How to Survive Family Holidays by Jack Whitehall

Author:Jack Whitehall
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Television, Comedy, Humor, Family, Essays & Travelogues, Travel, Genres, Special Interest, Topic, Performing Arts, General
ISBN: 9780751583878
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2021-10-13T23:00:00+00:00

Haggling

Unfortunately, my mother is aided and abetted by my father, who is even worse. He has always been a magpie for tat. They say a fool and his money are soon parted – especially if said fool is carrying his money around in his wife’s fanny pack and has next to no idea how many pounds there are to the peso. He sees something shiny in a market and has to have it. In Istanbul, it was a sword stick.

‘I’ve always wanted one of these, it’s very elegant,’ he said, slashing it around at head height like a geriatric Zorro, much to my dismay and also to the dismay of the group of market traders who had gathered around, sensing an easy prey for their sales techniques.

‘Why? You live in present-day Putney not Victorian Whitechapel,’ I said.

‘You never know, it might come in handy. It can get quite fiery in the Putney Shopping Exchange come Black Friday.’ Quite how a sword stick was going to help him beat a path to the front of the queue in L’Occitane was not immediately clear to me.

‘How would you get it back through customs?’ I enquired sensibly. Maybe he was thinking of swallowing it.

At this point, the Turkish market trader attempting to peddle the sword stick helpfully chimed in.

‘Don’t worry, I have many people who purchase these; they get through airport fine. No one ever come back to complain.’

Yes, they probably don’t come back to complain because they’re rotting in a Turkish jail cell, like John Hurt in Midnight Express. You buy that sword stick, the next transaction you’ll make will involve a packet of cigarettes and the exchange of protection for sexual favours. Still, there’s no reasoning with my father when he decides he wants to buy something; all rational arguments go out the window.

Then comes the moment all children fear. When your father gives you those ‘hold my beer’ eyes and decides it’s time to haggle. Haggling at the best of times is cringe-inducing, and my father will attempt to do it anywhere, even if he’s back home in Currys on the high street, trying to barter down the price of a Scart lead like it’s a rug in a Turkish bazaar. He’ll try to get money off, ignoring the fact that it’s a national chain, with central buying, set prices and he’s negotiating not with Mr Curry himself, but a shop assistant who would be fired on the spot if he gave him a discount.

He has even been known to call my mother when she is abroad to purchase something that you can’t get in the UK (probably something made out of foie gras or ivory) and insist that when she gets to the moment of paying, she has to FaceTime him, so that he can haggle with the sales assistant ‘face to face’.

‘I don’t suppose you have any discounts going for an old, impoverished English pensioner?’ is his usual opener, while feeling in the pocket of his Savile Row suit to ensure his bulging padlocked wallet is safe from attack.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.