So many ecommerce sites; so little time

I spend weeks in the run-up to Christmas in my unheated store room (to give it a slightly grander title than it deserves) packing boxes; printing out labels; discovering out of stock items; waiting for Parcel Force to collect or for couriers to deliver usually after five when the rainfall has reached lethal intensity and light levels are similar to those on Spitzbergen in January.

During coffee breaks, a lot of time is spent on the computer or phone trying to find shipments and losing my temper with ‘computer says no’ call centres that now seem to control every aspect of commercial life. Yep, if you want crap customer service, contact a call centre. It doesn’t matter if it’s in India or the UK or Ireland (although I find these latter usually more inclined to help), call centres are the latest development in the centuries-honoured practice of ‘can’t be arsed’. How can anything even minutely out of the ordinary be dealt with efficiently and courteously when even the bare basics are such an obvious trial. I hope that the current economic turmoil will see an end to these ghastly mills of mind-numbed automata whose only interest in being there seems to the arrival of the next wage packet. ‘Our call centres are all in the UK’ companies proudly proclaim. Even overlooking what seems to me to be an obvious racial slur (‘Johnny Foreigner is absolutely useless on the phone. It’s the thumbs, you see. They aren’t opposable, you see. Not like good British thumbs!’), it’s like the Gestapo proudly proclaiming ‘All our concentration camps are in Germany!’ That may be so but it doesn’t make the service, the product or the staff any more pleasant to deal with. Looking at courier service websites, one can only draw the conclusion that they don’t want you to ring the call centre. The contact telephone numbers are, in some cases, so well hidden within the site that you would need the assistance of a forensic IT specialist (or an ex News of the World employee) to uncover them. This presumably is because:

a) the company knows that the employees who operate their call centres (allegedly) don’t give a shit about their customers

b) they want to get rid of the employees because they are expensive

c) it’s cheaper to provide no explanation on the website (you know, one of those ‘Error 503 You’re stuffed’ messages) as to why a shipment has arrived on the wrong continent twelve weeks late than it is to employ someone to pretend that they care whilst still offering you no solution.

For me, the pre-Christmas trade was totally different to 12 months ago. Ebay sales declined; website sales in the UK and abroad increased; Facebook page sales got off to a flying start. I don’t have a mobile site from which you can purchase but I am told by ‘ve yoof’ that this is shape of things to come. We are bombarded from all sides with how busy everyone is nowadays. Apparently their time is so packed and precious that they can just squeeze in the occasional mobile phone purchase in the few brief moments they have seated on the loo in the local branch of John Lewis. Don’t fumble and drop the phone, whatever you do! Amongst the many treasures that Steve Jobs bequeathed us, an ‘app’ for retrieving your iPhone from around the U bend was not amongst them. Still, in time, I shall have a mobile site from which the punters can purchase and advise everyone who is serious about sales to look into this.

Spending days alone in the storeroom is not conducive to sound mental health. Add to this the haze of unwelcome events which characterised the Christmas and New Year break and you have a highly combustible mix.

The ‘fest-’ in ‘festive’ was reinforced with the discovery of an infestation of rats in the loft. The season of ‘peace’ and goodwill to all mankind was critically undermined by the festive failure of the cat’s renal system resulting in an outbreak of ‘peace’ all over the kitchen and utility room. Poverty is a good thing in monks and other people. It is not so good at home. The local vet charged x3 for the callout. Two shots of cat cocaine and a litter tray later, our elderly moggy is still, improbably, like Schroedinger’s cat appearing to have the ability to be in, and to pee in, several places simultaneously. Animal angst raised the already high stress levels of the Moss household confined, as it were, to barracks by the season.

By New Year, a reticent and ugly calm had descended. It was the calm before the storm.

One reason I hate the Christmas and New Year break so much is the licence it gives dancers to taunt, humiliate and torture chorophobes such as myself. My idea of Hell is the horned one presiding over a daemonic disco lasting for all eternity unrelieved by alcohol (because Satan once visited a night club in Nice and adopted the French habit of over-charging for everything in nightclubs). I had managed to squirm my way out of a number of festive gatherings by blaming poor health (although I admit that Black Swamp Water Fever has been previously unrecorded in Monmouthshire). Mrs Moss’s mood was visibly darkening as New Year’s Eve approached, so I thought I had better put my best foot forward and volunteer an attendance to a ‘dancey evening’. To save face (mine mostly) I shall hide the identity of this event.

‘My name is Philip Moss and I am a registered chorophobe’. I am terrified of having to dance. Before the event in question, I had consumed several polders of Dutch courage before we arrived. By the time we had got the hand-shaking and kissing stage of the evening, I realised that I might have overdone the Dutch courage. I managed to get several names wrong, shook the vicar’s wife’s hand and kissed him (although he didn’t seem to mind). I think what really buggered things up was when I appeared to have run out of people to greet and so greeted Mrs Moss and during the embrace managed to burp in her ear. Over her shoulder, I could see my daughter making ‘throat slashing’ gestures and pointing at Mrs Moss. We paraded in silence to the table. The horror…. the horror….

Mrs Moss moved my glass away from me so I had to sit there like a sulky child until a voice in my ear said:

‘How about some crudities?’

Never one to hold back, I gave of my best. When my outburst – during which everyone from Blair to Cameron to Brown to Milliband came in for comprehensive verbal kicking, had abated, I turned to survey my handiwork. Host, hostess, perfect children, the kissy vicar and the local church warden, the plate of celery and carrot sticks and dips still in his hand, stood rooted to the spot. I thought that he and his wife had had a stroke. Incredulous at my own stupidity, I turned for visible support to my daughter who now had her face buried in her hands. The tears, I later discovered, were from mirth, not pity or sorrow. Mrs Moss stormed off to discuss equine bowel movements and laminitis (Is that what horses get when they eat Formica?) with some other horsey types. I made my excuses, as they used to say at the late News Of The World, and tapped a phone. The taxi back gave me a chance to collect my thoughts and realise just how deep a hole I had dug myself into. At the house, the dogs were pleased to see me. The cat wisely reserved judgement.

Breakfast was conducted in silence surrounded by the heady smell of cat piss, the following morning. My daughter was already in the car. Mrs Moss looked up and announced, in that economical way that I have grown to love:

‘I’m leaving.’

Before the full awfulness of these words had sunk in, she was off through the door and the 4×4 was juddering up the slippery drive. No debate, no discussion, just gone. Even after two large breakfast Calvedos, I could see no upside to this turn events. I had really done it this time. In the afternoon, still stunned, I received a phonecall from my daughter saying that they had finished moving the horse and would be back by five. Confusion set it almost immediately. How could I have got this wrong as well? With English not being Mrs Moss’s first language, I should have recognised the potential for another appalling gaffe on my part and sought the explanatory intervention of the daughter.

All Hell now broke loose. I just managed to get to the charity shop in Monmouth in time to reclaim Mrs Moss’s clothes and shoes (a van load in itself). It cost me a fortune. The bastard manager refused to accept my explanation of events and insisted on charging me what she called a ‘nominal amount’ for inconvenience. Still, it was a small price to pay and by five o’ clock, the wardrobe and shoe cupboard were again full to overflowing. No women would ever fail to notice such a seismic disruption to their effects.

