I didn't realise that it was February when I first kept the fork from the chip shop in Bulwell in protest at paying 10p. Today was my chance because we went to Bulwell for the afternoon to do a bit of shopping and I had a bag of chips and peas and saved myself having to buy another fork. In fact we were at the end of our road when I remembered that I should have taken it and went back home for it, they were not going to get the better of me. As I queued up I knew that I was the cleverest person in Bulwell, although I had already achieved that goal by being able to tie my own shoes and walk upright. Mandi was a bit annoyed with me because I didn't want to get out of bed but we soon got over it and I took Jack for a walk before getting ready. It was a nice day so we walked along a footpath beside the River Lean to get there and back and pulled in a slightly good although not classic charity shop haul (Calamity Jane and both series of I'm Alan Partridge to watch, and a book called Mrs Slocombe's Pussy: Growing Up In Front of the Telly by Stuart Jeffries for me), with no records or clowns this time.
As it is apparently four months since we did this, or at least without checking the blog it is certainly the first time I have had chips from there, my evil plan to eventually get a free bag of chips will take me until February 2023 to make this worth it. I will be 46 years old and there's no guarantee that the shop will even be there in eight years time so I will have to transfer my plan to another chip shop. This doesn't seem fair as I will be doing the new chip shop out of an income stream by not buying a plastic fork, and there's also the possibility that the present chip shop might get a rates bill and they'll be 10p short and the shop will be repossessed and it will be my fault. I also have to consider the very real possibility that the price of a bag of chips with mushy peas will increase before February 2023, so my quest to beat the system might drag into 2024 or beyond. Maybe I will never catch up and although I save myself 10p with every visit to this shop (I'll only carry this scheme out with this one shop, I'm not some obsessive lunatic who enjoys a pointless project you know) I will never be in credit. To make this work I could of course go every weekend to have a chippy lunch here, but to be totally honest, it isn't that great a chip shop. It is only because there are no proper fish and chip shops in Nottingham that this one stands out.
I might have been a bit hasty there, if you know of a proper fish and chip shop in Nottingham then please let me know. If they sell kebabs, pizza, or anything other than a traditional fish and chip menu then I don't want to know. Maybe I will add it to my consumer champion duties alongside breakfast and crisps. , or maybe I won't.
The Sunday Alternative will return soon.
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June housekeeping
The audio book of Bowie Day (a short story inspired by A Christmas Carol) will be released on August 31st. In the meantime the book can be downloaded to your Kindle from here.
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