Tales From The Shop Window

Living in the blasted wastes of Dagenham has its advantages. For example, you're never short of things to blog about, even though the end result is seldom life-affirming or joyful.

For example, most newsagents around here have ads in their windows. These are put up by the newsagent in exhange for a small fee, and are usually there to sell second hand goods or offer services. This is pretty common throughout the country, but the ones in London and the South East are particularly revealing...



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And so on. There is a sort of class system in shop window ads though. An ad by a mother with young children who wants to flog an old pram is lucky if she gets to plug it for a week on a plain white postcard in exchange for £10-£20. The local franchise operations, established firms and comunity groups will have bigger ads - A4 bare minimum, and often in full colour, simply because they can afford it.

But at the top of the pile are the events posters. No travelling circus worth its salt would forget to give all the shops in the area a big colourful poster in exchange for some free tickets. And for the most part, it's these travelling shows that do most of the advertising on this level: all that garish imagery featuring Clowns, Lions, Monster Trucks and Dancing Horses. But there are others.

For example, most ethnic food shops and Indian restaurants will feature large posters plugging Bollywood and Bhangra music gigs, often in major venues like Wembley Arena. Unheard of outside the Indian community, these gigs are still big business as are the musical events for other minorities in London. I've heard of these a few times before, like that Astoria gig back in 2001 by the Bulgarian metal band APC: the place was packed out with Bulgars, but barely anyone else knew it had happened. Or those one-off shows where a big Japanese or Taiwanese band will turn up, play a big venue and vanish again, with nary a mention in Time Out before or after.

Boxing and Pro Wrestling ads are often put up in windows too. You may not have heard of these promotions, but they're always there, always plugging away and making a lot of money. A lot of young boxing talent is honed in these local events, while many a burnt-out ex-wrestling superstar will ply his trade in town halls and small theatres inbetween jobbing with the indy promotions back home.

A new addition to this top rank of shop window ads is in the form of posters promoting Cage Fighting/MMA. Fans of the noble art of bald men in shorts rolling on the ground with other bald men in shorts will be glad to know that the number of events where this happens are waxing by the day, at least if the number of big posters are anything to go by. These feature dark, menacing designs, often with barbed wire or wire mesh in the background and a dozen or so young men with identical bald heads, stripped to the waist and posing with their fists.

But for the most part, the shop window ad is dominated by those small white cards with shabby writing and badly used apostrophes. After all, if you want a prostitute, a dangerous dog or a lady gardener with reasonable rates, where else could you find them all in one place?