However, until now, the long-suffering Mrs Moss has said nothing. Now the cat is out of the proverbial and badly-soiled bag, my luck may have run out and I might end up typing future columns with just my left-hand.

Still it’s only a matter of weeks until the game fairs start again!

A Tale of Two Bisleys

As news of my blog spreads, I receive emails from traders up and down the land asking if I can help them with their problems. I received this only the other day from a Mrs H of Hartlepool:

Dear Michael,
My husband and I run a small small business selling signed photographs of game fair notables. Last week, I sold a signed photograph of Archie Jordan for £10.00 despite a prominent sick stain to the bottom left-hand corner and some slight foxing. I have high hopes for a collection of Chris Green memorabilia which I found in dustbin just outside Bodmin. But I digress. I always wanted to put our Cairn terrier, Lucretia, in kennels when we go to the shows but my husband always insisted that our motor home (once urinated over by Carl Cox) was large enough to take the dog along. However, over the weeks I began notice that the bitch resented my being there and my husband spent more time with her than he did with me. On a couple of occasions, I entered the caravan to find him fumbling with trousers. What should I do?

Answer: Knock.

While Mrs D of Budleigh Salterton writes:

Dear Dorothy,
I met and fell in love with my husband, XXXXX, on the game fairs where he had a stall selling selling his hand made beard presses and tunnel traps for moles… to catch them, that is; not for moles to use. Although the life was very different from the glamour model work I had been used to, we were blissfully happy. But then, without warning he started to drink heavily. He grew a beard, stopped bathing and started to wear camouflage clothing. The GP diagnosed wild-fowling but I knew it was more serious. I thought it must be something to do with me so immediately invested my life savings in a crash course of cosmetic surgery resulting in, some months later, my new chest which is clearly visible from space. It did no good. The final straw was two weeks ago when he announced that he had bought a Series One Landrover. What am I to do?

Answer: Is that the 88 inch chassis or the longer pickup version?

Many traders are finding it hard to make a living out there so I am pleased to help in any way that I can even though sometimes it might look like knicking their idea and getting it made more cheaply in China. I’m even willing to help show organisers. Take Bisley Live, for example. On reading some descriptions of this event in the press, I felt that I must have been at a different event. Some were so strangely positive, it was as if Alistair Campbell had taken the weekend off from his PR labours on behalf of his new employer (rumoured to be Beelzebub) to put a positive spin on this harrowing three day affair. They say (whoever they are) some shows are created great (Shooting Show) whilst others have greatness thrust upon them (CLA). Bisley Live falls into a third category where the unfortunate organiser manages to create the show but then realises that he is going the have to work like and indentured labourer for three years if the franchise is ever going to get anywhere.

Pithy epigrams like ‘Never eat the yellow snow’ or ‘Never launch a military offensive against Russia without sufficient resources to see you through the first winter’ (not quite pithy, I’ll admit) can help us live longer and more profitable lives. Up there with the classics like ‘never carry out electrical maintenance work while taking a bath’ is ‘never hold a game fair in a bog’. Most shooting ranges and county show grounds are established on land of little agricultural value. The Royal Artillery bombard Lark Hill not because they hate it, they bombard it because it’s good for nothing else and, if the gun is accurate enough, you can scare the living **** out of traders setting up their tents for a January point to point. Bisley range is essentially one huge marsh. Despite temperatures in the 80′s for all three days, the ground at one end of the show was still inches deep in brackish water and marsh grass was everywhere. Had it been raining, the event could have been renamed The Trench Experience. The show would benefit from moving to area around the club houses and the Pavilion Hotel.

I know it’s an easy mistake to make but Bisley Live, even with its Italian glamour models and Shaun’s Harley Davison is in Surrey, not Nevada. In Surrey, they spend to live. Entire monthly incomes go on the mortgage or the kids’ mortgage. In Nevada, they live to spend. No one’s got a mortgage their because Granny lost it all playing Black Jack at Caesar’s. Events have to be priced accordingly. If the organisers want to kill Bisley Live stone dead, stick with the same ticket and range pass prices. This is the main complaint I have heard from those attending. It’s not that they don’t appreciate the opportunity of trying a whole load of shotguns and rifles at a show, they just didn’t want to pay the purchase price of a Barretta in order to do so.

From the traders’ point of view, the stands were too expensive for a first time show so this will need addressing. Most of the full-time traders bargained hard but some paid full whack and went home carrying a whopping great loss. Customers were notable only by their absence. The few that did attend fell far short of the projected attendance levels. When traders are bored, they get up to mischief. Not just drinking, drawing rude signs on people’s faces with indelible marker when they are asleep and seeing how may metres they can drive a mobility scooter on just two wheels type mischief but the type where they get annoyed at not taking money and start talking the event down.

So those are the bad bits out of the way. Are there any good bits? Yes, surprisingly there are. There is definitely a gap in the calendar at this end of the year for such an event. The organisers seem to be sensible. They didn’t spend the three days (two is enough, please) hiding in a drain. They were seen and were available for discussion. This created the right impression with many traders (although the free bar also contributed to this) who could be tempted back next year.

But there was a quieter, more ethereal side to Bisley Live which few saw and fewer appreciated. As I crawled from my van at 2 in the morning to have a pee, I saw something truly fabulous. The night was dark but clear. The marshy ground was shrouded in a gossamer mist. I could clearly make out lights dancing in the dew-laden air. You hear people talk about will o’ the wisps and marsh lanterns but you expect to see one. As the lights drew closer, I felt the hairs on the back of neck stand up. I prepared myself for my first encounter with the supernatural. What should I do? What should I say? To my surprise, the will o’ the wisps took the initiative and spoke first:

‘Do stop whining.’ said the first voice.

‘If Wes hadn’t dropped the fucking phone in the first place, we’d all be in bed asleep now. Just keep looking.’ said the second.

‘If I keep this phone light on any longer I’ll run out of battery…’

I retreated to the safety of van leaving the Blaze Publishing staff to their quest; finding their employer’s mobile phone in two thousand acres of open marshland.

Barely three weeks later, I find myself driving through the gates of Bisley again. This time it’s the Trafalgar Meeting. It’s so easy in this game to get lulled into a false sense of security. I had convinced myself that even with the finals of the Great Shooting Bake Off which was scheduled for the first evening, the weekend would at least be better commercially than Bisley Live. Well, I got that wrong. It might be that the BBC won’t shut up about the recession. It might be that all my regular customers had already bought from me at Bisley Live. It might be that there were very few shooters taking part in the competition. Whatever the reason, I secured very few sales over the weekend. As things turned out, the Great Shooting Bake Off was one of the high points. Judged by Dave (behind the Bar) and Hugh (do any of the cakes have cauliflower in them?) Massey Birch, the competition was cut-throat. Sean’s Gaddaffi Pie (so named because if had begun to go off slightly by the second evening) was favourite until it pipped at the post by Emma’s late entry lemon drizzle cake. Voices were raised and words were exchanged when Paul Newell (for some reason wearing a Luftwaffe dress uniform hat circa 1943 )was accused of trying to sabotage Emma’s winning lemon drizzle cake with the addition of pepper but justice prevailed and the victorious Emma goes through the next round where she has to cook a cake in Gary Barlow’s house without him noticing and bringing it along to the grand finals at next year’s Shooting Show.

