It’s six months since I left Leeds at Christmas and I’m soon to return. In the meantime I’ve had to resort to buying UK music-production magazines in a Norwegian shop equivalent to WHSmith. However, with import tax and the unavoidable you-can’t-get-it-enywhere-else-around-here-so-we’ll-rip-you-off-as-best-as-we-can-mentality, the quantum of purchases has decreased inverse proportionally with the expenses of a purchased magazine. Therefore I have cut to the essentials like any good private equity firm would and stuck with Sound On Sound Magazine (SOS). While its original price in the city centre of Leeds is £ 4.99, I now have to bleed a full £ 13.00 for the joy! But if you’ve gotta’ have it, you’ve gotta’ have it!
Since I have restricted myself to go to this shop only once a month (for consumption-preventive measures) I take my time while I’m standing by the shelves. And yesterday was no exception, so I looked through several music magazines. As I was browsing through an issue of SOS, a slightly shabby looking kid entered from the street and walked over to my shelf. He nodded and smiled politely as he passed me and started to browse the shelf up and down for what he was looking for. I stepped aside and kept reading. After a while he turned to me and asked if I had seen Rolling Stone Magazine. I said that I hadn’t. He looked at my SOS, and as to excuse me from feeling like I had to know any thing about his request, he said: “Maybe you don’t read American magazines?” I laughed and answered that I happened to like Rolling Stone and I thought it was strange if it could not be found here, so I helped him look. Neither of us could find it and eventually he said with a sigh: “Well, I guess it’s not the 60’s anymore…” To cheer him up I said I thought it still was a pretty relevant magazine today (which I do).
The chap nodded politely and was about to leave. As he had passed behind my back and was on the way out, he turned around and said: “Nice titts on the magazine on the shelf behind you! If you’re interested…?” I laughed out loud! “NO!” I replied, “not the slightest!” “How sad…” he said with a melancholic face and took a last gaze at the other shelf before we said goodbye.
As I walked to the counter I glanced over at the shelf behind me to see if I could spot his eye-candy. Yet another girl in bikini (as one has come to expect in magazine shops like these) looked back at me. My eyes went back to the copy of SOS that I was holding. It depicted a green military field-case, stuffed with microphones, cables and a pair of headphones under the headline: “Guerrilla Recording!” I felt sorry for my brief friend, who clearly had a problem appreciating the finer things in life!
As I pulled out the credit card from my wallet I felt like I had struck a bargain. 13 Pounds! I’ll be back again!
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