) in our three hour exam later that year); and

3. One of our classmates (I use the term loosely, I didn’t know his name then and this is all I can recall about him now) worked on one of the strangest stalls at Brackley Market. He sold bread and, wait for it…. shoes. Yep, bread and shoes, the two items no-one should be without! Aside from taunting him with jokes like: “what’s your best sellers then? Don’t tell me… don’t tell me…. it’s the loafers enit? And “have you seen the chumps new trainers… hovis air max!” we let him off lightly. I don’t think it made a bit of difference, he was still out there week in, week out making a living from his bread and shoes – perhaps he was taking in more about ‘demand and supply’ than the rest of us were after all?

I’ve also just remembered that he was expelled from his school in Brackley for putting a plastic bag over a teachers head – allegedly… jesus! He really was a chump.


Anyway, the point is I’ve been reminded of the legendary Brackley bread and shoes stall this week on a
number of occasions. Why? Because Sam and I are back in the land of green and red track-suited couples, toothless women and cold chips, yes… Bulgaria… where market stalls are maligned for not having at least 4 strings to their bow. Any self respecting business cannot survive without a multi faceted, contrast based, bread-shoe business plan. In the space of two days I have been into a shop that exclusively sells plastic footballs, trainers, tinned food and clocks, and another which claimed to specialise in kitchen equipment but actually sold bed linen and pepper grinders, well grinder… which broke… after 3 grinds – oooh peppery.

We’ve actually been back for around 3-4 weeks, but been so busy getting ourselves settled again that I just haven’t had the time to stop and think until now. However, the good news is we have managed to find ourselves a penthouse apartment (ok top floor) in the nearby town of Gabrovo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrovo which looks like this:

…bought a s-wicked automobile to get around in (particularly pleased with the vinyl explosion – rude ass) :

and found Sam a job in a language school in the most important looking building in town:



Not bad work really I’m sure you’ll agree. You’ll note that Gabrovo is twinned with exotic locations like Shaki in Azerbijan, named after 80’s pop legend Shakin’ Stevens and Nowy Sakz, Poland’s castration capital (yeah ok that was a bit tenuous even in my best polish accent). I’d be keen to get some suggestions of where we could twin with in the UK – any ideas welcome. I’ll provide more info on Gabrovo each week to help you decide.

We’re also now hooked up to the internet at home so hopefully I’ll be in touch a bit more this time around. I’m gonna be all over your asses and I expect some freekin feedback this time too.

Oh and the house is still standing… and so is our barn complete with our home made roof still on it. Pete and I are back to the grind on Monday and we even have a programme this time around so if and when we get visitors from the real world, we should be able to tell you what jobs you’re gonna get before you get here – good eh.

That’s enough to get us started.

Ciao ciao za sega – fsichko hubavo