So as the Patterdale terrier of poverty buries the proceeds of another year of selling leather goods in the vegetable patch of time, I turn my mind to winter work and wave the 2011 show season a fond farewell.

How to ‘grow’ (sic) the Economy

Am I the only person in the UK who gets a distinct frisson of terror when the part-timers who purport to run this country start yapping about how to ‘grow the economy’? I may not know a great deal about economics but I certainly have eyes to see the effect of one ineffective raft of economic policies after another as they get washed up on the beach of UK enterprise. Why should I be surprised? After all, look at the guys in the control seat. At the moment we have a wallpaper salesman (although as a trade that’s obviously too grubby for Mr Osbourne to be involved). His predecessor, Mr Darling, was a Timpo toy (you remember, the type with the detachable head and painted on eyebrows). Funny how he’s only found the answers a year or two after he was in charge. Unfortunate that. His predecessor, I have heard variously described as a purveyor of pure (an eighteenth term for dogshit) when proclaiming that he had banished ‘boom and bust’; Brownfinger presumably referring to his ability to turn the UK’s gold reserves into complete shit and, perhaps most puzzlingly of all, Admiral Brown for his ability to order aircraft carriers we no longer have aircraft to put on (that’ll be nice for his constituents, then), he still leads the field. Tragically, the economic cure that these comedians espouse is often worse than the disease.

But you know that, don’t you. If you run a business, have a job or a mortgage; if you are a ‘worker’ in the real sense of the word and not one of mass of ‘takers’ in society, you will already have felt the economy changing. Whilst state employees threaten strike action because their copper-bottom pensions might be effected by government cuts you are probably faced with a future with or little or no pension and the knowledge that you will have to work ’til you drop and pay tax for privilege until your very last working day. You don’t need the politicians to tell you about slowdown because if your trader you’ve felt the economy lurch like an elderly LDV, into a lower gear and then, as each new political initiative fails – regardless of whatever silly name it’s given (what is ‘quantitive easing’?)- grind to standstill.

Orders if they come in are small. Payments are difficult to get. Banks don’t want to lend in case you go bust. This is particularly rich as most of their huge quantities of debt is raised against worthless assets (remember US junk mortgages? They’re still with us) Customers are more difficult to sell to. You cannot blame the decline in your income on racism or class hatred. Try explaining to HMRC inspector that their tax demand transgresses your ‘cultural rights’ or that paying VAT each quarter threatens your family’s existence and see where it gets you. I am sorry to say that the heavy foot steps you hear coming up the garden path do not belong to Dame Vanessa Redgrave as she rushes to your aid. ‘Knock, knock, knock’ is not her catchphrase. The stuff that has just hit the revolving metal of your desktop fan is not a veggie burger recently cooked by a tattooed and dread-locked benefit-hopper called ‘Leaf Green’ (christened Clamidia by hippie parents). Of course, your taxes pay for the hippie parents who now work for a government-funded (of course), environmentally sound (naturally) newt monitoring group while the offspring of the unholy and probably hashish-fuelled union fills in the time between collecting benefit cheques by cruising from one half-arsed, loony tune, crusty-fest to the next. And no one, least of all the navel-gazing bunch of wrist artists previously known as politicians, seem to give a cow’s connection about comparing what each contributes to the economy and what each gets out of it.

Some show organisers are worryingly similar. For example, not fixing something unless it’s broken is headline news over in Moreton in Marsh. One of the better one day shows was ruined this year for a number of traders when they discovered that the organisers had moved them to the opposite side of the show ground. Punters get used to a trader’s location on a site they visit each year. I’ve already had several customers coming out with the expected comments:

‘Oh! We thought you hadn’t turned up.’

‘Oh, we looked in the usual place but you weren’t there.’

‘Here you are! We looked for you earlier but couldn’t find you. Anyway we’ve spent all our money. Why have they put you down here by the car park?’

Why indeed? The organiser’s insistence was the usual self-serving nonsense about ‘You asked for a site by an entrance and you got a site by an entrance’. The ‘hard work’ that goes into organising a show doesn’t extend to thinking about the difference between the members entrance where you used to be (visitors who might buy a GBP400.00 gunslip) and the town entrance (visitors who might buy a GBP4.00 burger) and how this might effect trade. The organisers in their wisdom also put all the clothing stands together ensuring a vicious price war between traders with only a few even turning a profit. One trader, having taken good money, was unimpressed nonetheless. Another said that he failed to cover even his fuel and food on the day’s takings let alone the cost of the stand which, of course, remains as expensive (for a one day show) as ever. No sharing the risk of new layout, then. I imagine that the 2012 Moreton Show may lose a few traders, stung into action, to the Dorset County Show or the other events which fall on that weekend. Can’t imagine taking any serious shooting goods to a show like this anymore.

To be fair, it isn’t all the organisers’ fault. There is a lack of spending out there. It’s the economy. At the Midland this year, I and several customers were surprised at just how easy it was to get onto the site on the first day. Come 8 o’clock on the Saturday, there’s usually a scrum of expectant shooters clutching wads of notes which they’ve squirrelled away just for this event. This wasn’t the case, this year. The Norwich & Holt Zimmerframe Club could have sauntered in without danger onto the showground; only, admittedly, to be mown down by one of the many golf buggies zooming around the aisles.

Surprise gave way to nervousness about the lack of footfall which, in turn, gave way (in a politically correct sense) to ‘concern’ as punters seemed to be reluctant to part with their cash even for the very reasonably priced cups of tea and bacon at the catering vans. I often stock-up on GBP4.00 bacon rolls and GBP1.50 cups of tea and take them home so my whole family can enjoy a cut-price feast. What a treat! I should explain that in Wales, where I live, bacon rolls and tea are both highly valued commodities which often change hands for thousands of pounds. Even today, tea smuggling is a big problem in the valleys of Cynon Rhondda Taff.

‘Concern’ had become bored by now and moved over to allow enough room for good, old-fashioned worry to be allowed a look-in. Traditionally, worry is the last stage before ‘crapping yourself’ about the likely outcome of a show. Given that the BBC weather forecast had spent a week warning people that the rain would be like Satan’s stair rods around Telford, the only people who might have been approaching this stage would have been Colonel Ian ‘Hannibal’ Harford and his redoubtable retainers. But, at 1030 hrs, just when all seemed bleak, and the A-Team’s army fatigues seemed in for a messing, the punters as one reached into their pockets and started spending. Not in huge, banker bonus type amounts, at first; not even in the amounts that one would expect a cabinet minister or a union president to leave as a tip after a particularly good lunch involving a lot of expensive premier cru wines. But slowly and surely, the great British buying public rose to the occasion to haul the traders’ commercial cojones out of the hellfire of insolvency. Modesty is natural British virtue (q.v. Simon Cowell) so even though the final sum didn’t approach takings during a boom year it did ensure that most trader’s domestic pets were safely off the menu.

