SHERINGHAM DIARY No 99 - Trades & Descriptions

Words, especially words in odd combinations, the one's that amuse with their inherent absurdity, I'm finding interesting at the moment. So here is this week's ' what the hell is that?' 

HYPOALLERGENIC KIBBLE

It maybe the time to be jolly, but it's also the time for too many half arsed craft fairs. We attended one at a local church, which was very much the church bazaar of old, the sort I remember from my youth. The home of the handsewn and acrylic hand knits, anything dog or cat related. They remain unchanged in their naffness. 

Trades descriptions are being blurred. Church fetes have started calling themselves 'artizan markets' as one did locally. This misrepresents entirely what is to be found within. But then you find this at all levels of making, whether that is craft or artizan. There are 'artizan makers' who stock mass produced products made abroad. There are artizan makers whose USP is their 'uniqueness' but then unique can be a dodgy thing to apply to your work, because:-

UNIQUE - means no one has thought of making this before- and in most cases we understand why.

The world economy, as we know it, is still hedging its bets on climate policy, and directly lying about anything that cannot be massaged into a more favourable light. So we have Saudi Arabia loudly boasting about its green programme of innovations and being the host of COP 28. Whilst at the same time advancing a development thrust of petrochemical business in Africa that is off the scale, running in entirely the opposite direction.

Then there was Door Matt Hancock - for it is he - trying to convince the Covid enquiry that he was the victim of a toxic culture, raised the alarm first about the oncoming Pandemic, but was cruelly ignored. If only everyone had listened to him. Despite there being no documentary evidence anywhere else, even in his own book, to support that he was anything of the sort. His testimony was slippery. Even whilst trying to 'set the record straight - repeatedly saying he was trying ' to be clear here' but proceeds to muddy the water further. Its was like watching someone who is a bad liar, but doesn't know it, trying to think on his feet and failing abysmally.

Mini Rishi picks a fight with the six and a half foot tall Greek PM, over the festering sore that is the Parthenon Marbles. The case is fairly clear we bought them from the then Ottoman occupying forces. The Greeks themselves did not willingly sell them to us. Its like us buying stolen paintings from the Nazi's. It was theft, a classic piece of cultural appropriation, not a clean economic transaction. Its a bit like another European country owning the blue stones from Stonehenge. Why not do a straight swap. The Greeks get their original frieze sculptures from us, we get the facsimiles of the marbles the Greeks currently have. This enables The British Museum to have something to put in that huge room, and our culture is not unduly impoverished.

We did our last craft fair of the year, in Sheringham, as part of the Christmas lights switch on. Between the shop and the stall takings, it was a half decent day. But the weather was not, wintry tinged rain awful to be out in. Jnanasalin and a good friend of ours Sam, were the ones out in the thick of it, getting throughly chilled to the bone. The problem with this sort of event is that the Craft Market is an unnecessary embellishment, an after thought, and not the central focus. So it consequently never quite works. It's twice in Sheringham we have got involved on this basis. Never again. 

This coming week marks another step towards the closure of the shop. As we set up our clearance sale. Most of the stock we make will be coming with us. So what will be in the sale is some of the lines we bought in and stuff we don't want to make any more. It feels a more significant point than it at first seems. 

This week I have an idea about how to rejig the garage to make space for shop stands and storage. I hope it works out as I envisage. Currently the garage is in a right pickle and moving anything around is encumbered and chaotic. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but I have to do something as time is fast running out to get it sorted. Wish me luck.