A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED EARDRUMS

I like to think of myself as a person with a fairly strong constitution. I’ve weathered storms at sea, driven across this land in the most dangerous contraptions, and been to Kidbrooke swapmeet without a bodyguard. But there is one thing that can reduce me to a quivering, moaning jelly. You could lock me up in solitary confinement and I wouldn’t crack, but if you arranged for pan pipes to play outside the cell window, I would immediately confess to the most heinous crimes.

Those Peruvian Indians have been following me around for years. They turn up all over the country, always the same guys, wearing their brightly coloured blankets and puffing out awful cover versions of popular tunes. It’s not so much middle of the road as middle of the dirt track. No anthem has been left unmolested. If they can’t play it properly they just ‘fuff’ through the awkward bit. It’s the musical equivalent of multi level marketing.

Why are otherwise intelligent people taken in by this pseudo-ethnic blend of culture and muzak? They can be left unmoved by real blues being played in the tube, or virtuoso classical artistes on the street, yet they go into a sort of trance when these con artists start hamming the theme to ‘Titanic’ in the shopping centre. They are vermin. There should be signs saying ‘Please don’t feed the Peruvian Indians’.

Have you ever wondered where they go when they aren’t murdering innocent instrumentals? You never see them off duty because, laughing at us, they throw off their gaudy blankets and black wigs, wash off the fake tans and drive off to nightclubs in their sports cars and designer clothes, paid for by a gullible public who mistake them for a genuine art form.

I hope you’re not so disastrously equipped in the taste department as to have a pan pipes CD anywhere in your house. Someone may have given you one, which you have been meaning to throw away after a respectable period of time. If so, please go and bin it now, and then return to this column. This is a pan pipe free zone.

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There comes a time when even the most avid swapmeeter has to throw in the towel, admit defeat, bid his closest companions adieu - and go on holiday with the family. I’ve always had a rather ambivalent attitude to holidays. It’s like this; I love going to swapmeets. I make no pretence that my work is anything other than a pleasure. I have no desire to visit less swapmeets than I do already. Going on holiday stops me from doing this. Therefore it is a bad thing. If I wanted to hang around on a beach I’d get a job as a deckchair attendant.

There is a certain amount you can do to limit the damage, like timing holidays so you don’t miss any key fairs. If you keep them as short as possible, that also saves money. And there’s always the hope you can pick something up to sell when you get home. While on holiday, visit as many foreign toy shops and fleamarkets as you can find. This has got a bit harder since the Euro; it seems like everyone took the opportunity to mark their prices up, so no matter what you look at, it’s fifteen Euros.

I have to admit that wading through general junk at car boot sales and fleamarkets is a lot harder than sourcing collectables at a swapmeet. It’s even worse with foreign junk, which is somehow junkier than good old British rubbish. It’s about time we took some of our wares over to Europe to let them know what quality junk looks like. It occurs to me that if all us toy dealers arranged to visit the same country at the same time we could throw a pretty good swapmeet. If only our promoters thought a bit further afield, they could organise one for us. How about starting with France next year?

Hence I found myself at a Spanish festival, with one eye out for collectables to finance the holiday. It is impossible to park your hire car in the average Spanish town. This is because the locals have already parked on every pavement and yellow line, and up the tiniest alleyways. Having found a space some miles away from the centre, we set off for a walk through scented streets. It was slim pickings at the market, but not entirely unpleasant. Even if there are no collectables, you can always buy a bottle of Gordons for three quid and drown your sorrows.

As we left the square my ears were gently assailed by the indigenous music of Spain. Yes, it was those damn pan pipes again.

Leaving the town proved even harder than getting into it. There was some sort of bicycle race and every time we approached an exit, the Guardia would pull a barrier across the road. We followed some locals who looked like they knew where they were going, but even they were thwarted at every turn, until we were all boxed in with our own mini gridlock. In the end we followed someone up a treacherous dirt track to effect our escape. I can only hope those Peruvian Indians are still stuck there.