Lunch in Market Harborough

A question - how long do you have to use an umbrella to have had maximum return for your investment? Because I have bought one and I want to know whether it was worth it.

You see, it's the Easter Holidays and school is very quiet. It's quite relaxing, actually, and the humming of servers behind me in the office is very soothing. I have done some good physical exercise today as well, sorting through the stores and boxing up some 200 kettle leads that we have and don't need. Of course, I will never be able to lift the box they are in as it weighs some ninety tons. Just like books, one might only weigh a few grams, but 200 of them will leave you with a back like a painful accordion, oozing cerebrospinal fluid with every tottering step.

However, even though life without kids and teachers is as close to the Good Life as you can get without Felicity kendal (the 1970's edition Felicity Kendal, hot hot hot) it is my custom to walk into town to get lunch at one of Harborough's fabulous choice of three places to get a sandwich. One of those is a Subway, described by Radio 6's normally unbearable George Lamb as a 'torrent of Hell smell', and he's right. So really, two. Today's choice was Emerson's, a slightly posh tea room-cum-bakery. They sell a dizzying range of cheeses, sauces from Japan and all manner of whatnots and geegaws to do with posh nosh. They also do hot turkey rolls. This was my main aim for the day.

I like modern lunch. As a weedy middle-class arts degree holder it gives me a sense that the testosterone and macho of the 20th Century is finally beginning to fade. I hate football, I hate lager and I hate shouting. For many years I have felt something of a pariah. But seeing the big, burly builders, who ten years ago would murder you on the spot if you suggested they eat anything for lunch other than bacon, asking for a prawn and rocket ciabatta and a half-shot cauppucino is a lovely thing.

When I left the school, it was sort of drizzling. But I am a hardy man. I laugh in the face of drizzle and scoff at the prospect of breezes. Inevitably by the time I was halfway along Burnmill Road though it had turned into a torrent, and I was thoroughly soaked. So I resolved to buy an umbrella, although by then it was getting on to being a moot point as I was so drenched. But, I thought, where?

The thing is, depsite the general decrying of our towns all being reduced to identikit Guilfords by chainstores and Starbucks and traffic calming and immigrants and all the other horrors of the Daily Express reading classes, Harborough still has its share of small, local shops. Hooray, you might think, but wait. Hold on. Think about it. Think about the last time you tried to buy an umbrella, for a start.

Is it an item of clothing? An accessory? A piece of outdoor equipment? Misc? All of these are plausible, and when you are in a welter of wet uncertainty on a rainy lunchtime, you don't want to have to seek one out in four different shops only to find they don't have them at all. And also, let it never be forgotten that we are British. A nation of shopkeepers, Napoleon called us, and proud we are of that. However, he missed one word, which was 'surly'.

See, little shops are fine, admirable and shiny, provided you (a) know exactly what you want, (b) know exactly which shop to buy it in and (c) know the person behind the counter. It does not encourage browsing. And we are not made to browse, nor are we made to be interrupted. We feel nothing but the laser death-stare of the proprietor on the back of our foolish, pathetic little necks as soon as we cross the threshold. So for me to amble into someone's personal territory with no idea of what it is I am looking for is a disaster of etiquette waiting to happen. I get panicked, the shopkeeper gets narky and we are no further along the road to actually getting this umbrella than we were five minutes before. It's the British version of customer service - "What do you want, there it is, now fuck off."

In the end I bought one in Woolworths. Four quid. It kept me dry as I walked back up the big, big hill to school. But then I thought, how long do I have to keep it before I have had four pounds' worth of dryness from it? Four pounds will buy you a magazine, which will last about twenty minutes. But it will also buy you a spindle of 50 CD-Rs that will last forever. And also, it's an umbrella. It either works, or it doesn't. You can buy a pair of jeans for four pounds and they will fit badly for two weeks and then fall apart. You don't get an umbrella that only keeps you sort of dry. It will work as long as I keep it in one piece.

So I ask again, how much is a £4 umbrella really worth? And is it worth some 1200 words trying to work it out? The answer to at least one of these questions is obviously a big, fat no.

Good Night, and Good Luck
Doug