The first day of the Midland felt poor in comparison to earlier years. However, a survey of the evidence presented to a public inquiry about to be established by the government to run for four years, will reveal that spend for some traders was as good, if not better, than last year. Punters were being more careful about what they bought and wanted to have a look around first. Even the gypsies being escorted from the site on day two were more careful about the choice terms they used to describe their police escort whilst being shown to the main gate. Buyers over the two days had gone for more expensive items even though money is tight. They were making careful decisions about the future and acting accordingly. They wanted quality and stuff that would last. More people were asking where products were made; not from the boring racialist motives but just so they could be sure that if they bought something, it would last. It’s touching when so much manufacturing has been off-shored in recent decades, that punters still want products made in the UK. They look at Germany and the pride that Germans have in German products and they still believe that the UK can cut it.

Is that the answer, then? Have all the economists, senior grade civil servants, part-timer politicians, bankers (Spelling? Ed.) and captains of multinational industry missed the point. Getting Britain spending is a good start to ‘grow the economy’. But UK buyers, when money is tight, want to buy quality. Are they wrong to believe that sort of quality can be found in British goods? It’d take a brave politician to suggest this. It would take a braver politician to propose an economic policy that valued and encouraged its small-scale manufacturing across the UK over and above the financial services and big business. God knows they’ve both had enough help to last them until hell freezes over. How about helping kids into careers making things and selling them to reverse unemployment as opposed to have them stuff deep-fried rat alternatives into a box with chips and push it across greasy counter or work in a call centre ending up deaf and indifferent to human suffering. I know which one I’d enjoy more but for now, I’m off to clock on at the call centre. After all, the bills have to be paid. Now, how does it go again?

‘Press 1 if you would like to purchase our products, 2 for information, or, if you have a complaint why don’t you…’

Call in the A-Team

WHAT DO COUNTRY shows/game fairs and dogging have in common? They both involve getting completely screwed by total strangers in the middle of a muddy field. How do we know that this is true? The 118th Cranleigh Country Show. I freely admit I was keen to attend this event and booked early. I didn’t even haggle (see under Wikipedia ‘Gordon Brown’ and ‘Gold Reserves’). After all, it’s a few miles down the road from Bisley and, so I thought, was likely to attract the same crowd. So imagine my confusion when on arrival I found myself halfway down an aisle populated at nearly every step by charity stalls which, as they lost no opportunity to remind me, had paid nothing for their pitches. The South Georgia-like temperatures and glowering cloud threatening rain at any moment, plus a reluctance on the part of the good folk of Surrey to part with their money, led to a miserable event.

I am still at a loss to understand why organisers feel obliged to put first-time attendees like me on the charity (or ‘secret’) aisle. What is the logic behind show organisers thinking like this?

Trade Stand Secretary: ‘Now we move onto Moss Leather Goods. I see that he hasn’t had a stand here before. Now, how can we turn him from a first-timer into a regular? What’s that, vicar? Stick him in the charity aisle so he has a crap day’s trading? Brilliant!’

Even getting away from a waste of a trading day was tortuous and aggravating. As soon as the end of the show was in sight, hordes of vintage tractors appeared on the roads in every direction. Narrow lanes, blind corners and hills in that part of Surrey ensured that most people trying to leave the site were stuck behind members of the Tonka Toy Brigade for 20-odd miles in any direction. Surely these people cannot be stupid enough to believe that a seven-mile tailback of road users will share their oddly induced tumescence at the sight of a fully restored Massey Ferguson or Fordson Major belching out acrid clouds of carcinogenic diesel fumes? It cannot be, surely, that a hoisted middle digit and a mouthful of purple-faced abuse is seen as a sign of appreciation among these, the tractor restoring classes?

How different to the Honiton Show the preceding week. Despite the equally miserable weather, the organisers managed to keep the traffic moving, allowing a relatively simple escape from a slightly windswept and difficult day’s trading. Even during set-up, the slightly stressed show secretary was helpful and positive, realising that traders earn their living from these shows and are not just there to fill up the gaps between the charity tents.

And so to Lowther, up there in the scenic (rainy) and historic (rainy) Lake (rainy) District (rainy). Yes, it’s no coincidence that places like the Sahara and Death Valley do not have areas called the Lake District. That would imply the presence of rain. Neither the Sahara nor Death Valley have any water because the Cumbrians stole it all in 4th Century and took it back home where it remains today, occasionally being deployed to ruin summer holidays, dash traders’ hopes of any business or to show us ‘soft as shite’ southerners what mud really looks like.

The climate has not been kind to Lowther as a showground over the years. ‘Mudfest’, ‘Water Gardens’ and ‘Municipal Rain Testing Site’ have all be used to describe events here in years gone by. Is there a show organiser that can meet this difficult challenge? Step forward Countryman Fairs, aka the A Team. Headed up by their fearless Colonel Ian ‘Hannibal’ Harford (not the cannibal, the other one with the cigars – do try and keep up), this grizzled band of loveable eccentrics raided the MOD’s surplus stock depot in scenic Kettering to deploy enough camouflage shooting suits and steel tracking to establish a Normandy bridgehead. Lieutenant Dominic ‘Face’ Smith is the team’s smooth-talking appropriator of tradestands or ‘gap preventor’, and part-time babe magnet. Then there’s Captain David ‘Howling Mad’ Clausen, who has been declared insane and lives in an institution (Derbyshire) from which he regularly escapes to ensure that stand layout discipline is maintained. Finally, there is the team’s mechanic, Sergeant First Class Jerome ‘BA’ (that’s ‘Bad Attitude’) Roberts, equally at home with a Snickers Bar or at the bar (but mostly at the bar). Yes, if anyone can turn the Lehar known as Lowther into a game fair, they can.

In years to come, Lowther may become a good trading show. This year, the A Team at least made it happen and got the public through the turnstile. Sadly, it wasn’t the same public who used to come to the old driving trials with spending in mind. Again the weather didn’t help, but few of the visitors seemed to want to buy. On the Sunday afternoon, I sold nothing despite there being a good crowd around the main ring. I started to pack away only to be berated at half past five by a local for doing so.

‘It’s disgusting! People have paid good money to come in here and people like you pack up early,’ she announced.

I thought it would be churlish to cause a scene during the finale of the Knights of Middle England in the arena, so didn’t point out that I too had paid several hundred pounds to be there plus diesel and had had a variety of perfectly good leather goods displayed and available for sale for the last 48 hours. I also noticed that even though her partner was on crutches (perhaps he’d tripped over her mouth), he was several times bigger than me, so I decided on discretion. I told her I was still trading and if she wanted to buy something she could.

‘I don’t want to buy anything!’ she replied with a level of disgust usually reserved for invitations to partake in unlubricated sexual deviancy.

And that just about sums up the Lowther trading experience. I don’t know whether it’s the economy or the people, but it’s easier to get an apology for war crimes out of a post-war Japanese government than it was to get cash out of the punters at Lowther. What will happen next year? Will the A Team come up another death-defying wheeze to make everything better? Is that the faint whiff of a Cuban cigar on the breeze? It’s not just Colonel Ian ‘Hannibal’ Harford who ‘loves it when a game fair comes together’ – the traders quite like it too.

