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Tea towels, testimonials and a line of cocaine products

Miles Kington
Wednesday 17 November 1993 00:02 GMT
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AS I was sitting working the other day, there came a knock on the door. This happens quite often in our part of the country. Usually it's just a woodpecker attracted by the peeling paint, or the ghost from the east wing who has been accidentally locked out and can't get in again, so I simply tend to ignore it unless it happens again.

This time it happened again. And there outside stood a young man carrying a large bag over his shoulder. I groaned automatically. We often get these young men around. They are sent from Nottingham or Sheffield or somewhere to sell us garden gloves and ironing-board covers and tea towels and things that look like J Cloths but fall to bits rather quicker than J Cloths, so I said:

'I'm sorry, but we already have enough kitchen aprons and imitation chamois leathers and clothes pegs and garden kneeling pads and kitchen cloths and things for putting clothes pegs in and . . .'

'Would you like a photograph of your house from the air?' he asked.

'Pardon?' I replied.

'How would you like to have your house photographed from the air?' he asked.

'Hold on]' I said. 'You have no right to ask me that question. The man who comes round to ask me if I want my house photographed from the air is a small guy with a portfolio of satisfied roof snapshots and a signed letter from someone in London saying he is allowed to fly around Wiltshire at hedge level. You, if I may say so, do not look like a trained pilot. You look like a young man who has been kidnapped in the back streets of Nottingham and trained in captivity to sell gardening gloves door to door, given a few acting classes in how to look miserably cheerful, driven to the West Country in a large minibus with others of your ilk and there released with strict instructions not to report back to your B & B until you have sold hundreds of pounds worth of merchandise . . .'

'It's all been centralised,' he said.

'I'm sorry?'

'All this door-to-door selling. It's been centralised. Well, it occurred to our boss that it didn't make sense to have lots of different blokes going round from door to door, all selling their own little thing, when you could have one bloke handling the agency for it all.'

He paused.

'So, do you want your house photographed from the air?'

I shook my head.

''Care to place a bet on England for the World Cup finals?'

'You're joking]' I said.

'Not at all - we're doing a door-to-door betting service now. Take bets on anything.'

'No, I mean you're joking about England. They haven't got a chance.'

'There's always a chance. Say England beat San Marino 7-0, and say there's a collapse of government in the Netherlands, and say that the Dutch decided not to send a team to the World Cup, and . . .'

A glance from me sent him on to his next offer. He delved deep into his bag and brought out a jar of white powder.

'Like some crack?'

'As in the Irish meaning of the word, a bit of fun?

'No, as in the American meaning of the word, a cocaine derivative with a street value of pounds 500, but to you, 30 quid.'

'Alas, I don't take the stuff,' I said. 'It doesn't do my sinuses any good.'

'Though while we're on the subject of the Irish version, I do have a little bottle of poteen here which is, as you know, hard to get.'

Hard? In my experience, it's not only illegal but impossible to get. I only ever had some the once, 10 years ago, in the house of a man called Rafferty in Belfast, and he asked me never to mention it in print, but I expect he's finished the bottle by now.

'No, thanks,' I said, with great strength of mind.

'Are you walking right with Jesus?' he asked.

My mouth must have dropped open. He didn't bother to wait for an answer.

'Yes, we're doing the door-to- door stuff for the Jehovah's Witnesses as well,' he said.

'You're selling crack, taking bets and preaching repentance from door to door?' I asked. 'Isn't that a bit - well, self-

contradictory?'

'You can buy alcohol and hangover cures in the same shop,' he said. 'You can buy petrol and fire extinguishers from the same place. You can buy scissors and sticky plaster in a chemist's. You can . . .'

I bought some garden gloves and tea towels and an ironing- board cover and some chamois leathers and sent him packing, feeling I had got off lightly. Looking back on it now, I think that may have been his intention from the start.

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