Category Archives: Postcards 2023

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The helpers and the help-myselfers in the shops

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There is such art, and so much skill, in the running of an excellent shop – one that attracts many, and offers cheerful service and affordable, worthwhile products.

Today I wandered down to Covent Garden in London. Covent Garden itself, and the streets around it, were like a flower garden of shops, all bright and beautiful and swarming with public. I joined the swarm for as long as my energy lasted, just looking, and wondering, and occasionally buying.

I was about a third of my way through my wander when I saw a brazen shoplifter in action, so brazen that I convinced myself he was part of the staff. He was well-dressed and middle-aged, and it was only when I saw him walk up the stairs and leave the building with his backpack stuffed with unpaid for goods, that I realised that he did not work there. I could only presume that the theft had been done with the co-operation of the member of staff who was standing as close to him as I was, and under the blind eye of the disinterested security guard on the door.

When I went back to the shop later in the afternoon I saw that the security guard was gone, and I heard that a member of staff was absent from the floor below where the incident had happened. I didn’t want to think about how many runs they’d managed that day.

As I walked away I wondered what kind of rent the excellent shop was having to pay in order to offer its goods to London … and I wondered how London would feel without such excellent shops.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Where are stories from?

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“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”

I’m not sure who said the words beneath the photograph above. I’ve seen them listed as a North American proverb, but can’t get closer to their origin than that.

Since finding the quotation, I’ve been thinking about it. I have an idea where facts are supposed to come from, and the truth. But stories? Perhaps children are the true gatekeepers of stories, happy always to follow them into the unknown, to escape along their paths into the land of make believe.

As adults do we lose that ability? I certainly seem to have less of it. It’s as though a muscle has wasted away, overwhelmed by the day to day and the every day. However, I’ve discovered that the camera finds stories. It slows life down. Catches it for a second and holds it there, like a challenge.

Take the photograph above. The fact is that I was photographing the birdlife on the Thames. The truth is that there was a man feeding the geese just out of sight of the camera. The story begins “once upon a time …”, and includes a bossy white gull, some obedient soldier geese, and a daring raid on the Tower to rescue a young river swan who the ravens want to make their king.

Who knows how it will end?

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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This is not my hat – Jon Klassen

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Today I visited a bookstore. My task was to find books on crime and punishment in the adult, non-fiction section. Help was sought and books found, and I was about to leave with my treasure when I remembered another book I wanted to find.

“Oh,” said the weary assistant.

“A children’s book – This Is Not My Hat.”

“Ah,” said the assistant, suddenly eager, eyes brightening.

And this is it. You may have heard of it, but I had not until recently. As it turns out it’s another book on crime and punishment, and it may just be the best of the ones I came out with.

The story involves a hat, a big fish, a little fish, and the question of whether or not the little fish will be a lucky fish. The illustrations are restrained and the story telling minimalist. Together they pulled me right into the dark water with the fish wondering what would happen next, all the drama caught in the side-view eyes.

I think it’s a brilliant book, one you could talk about forever to a child, imagining what might happen and why, and whether or not it should – a classic tale about fishy goings on.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023