Signs, Showers & No, No Discount!

Peter Hoeg wrote a novel called Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow. Miss Smilla is half Danish/half Eskimo and her innate knowledge of snow (coming from Greenland) helps her solve a murder mystery. If Miss Smilla had been half Midlander/half trout and her feeling had been for water in all its forms, she might have been able to solve the mystery surrounding the death of my commercial hopes for the Land Rover Show at Billing near Northampton. On the other hand, it’s not really that complicated. A blowy but dry Friday during which trading was good was followed by 6 hours of rain on Saturday. That amount of water is enough to ruin any trading day. But, to their credit, the Land Lovers (clever, eh?) took time off from becoming sexually aroused by chassis numbers, leather seat restraints and original trim to persevere with their shopping. The result surprised me. Despite the torrential downpour, the show was well worth doing. A large number of chassis number/original trim perverts also appear to be shooters or followers of other (as yet) unspecified country sports. It’s often the case that shows that at first don’t appear to offer a market for leather goods turn out to be good events. The crowd there were also very friendly and ready to offer a helping hand and I shall be going back in hope of better weather next year.

To prepare my mind and body for the Blenheim CLA, I subject myself to several days of mind training at the hands of Mrs Moss. Hours of nagging about the amount of alcohol in my diet and the general lack of exercise in my life harden every nerve-ending and sinew for the trading marathon that was to come. My son comes along with one of his friends to do the heavy lifting and tent erection leaving me free in mind and body to concentrate on the challenge of being polite to the buying public and consuming cider.

Passing Cheltenham, a good forty miles away, I break the Zen-like silence in the cab as we pass a yellow signpost proclaiming ‘CLA Contractors Straight On’.

‘Is this a record?’

Have any of our readers seen CLA signage further off site than this? Surely it must have been picked up and placed their by some Jeremy Beadle wannabe. Or perhaps not. Next year, Irish visitors to the show may be guided from their very doorsteps to the CLA by a plethora of yellow signs with helpful advice like ‘Caution: Wet Surfaces. Irish Sea Ahead’. Yet still, many customers on my stand complain about the signage and the difficulty they have in accessing the show.

True to form, the rain starts as soon as we arrive and continues until the tent had been set-up. It then stops. The first cider is consumed at around 1500hrs and the consumption continues whilst catching up with friends and colleagues at various tents around the site until well after nightfall. Walking back along gunmaker’s row, I’m overtaken by Mr Paul Newell’s Redneck Jaccuzzi. This comprises of a re-chipped Dodge Ram pickup which has had the back sealed with a tarp and is then filled with carefully calculated measures of soap, water and drunks (normally clad in their underwear). The festive spirit is often heightened by the consumption of homemade cider before the trip dispensed by son, Falla or Mrs Newell, Romy . Paul tells me that this vehicle is particularly popular in his home town as a rented venue for Tupperware parties, Round Table meetings and Masonic get-togethers. Moab Zoab!

Paul Newell tests the redneck jacuzzi in his trademark fur hat

For some, the Redneck Jaccuzzi is as close to personal hygiene as they get in the three days of the CLA. After the CLA’s majestic offering of facilities at Ragley hall last year, facilities at Blenheim revert to their default settings of no soap, hot water in name only and queues for the showers that make a Gaza refugee camp look commodious.

On the first morning, operatives are everywhere in evidence erecting small yellow signs offering helpful advice ‘Caution: Shower Queue Ahead’, ‘For Men’s Showers Follow Signs to Chipping Sodbury’, ‘Beware: Congestion After U Bend 0.25 miles’ and, right by the door, after you have queued for an hour so, the ever popular ‘ Warning: No Toilet Paper’. How hard did those attendants work at keeping the facilities in a useable state but it was like trying to holding back a tsunami. It was too much for some by the close of the second day. Many fell on their own mops.

Frankly, that’s as far as the complaining goes this year. The strange, crepuscular entities who organise the CLA have done a great job. Gone are the annoying little pen-pushers and overly keen security staff of yesteryear, sticking their noses into traders’ business. You are given your stand site and left to get on with it. Gone is the horrendous traffic at the end of the show when the straggling public….

‘Will Mrs Edna Phobes who left her mother, Mrs Evadne Tremble, in the Ladies please come to the collection area where her mother is waiting for her. She says she wants another gin…’

…and traders all try to leave at once. A half hour wait at Row P and then the traffic just flew out. Admittedly the route was long and tortuous but it just kept moving. Congratulations on this.

And what about the trading., I hear you ask. Well, more traders told me they’d had a record show than told me that they had done badly so it looks like a thumbs up on that score as well. However, Blenheim is seen as the prime site for CLA and the show may not be quite as good elsewhere next year. I certainly had a record first day and days two and three were not bad either. And the mind-training? Did Mrs Moss’s nagging therapy work? She appeared on day two with my daughter in tow to check on progress and seemed satisfied. Sad then that on day three one putative customer ruined it all on day three by becoming the 301st visitor to my stand who felt that they deserved a discount.

Customer: So what’s your cash price?
Me: The same as all the other prices? What do you do for a living? Let’s see what your ‘cash prices’ are like, shall we?

He left. I lost the sale. I regret nothing. I don’t want cheapskates wearing my kit. It’s bad for business.

It would help matters if tannoy announcers resisted the temptation to advise the public to ‘look for bargains’ and ‘discount prices’ on the trade stands. It only encourages them. It’s either that or renaming the business so that customers are left in doubt at all about the discount question. Welcome to the Absolutely Definitely No F****** Discount Belt Company!

A Rum Do at the Bisley Phoenix

Bisley is an institution. Brightly coloured colonial villas and pavilions are scattered about the site separated by lines of gently rotting caravans, mature trees and elderly barrack buildings. Together you get the impression of a refugee camp populated by people with what elsewhere would be deemed to be an unhealthy interest in firearms. But the similarity with parts of Merseyside ends there.

The club members are ‘passionate’ (as our Prime Minister likes to say) about their shooting and spend accordingly. This is an event for the specialist and not the faint-hearted:

Customer: I’m looking for an alum-tanned strap for a 1911 Belgian 4 bore elephant gun.

Trader (scratching): What?

Customer: It has to be the one with the pincer fittings not the buckle fittings at the end.

Trader (looks at label on open bottle of cider and then back to customer): You what?

Customer: I suppose I could accept a non alum tanned leather version if you have one.

Trader: Well why didn’t you say? That’ll be twenty-five of your English pounds please.

In the morning, the dining room serves the type of fried breakfast that made Britain great. Those wishing to see their sixth decade though can eat at some of the other clubhouses. I ate at the Sergeant’s Mess on the second evening and very good it was too. Although Hugh Massey Birch’s enthusiasm for the ‘lovely bit of cauliflower’ on his plate and his refusal to talk about anything else was worrying. In the evening, Dave’s bar acts as a meeting place for shooters and traders alike.

