A funny thing happened

on my way to Monday's horrible interview. I had a bit of time to spare and so I went browsing round the Jubilee Market at Covent Garden; that's the part selling second-hand - wanna-be antiques. A deceptive mix of collectors' items and total junk in case you didn't know. I spotted this rather lovely necklace which suggested Deco but shouted plastic. The price tag said £12 and I reckoned that even plastic might be worth more than that in an eye-catching arrangement. I asked the stall-holder if it really said £12, just in case there was an accidental zero missing (there were other simpler strings of classier beads priced at £120, so an innocent mistake could easily be made). He confirmed that the price was right and as I admired the piece, handling its weight, I commented that its colour would be set off beautifully with a good tan. Quick as a flash he was back with "Yes, I'll take ten for it, I only put £12 on the tag for bartering purposes" Well, I couldn't really not buy it after that now could I?

In fact I spent an extraordinary number of hours downloading free software and installing it on my whizzy new laptop, completely forgetting to go out to take pictures during daylight hours while that was going on, so this was snapped as a last resort. The laptop is very fast and very sensitive so most of the hours were wasted while I tried to acquaint myself with the touch-pad. Perhaps I also need to replace the cheap optical mouse!