Why London Markets Aren’t All That

Have you ever walked around a supermarket for two hours with £20 placed firmly in your wallet and eventually come out the other end empty-handed, note intact? No, me neither. But when it comes to the social etiquette of a London market, this seems to be not only common practice, but encouraged.

Trust me; I understand just how far from the pack that I’ve strayed on this one. To say that this is a minority view would be an understatement. At the moment, I’m right out there with David Icke and Mohamed Al Fayed in the nutty stakes.

I get why some people enjoy markets, I really do. I just find them all a bit on the pointless side. They are supposed to be relaxing and all about ‘the vibe’. But markets are little more than a carboot sale with better PR and without the added, and frankly crucial, element of the unexpected. 

The thing that I really have trouble getting my head around is the lack of a formally planned activity (form an orderly queue ladies, planned fun man is here). Instead, all you have is hundreds of Londoners wandering around aimlessly because everyone else seems to be doing the exact same thing. It’s the blind leading the blind.

Are all these people just pretending to have fun, sipping lukewarm mulled wine out of a styrofoam coffee cup, or are they genuinely having the time of their lives? Can anyone actually describe in three words what exactly it is that you do at a market?

I live a stone’s throw away from Broadway Market in Hackney. As you may surmise from its location, it’s achingly pretentious and self-involved. People flock here to display their individuality when all they succeed in doing is exposing the world to their uniformed conformity. Aside from a nifty film shop and a cosy pub, it’s basically just a narrow street with a few ropey restaurants on it.

Camden Market may have been alternative back in the 1980s, but now it’s all so coordinated and contrived, preying on whimsy and tradition. Tacky T-shirts, undercooked chicken and quite frankly rubbish paintings aplenty.

Then we have the seasonal markets – the ever-efficient German cash cow at the South Bank being a prime example. Apparently, eating a bland slab of meat carcass in a doughy bun while simultaneously watching a faded carousel waltz around at approximately 4mph is the thing to do at Christmas. Well if it is then Bah Humbug.

The thing that I find most galling, though, is that they continue to flourish under the false pretence that they are cheap. Ramshackle stalls are a thing of the past; these markets are fully fledged businesses now. They have outlived their initial function and as a result, they’ve outstayed their welcome. Much like ill-informed football pundits or a recently reformed ’90s boyband, they’re trading, quite literally, on past glories.

Right, now I’m off to watch an old episode of Only Fools and Horses, a snapshot to a simpler time, the way markets used to be – funnily enough, I unearthed this gem at a car-boot sale, and to this day, it’s still the best 59p that I ever spent. (Disclaimer: the above may be a complete fabrication; it may not. However, it does offer a vaguely and conveniently cogent conclusion to a convoluted rant, so there).

Image by joaoa courtesy of Flickr