This year, I was set-up in record time and went to see how the other stall-holders were getting on. Sean from Kempsdale Outdoor offered me a rum and it seemed churlish not accept. Three glasses later and a suggestion from a man called Bob – who’s always hanging around behind the tents – that we might like to try some rum he’d bought in Fiji seemed a really good idea. After half a bottle of this, it seemed only natural to go and share the happiness with the German shooting team who were staying in one of clubhouses.

Full of 85% proof Fijian rum confidence, I set off having picked up a gallon of Grays cider that I was determined to share with our German visitors. My hat was the first victim. As I knelt down to find it, my hand met with something evil-smelling and slimy – just like Lord Faulkner. Then my eye came painfully into contact with a twig. Recoiling, my track suit bottoms became stuck on a branch. My efforts to free them resulted in a large tear down the right leg revealing too much thigh to be socially acceptable. My arrival on the footpath just outside the HAC clubhouse elicited a loud scream from a woman dressed in evening wear having a quiet fag.

Orientated at last, I staggered the remaining 100 yards to The Spot where I emerged into the light like some long-forgotten explorer with soiled hand outstretched, severely contused and swollen left eye a huge and unsightly hole in my trousers, and a missing shoe.

With surprise that God reserves exclusively for drunks, I looked at my shoeless foot with the big toe protruding through the sock. With surprise that usually greets a nasty dose of the clap, the Germans gawped at this apparition before them and gathered into a tight-knit defensive formation in the corner of the clubhouse awning.

I now admit that it would have been better to have withdrawn at this point but I was, apparently, most insistent that they should taste some real Devon cider. Though the tussle with the undergrowth had given the cider a good churning so that when poured it resembled frothy horse urine.

Our guests drank the cider with the same distaste usually reserved for historical discussions of the years 1933-1945. They drank it quickly, perhaps in the hope that once the cider was finished, I would leave. The abrupt shock of falling over backwards whilst seated indicated to even my anaesthetised senses that the time had come to depart.

Bisley organiser, Sean, has the right approach. Tell traders where they are and leave them to it. Traders see each other every weekend of the season and, despite appearances, rarely fall out.

I wish the same could be said for the county shows. Bath & West (which is Sioux for ‘two days business stretched like a buffalo’s foreskin over four days’) appears to be entering the trading dark ages. Not many traders I met were wowed by their takings this year. Several businesses were notable by their absence. Even Country Covers were elsewhere although a rumour was going around that owner and camo-fetishist, Hugh Massey Birch was away on a cauliflower appreciation course in Sweden.

The trade was dismal and we shut up early on the first day and went to the member’s reception. Takings at the gate were up (at around £750,000 a day). But at £20 per ticket, no wonder visitors had little to spend once through the turnstile.

No mention was made of the thousands of pounds paid months in advance by traders which probably funds the set-up of the show, or the fact that numbers would take a nose-dive if there were no trade stands. Nor was any mention made of the total turnover of the Bath & West, the remuneration of its officers or how much was given in charity for the year. These would make interesting reading.

Of course, there were the usual annoyances. I had a visit from the Health & Safety officer who wanted to clarify whether or not I was sleeping on my stand at night. Apparently, the local fire service has just been made aware of the time-honoured habit of sleeping ‘next to the stock’ and was worried about ‘the fire risk’. I am pleased to report that in the history of our great nation, there is not a single report of traders preternaturally and spontaneously combusting.

As we spoke, the Royal Signals Motorbike display team were doing their ‘Ring of Fire’. Unlike Johnny Cash, the local fire service don’t seem that bothered about traders’ tents and stock falling into ‘that burning ring of fire’. But preternatural spontaneous combustion? I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since for worrying.

THE JOY OF SHOWS (07/11)

THE COUNTY show season has begun. The signs start early. First, huge amounts of money suddenly disappear from your business account months before the event. Then the marketing bumph starts arriving. It’s a bad way to start the day finding your cat crushed on the doormat beneath an avalanche of envelopes from show programme publishers, plastic bag purveyors and invitations to advertise in the local press.

But the joy does not end there. Having got up at four in the morning, driven to Devon County showground, all ready to set-up shop, the last thing you need is to be met by show staff who obviously don’t want to be there.

I stopped at the gate to exchange pleasantries. A figure in tweeds (a muzzle would have been more appropriate) got in first before I could even say “good morning”:

“Why don’t you people have your paperwork in the windscreen when you arrive?”

Let’s answer that, shall we? Normally because there is too much of it, it’s full of stuff that isn’t relevant and I am not going to juggle this mess whilst driving a large van down the M5 running the obvious risk of killing not just myself but perhaps some other unfortunate road user.

“… you just hold up the traffic and clog up the gates.”

I looked in both wing mirrors. Guess what? I am the ‘traffic’. Years of trying to get on with silly little people has taught me that it’s only going to make matters worse if you answer ‘gateman’ in kind, namely:

“But wait! I have a better idea. Why don’t you naff off to California and become a lifestyle coach. You plainly don’t want to be here. I am sure that there are lots of drug-damaged Americans with whom you can share your startling insights on the modern human condition.”

And so to my pitch. A small knot of ‘security’ staff is forming nearby. For some, this their first show. Unhampered by this they seem intent on sharing their wisdom with the traders. The traders do shows every week. On the whole, traders get on with each other and are happy to shift vehicles when needed. We have to. We see each other on a weekly basis. Really, trust me. We don’t need help from the security staff.

But the temptation is too much. Armed with the communication skills of a traffic bollard and half a pipette of charm, security man/woman begins ordering traders about into positions which make set-up nigh on impossible. No trader, with or without a heart condition, is going to carry a 20ft tent and up to a ton of stock, piece-by-piece for a hundred yards just to make some jobsworth feel good about himself. When traders tell them this – occasionally with a raised voice and intemperate vocabulary – obstinacy sets in.

But are these shows retaining the rural content suggested by the title ‘county show’? Devon in particular has a good turnout of livestock, and the beer and cider tent is amongst the best, but the shooting interest gets less and less. Even those who can afford to take the Thursday off, buy less and less shooting kit. Five years ago, I sold a dozen cartridge bags and few 12 bore belts. This year I sold three cartridge bags, a couple of 20 bore belts and one for a 410.

It’s clear that the show is becoming more and more suburban with each succeeding year. Some visitors clearly had difficulty with the concept of hunting and though I was intent on arming the criminal community of Exeter (there’s another market I’ve missed).

Some even had difficulty with the concept of something as useful and basic as a belt. My stand includes a large central table of belts and I still have lots of visitors on the stand whose opening gambit is something like: “So, these are belts, then, are they?”

It’s as if belts are some fabulous thing they’ve heard about in legends. I have to fight the temptation to switch into Darth Vader mode and reply in a suitable voice: “Your powers of observation serve you well, Young Skywalker.”

Or deny it entirely: “No. These are all, in fact, Arab Straps to prolong sexual enjoyment. Ann Summers was having a clear-out.”

Even if the welcome becomes a little more Las Vegas and a little less Vladivostok, the truth is that the market for shooting goods at county shows diminishes with each succeeding year. This isn’t the fault of the organisers or even ‘gateman’ or ‘security’ man/woman. It’s all part of the gradual suburbanisation of the countryside.

