words of advice for … young people
Sunday, December 4th, 2005
Lately, I’ve been giving thought to the fact that I’m building up all sorts of useful experiences and knowledge over here which I am duty bound pass on to you, those who will come over after me. I’m sure there’s all sorts of little pitfalls and problems which I could help you avoid. Just picture me in a large wood panelled room, reclining in a huge leather armchair in front of a roaring fire, looking resplendant in my smoking jacket and puffing contentedly on my pipe whilst all you little kiddies sit around my feet absorbing my waves of infinite wisdom. So in ripping of William S. Burroughs I present the first installment of an irregular column entitled:
words of advice for … young people.
Camden Market
Whilst in London you are no doubt going to want to get yourself the latest in leather corsetry or glow in the dark tentacled club wear. The natural place to go to get this is the huge markets in Camden Town. Now there’s all sorts of obvious advice I could give you here: keep a tight hold of your possessions and beware pickpockets; ignore the punks blocking the footpath over the bridge, it’s how they enjoy spending their afternoons so just walk around them, you may even want to give them beer money when they ask but don’t expect them to pose for photos; beware the nefarious gentleman selling smelly cigarettes, his mushrooms won’t go well in the stir fry you’re cooking for granny tonight. But you’re all smart people, you can work all this out for yourselves and this column is all about the things that aren’t obvious. You don’t need me telling you how to suck eggs.
However, if you’re feeling a bit peckish and could go a curry be careful at the market stalls. Whilst the curry itself looks, and is, very tasty, they also sell Naan bread. Now, like most right minded people, when I think of Naan it’s a large flat piece of fluffy, buttery bread. It has a nice crisp thin crust in some places around some nice chewy dough and if you’re lucky there’s some big air bubbles in there. It is most definitely not, and I don’t know how I can be more emphatic about this, not something that resembles a greasy flat croissant in both taste, shape and texture. It was a flat oval of pastry, not bread, pastry that seemed to have been dipped in grease both before and after cooking. More like they’d piled up sheets of filo pastry and deep fried it. If this ‘bread’ had ever been with 5 miles of a Tandoor I’ll go back to Camden and go chest to chest with the aforementioned punks. Absolutely ruined a perfectly good curry completing a meal with something like that. You’d think that in this country it wouldn’t be allowed.
So, when in Camden Town, remember only this mantra, avoid the Naan.
words of advice for … young people