Saturday’s blog saw a surge of readers, about 200 in the first hour of posting, which is something I’m quite pleased about as I consider it one of my best in seven years of writing these rambles. It was intended as a comedy piece but reading it back I am not entirely sure if that is how it reads. Part of me wonders if the idea of a mushy pea shop in Nottingham’s Hockley area would be such an outlandish one. Mushy peas are a Nottingham staple but for some reason it is only at Goose Fair that they sell. When I returned to Nottingham in 2007 there was a stall in Victoria Centre which closed down and after a fairly long layoff (following the refurbishment) was replaced with a café. That there wasn’t enough business to sustain one mushy pea outlet in the whole of Nottingham is nothing short of a mystery; imagine how weird it would be if you read in the news that you couldn’t buy pizza in Italy any longer.

I dusted off the Facebook group I set up in protest about Mushy pea-gate and changed its name to The Goose Fair ‘Proper’ Mushy Pea Stall Appreciation Society of Nottingham and then invited a load of my Nottingham friends list to it, only to find that some of these people had already left the group and as such can’t be re-added. To my mind this is somewhat unpatriotic, I know that isn’t the right word but you know what I mean.

To open a mushy pea shop in Hockley would be a massive financial risk and one for which I would have to talk to a very understanding bank manager to be granted a loan. I doubt enough people these days give enough of a shit for a Kickstarter campaign or similar. I also doubt that it would fall within the interests of any worthy organisation within Hockley who throw money at creative ideas, so unfortunately it won’t happen.

My vision was for a small unit that would be stripped to give it an industrial feel, bare brick walls and exposed pipes and beams, the same look that Urban Outfitters spent a fortune trying to replicate. Nothing apart from bowls of mushy peas would be available to eat, with a bowl and ladle of mint sauce on the counter along with a bottle of vinegar, (also a pot of pepper as some people like that, although the last time my dad saw someone put pepper on his peas at Goose Fair he drew my attention to it by saying “look at him putting pepper on his peas, dirty bastard”). The only drinks would be tea and coffee (although I echo my dad’s sentiments as far as drinking coffee with mushy peas is concerned) and I might stretch to allow a range of soft drinks. By soft drinks I mean cans of Coke and lemonade and none of your ridiculous pomegranate and marmalade flavoured spring water or other such bollocks. in keeping with trying to attract the slightly-too-short tight trousers and daft hat brigade I would put free wifi in (the cybercafé seems like something from Victorian times now doesn’t it?) but I will insist that the background music is strictly ‘fairground’; 1950s rock and roll with a smattering of 1960s pop.

When I was in the hipster pub last weekend, I had to wonder where their money came from. I imagine they all work in those open plan offices where everyone plays on space hoppers all day without doing any proper work, and when asked they will say that they work in something that at first hearing you wonder if it really exists. Although these businesses only last a few months, there seems to be plenty of disposable pounds and pence to chuck around while it lasts. This could be the reason that pretentious shops have a tendency to ‘pop up’ as quickly as they do pop off. Is Hockley ready for a mushy pea shop? Realistically I would say no, but what if I called it ‘The Pop-Up Organic Craft Vintage Handmade Compacted Petit Pois in a Mint Infused Vinaigrette Boutique’ and charged a tenner a bowl? Not such a pipe dream now, Hockley being a place where good ideas go to get stolen and used with no payment or credit, I expect it will be open in a week.

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