Specialist shooting shows throughout the year are beginning to look like an attractive option.

QUEERING THE PITCH (06/11)

Before the advent of The Shooting Show in February, the trading schedule for the early part of the year was made up with a mixture of point-to-points, Masonics, hound shows, Ann Summers parties and Bar-mitzvahs. It was only in March that the first sizeable shows, The West Country Game Fair and Kent Game Fair, came along to swell the depleted winter coffers.

In years gone by, these shows out-performed not just your average point-to-point but the majority of events well into summer. However, this year, my pitch at the West Country Game Fair disappeared beneath an equestrian arena as the event suddenly developed an equine flavour.

Traders are cautious by nature. Most who had lost their old positions took less space, as they didn’t know what to expect. Some just didn’t bother at all. Numbers of stands looked noticeably down and the crowd was different to years gone by.

The game fair regulars seemed annoyed at the appearance of the horse ring in the main shed and the horsey folk who attended did not spend like the game fair regulars. With the few exceptions that tend to prove the rule, the take was generally well-down on the previous year. Many traders were fed up, reporting that they had been shoved willy-nilly into the bottom shed of the show even though they had been promised their usual pitch.

The atmosphere was not the happy one of previous years. There was genuine puzzlement amongst traders and visitors as to why the game fair suddenly had to include equine items. The organisers, Contour Events, said they were keen to access a new market. Even if the gate increased, the spend certainly didn’t. Having said that, you cannot blame organisers for trying something new.

What you can blame organisers for is apparently not caring about traders who have supported them, in some cases, since the first show. These they expect to pay hefty pitch fees up to five months ahead of the event and then seem to ignore any undertakings given at the time of booking. When they arrive at the West Country event they are given any old pitch. Loyalty seems to be a one way process in this situation.

What you can also blame them for is a corporate inability to live up to undertakings given by their staff. When I booked my space late last year, I asked for a specific reassurance that there would be no deals for last minute bookers. I was given just such an undertaking on the phone. Within minutes of my arrival I had spoken to several people who gushed that they had only paid £200 for their large pitch. On confronting Contour’s member of staff who had promised me that such things were impossible, I was told that she was no longer responsible for this aspect of the company and that another colleague was had taken over that role.

I consider this to be on a par with other great excuses of our time such as ‘The dog ate my homework’ and ‘So-and-so is responsible for that but you can’t speak to him as he’s in…. er… Russia… no Africa.’

When the so-and-so in question finally did show up, he just denied out of hand that any last minute discounts had been done.

This leaves us in the rather unpleasant position of knowing that someone – either the organisers or the traders – are telling porkies.

If it’s the organisers who are guilty of terminological inexactitude, I would have more time for them if they at least recognised the problem and came out fighting. Not that it’s my job to train them, but I’d be happier with responses like “Of course we do deals. We have to fill the hall, don’t we, otherwise that bloke Moss would be whingeing that the show was half empty!”

If it’s the traders who are fibbing, I cannot see what so many of them would have to gain other than that warm, cuddly feeling of winding up their competitors, or stitching up Moss. Answers, please, on a postcard…

I suppose that organisers are quite within their rights to say to traders like me, “If you don’t like it, don’t come.” But as a marketing ploy it’s hardly up there with the classics like ‘Buy one, get one free’ or (taking a lead from other organisers like Countryman Fairs) offering a diminishing discount in the months leading up to the event. Surely that would make more sense.

The same could be said of Countour’s other show, the Kent Game Fair. Within minutes of setting up, the trader opposite me confirmed that his stand, which was twice the size of mine, had been reserved a few days before for around the same money! Further inquiries around site revealed that this was not the only example of deals being done.

So what’s the answer? I think the options are quite simple. If traders object to being treated in this fashion then they shouldn’t attend. However, I don’t know many traders who prefer principle over profit. A more practical solution would be to book late for next year’s shows as the best deals seem to be available only in the last two weeks leading up to the event in question.

I used to pay up early for the West Country Game Fair as I wanted the same position each year. Now that’s been buried beneath the horse arena, what’s the point?

Of course, the organisers might see sense and introduce a more equitable booking system. However, I shan’t hold my breath until they do. If traders’ comments are anything to go by, the deal-culture has been a problem at both these events for some years. Some who have rung up to complain in the past have been offered more space on the site as ‘a sweetener’. This however is still not very equitable.

It would good to see the organisers take the initiative and come up with a solution. The fact is that these shows can still be good, and traders like them because they fall at a time of the year when the pickings elsewhere are often thin. However, Contour would be ill-advised to take attendance for granted, or other show organisers might offer a more attractive option.

Three years ago, few traders could have imagined an event the size of the Shooting Show. Look at it now.

 

 

 

CHASING THE POUNDS (05/11)

To Newark and the new, improved Shooting Show. Early arrival is always essential as this lets the helpful staff lend you a hand unpacking the van and then allow you to drive the van into the hall to aid set-up. The welcome was as warm as last year, with a free mug of tea and useful advice on post-set-up parking. Despite the heavy rain on Thursday night, the site stayed reasonably dry. The new layout appears to have been a success and the heating worked throughout the event.

From time to time, you could catch a glimpse of organiser John Betrand stalking the aisles, offering assistance here and advice there. Gone is the chain-smoking spectre of last year. Here is a man who is truly on top of his game, remaining unflappable even in face of catering van tea which seemed to have filtered through the kidneys of a dead badger, exhibitors who obviously don’t get out much, over-priced breakfasts at the Cedric Ford Pavilion that make road-kill look good and extortionate bar prices which appeared to have been fixed at levels appealing to Al Capone.

But the trade! The first hour in the green pavilion was a bit quiet while the multitude passed through the main halls. By the time they got to my stand, they were primed and ready to spend. After last year’s show, I was uncertain. After the first day of this year’s show, all such doubts had evaporated. I set a new personal one-day record in takings, nobody hit me and I didn’t have to shout at anybody. This is one of the few shows I have attended where I felt in need of a second pair of hands on the stand. Driving back on the Sunday evening, the financial achievements of the weekend made it difficult to wipe the smile from my face. This resulted in a painful facial cramp: an object lesson to those who crave happiness.

This is not to say that everyone was happy. The new layout must mean that some people get stands which get more of the passing crowd than others. This can be fine-tuned in future years. Competition was especially rife among the clothing fraternity, with price and supply determining factors. Most gun dealers I spoke to had enjoyed a successful 48 hours which brightened up the dark days of February, when commercial activity tends traditionally to slow down a little. I think that that is the real value of this show. It not only provides an excellent and well thought-out showcase for the shooting trade, it also does it at the right time of the year, when the season is over and the sector needs a bit of a shot in the arm to take it through to summer. How perceptive of Gun Trade News and its stablemates to spot this potential and support it.

