The French market

JULY 11 06

Froosh Bamboo writes about the appearance of the French market in Willesden Green. This seems to be a spreading phenomenon. The French market comes twice a year to Walthamstow. They come just to take the piss out of Walthamstow market, Europe's longest market of racist Essex wankers and street-corner foreigners who don't understand the concept of 'change' selling shit fruit in bowls and shouting unrecognisable things about manky bananas, and one nice lady who always does pickling onions and damsons and gooseberries in their season.

I liked the French market at first, it was picturesque, but after a while it just seemed to be a honeypot drawing out the nouveau-riche middle class of Walthamstow, who normally keep themselves hidden, to buy overpriced olives and brie and bread that seemed a bit better for a dusting of flour and you just ignore the fact that the bakery is in that lorry over there, because French bakeries in lorries are obviously so much better than anything we can come up with in the line of sticking dough in the oven. The French market is probably good though if you like eating parts of animals tied up attractively in string and given a nice grey elephantine crust. But when they started selling little glass ornaments of Bamby I just thought you may as well fuck off back to France now if all you've got left to sell is fancy wrapping paper. Still, you have to admire the surliness with which they serve people who are clearly beneath them and don't know how to say how much are your horse's knackers in French.