The car boot sale

Here's a draft that I began nearly two years ago in June 2009. Yeh, it ain't finished, but til you pay for this shit, this is what you get. Anyway, just gives you a flavour of life here, innit. It's kinda an appropriate post cos it's Sunday and the car boot sales are on in the Omni Centre on Sundays...


I miss US yard sales. There's something about it that reminds me of a Wild West shootout: you approach your opposition - you must show no fear. Who will flinch first? Who will win? Oh, I do miss it.

They don't do yard sales over here really. In Edinburgh, there are more flats and such, so ability to throw your crap on your front lawn for the whole world to see and pick over isn't a possibility. But what we do have are car boot sales and jumble sales. Car boot sales are essentially what Americans would call a flea market. You assemble in a car park (parking lot) and sell your stuff from your car's boot (car's trunk). A jumble sale is similar, sans the car, so perhaps held in a school hall or something like that.

I really liked yard sales in the US for children's books. I would have to say the majority of the books I have in my room available for my pupils to read were bought in yard sales. However, the quality of the books here are not the same. I've spent many a year trying to work out why. I used to reckon it's cos the majority of the British populace are actually illiterate thickos. This theory is still alive (just looking for more conclusive evidence), but I don't think that is the real reason. What I have found that there's a certain section of the population