Unpacking the van took very little time, as did repacking the van for a couple of point-to-points at the weekend. I have now learnt that dragging most of my stock from one side of the country to the other is not only inefficient, it is also hugely expensive. As the price of diesel streaks past the £1.40 per litre mark, most traders will be acutely aware that we have more than the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the Lockerbie Bombing to bear against the Libyan terrorist self-styled as Colonel Gaddafi. As oil prices increase at the same rate as a banker’s bonus, it pays every trader to cut distances and downsize vehicles. My new rules for 2011 are not to go to any event further than three hours away and to take minimal stock. That’s hardly in the spirit of economic growth, I admit, but by keeping the bottom-line under control I might stay in business longer.

Speaking of bankers, on Saturday I attended The Beaufort point-to-point at Didmarton in the upper Cotswolds. This event has grown over the years and now resembles a small game or country fair as much as a race meeting. It has a good mix of stalls, some good food, some excellent drink and people spend money. There’s a smattering of local Gloucestershire accents but you mainly hear those from the Home Counties and London. Increasingly, this is a weekend in the country for the denizens of South Kensington and Chelsea. And there is no harm in that while these spending levels remain as they are. My expensive belts, best quality shooting bags and leather jerkins sell well here, so this event is set to become a fixture on my schedule.

On Sunday, I was off to Garnons for the South Herefordshire Hunt point-to-point. Set in beautiful parkland (apparently for the last time), this event has more of a country race meeting feel to it but the crowd is smaller, more local and definitely not spending on leather goods. Bizarrely, three of the five trade stands sold hats and all seemed to be selling well. Perhaps the biting cold and wind had something to do with it. Though Garnons may have a more authentic country feel to it, I think I prefer The Beaufort and the townie pound, whether it’s an import or not. After all, we’ve all got make a living.

PRIME VISITOR (04/11)

With the end of the shooting season in sight, February brings a mixed bag of point-to-points. There’s nothing else so I thought I might as well try some new venues. As I’m old and lazy, and despite the low stand fees, I only attend point-to-points within a 100-mile radius. Some traders are more adventurous (or desperate) and would travel all day and night to attend the opening of a packet of crisps. Not me. I got tired of making less than the cost of the diesel to get there and at least I can get home for a good night’s rest afterwards.

There are also some minor technical irritations to take into account. My phone line has been dead for a week and we live in area where the appearance of a wheel still stops the locals in their tracks, so mobile coverage is a non-starter. If their advertising is anything to go by, I don’t fall into BT’s ideal customer range. I am not a fashionably clad middling executive who appears to be pussy-whipped into doing all the manual chores for the divorcee, Jane, while keeping in touch with my feminine, caring side by keeping his ear permanently glued to a mobile or landline handset. I just run a business from home and need to talk to my customers.

Remember BT’s catchphrase, ‘It’s good to talk’? I do. You probably do. BT doesn’t. It takes forever to get through to BT engineering. This now mostly carried out by a company called BT Open, which is closed to customer enquiries. BT Open is only open to other telephone companies with engineering enquiries. Somewhere on a BT middle manager’s laptop, there is a Powerpoint presentation entitled ‘BT Open: Taking the Customer out of the Loop.’ I wonder if other enraged BT customers have taken up my habit of shouting: “Piss off, Jane!” at the BT adverts on TV.

Every time that I have checked my phone line remotely, all I get is a message telling me that my mailbox is full. My customers will probably believe that I have finally succumbed to pneumonia contracted from sleeping in the back of the van in freezing February or that I have finally drunk myself to death at home and that the terrier and the Labrador are busy eating their way through the gruesome evidence.

There is therefore an acute need to get earning at any show. The weather, as always, is the determining factor. Having paid the stand fee for The Royal Artillery point-to-point at lovely Larkhill, the event was cancelled the day before. I stayed over at a friend’s house in Somerset en route, so I returned home penniless and appallingly hungover.

But there was hope! Heythrop point-to-point was on the following day. I book myself in with a mobile phone call from the lay-by about four miles from home. This has acted as an ad hoc office for the last week. Lots of stands were already there when I arrived, which illustrated the widespread need for cash across the trader community. The omens were good.

I noticed that Steve from Natterjack Cider was wearing one of my leather jerkins – a bit of free advertising as he sold his excellent spiced hot cider punch. The sunshine at 8am was deceptive. The temperature dropped steadily throughout the day – typical of this end of the Cotswolds. Trading started inconsistently as usual. The punters hadn’t had a drink or a bet yet and didn’t want to squander their meagre resources on an early impulse-buy. By 10am there was a good crowd.

An enormous bloke stood just off my stand as if he owned it. He really was huge. I remember thinking that he was probably visible from space. He wore a curly-wired earpiece, such as those beloved of security services worldwide. I was so interested in why someone like this should be at a point-to-point that I entirely missed the Prime Minister’s first question. To be fair, he was disguised as a child-minder with a baby strapped to his front and other kids around him clamouring for attention. It was only when the delightfully blue-eyed Mrs Cameron asked me how much my belts cost that I suddenly clicked back into reality. I resisted the temptation to reply: “I refer the honourable member to the answer I gave a moment ago.”

I thought about offering Mrs Cameron a trade discount as she is ‘in the leather business’ but thought better of it. No real bargaining or compromise was necessary to secure the sale as no Liberal Democrats were present.

The Prime Minister bought a modest buffalo leather trouser belt before he moved on, looking like any other 40-something in a high-pressure job stealing a few hours with his family. Unlike the pussy-whipped git in the BT adverts, I actually felt slightly sorry for him.

That’s as close to a tax rebate I’ll get this year.

Almost instantly, a pushy individual who I took to be news reporter arrived on the stand, demanding to know which type of belt the PM had bought. When it became clear he wanted to buy one, I pointed to the most expensive belt on the stand. He bought two and seemed grateful that he didn’t even have to hack my mobile phone to get the information. Of course, if he’d hacked my BT landline he would have died of old age before hearing so much as a dial tone.

Ian at Hats Off, two stalls down the row, had a busier time. We always think of shoplifting as a crime of youth. That’s presumably because most of them who get caught combine their youth and stupidity with the manual dexterity and showmanship of Tommy Cooper. You’d be surprised by the number of middle-aged and elderly shoplifters that populate these events. Ian noticed a thief in his 60s lift a hat off his stand and push it into his pocket. Rather than causing a scene on his stand, he decided to follow the thief down to the row of bookies where it seemed he was working, and then to the man’s car. The thief put the hat into the back of the car and tried to close the boot but couldn’t because Ian’s hand was now holding up the boot lid. An altercation ensued in which the sad excuse for humanity first of all denied the crime, before pleading poverty and then offering to pay Ian for the item – removing a huge wad of notes from his pocket. Thieving, lying, cheating and not particularly poor, either. Yep; it’s shameful the way I misled that news reporter.

I asked Ian why he didn’t call the police. He shrugged. What’s the point? They do nothing. Their time is taken up entirely with the concern for the rights of the thief, as is required of them. The rights of the law-abiding, tax-paying trader come a very poor second. I wrote to my MP about this recently. He’s obviously fed up with my letters. I was told in pretty short order that even though he hates the European Human Rights diktat which allows this perverse up-ending of social values every bit as much as I do, the current UK government can do nothing about it without upsetting the coalition partners, without upsetting our European Union overlords and, of course, without losing the votes of that most important section of the electorate, convicted criminals serving prison sentences.