This blog would have been
posted yesterday had Robin Williams not died, and it won’t make a lot of sense
to people outside of Nottingham as it is about an iconic landmark. Please feel
free to read it anyway, and if you would still like to make a donation via the
PayPal button then please do so as it will be gratefully received and used for
a whole raft of projects that will of course be available for free online.
There is a shop in Nottingham
called Gordon Scott, a shoe shop that has been in operation for years in the
Broadmarsh shopping centre and was famous for having a swinging monkey in the
window. A while ago the shop moved out of the decaying shopping centre and set
up on Listergate, and since then the monkey has been on display but has been
dogged by problems, mainly the fact that it has hardly been switched on. Nottingham
citizens have been rightfully up in arms about this further affront to our city’s
heritage but it seemed that as usual, nothing was being done about it. Last
year I went in to ask about the situation and was met with indifference by shop
staff who quite frankly should not have been allowed to work in an
establishment with such significance. Unfortunately this attitude seems to be
the norm these days, but if enough people complain then something will be done.
An example of this is the bowl and ladle scandal (known to residents of
Nottingham as ‘mushy pea-gate’) that threatened to bring an end to Goose Fair;
they were adamant at first that they had done the right thing by replacing the
bowl with a shop bought squirty bottle of mint sauce on the counter but they
relented in the face of public pressure and reinstated the bowl last year. If they
hadn’t done that, then Goose Fair would not have gone ahead this year. Although
I took on the protest myself and made a difference to the lives and happiness
of the people of Nottingham, my footnote in the history of the fair has gone
unmentioned. I don’t even get a free go on the rides at the fair that I saved
from closure. Luckily my reward is the continuation of the fair which is why I
didn’t make a fuss. A mention would be nice though; perhaps I could be invited
to the official opening alongside the Lord Mayor, or at the very least a
mention on the publicity, something like Welcome to Goose Fair,
saved in 2013 by local hero Steve Oliver (their words, not mine –
I don’t consider myself a hero, that’s for the public to say).
On Monday evening I noticed
that they have a new monkey in the window, and it is swinging properly. I went
in to pass on my good wishes to the shop manager and was met with an exercise
in terrible public relations, (maybe it’s the shoe business as a whole). My comment
about how nice it was to see the monkey back in action was batted away with a
grunt, and when I asked what had happened to the original monkey she gave me a
not very convincing story about it going to a local museum, one that she didn’t
seem to know the name of, it is obviously in the bin. I assume that her stroppy
attitude was down to the fact that she has once again turned her shop window
into a tourist attraction and with the stream of people going in to the shop to
pass on a ‘well done’ or other such accolade, she hasn’t had the time to sell
any shoes.
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