My recovery from almost fatal Man Flu – well, maybe not exactly fatal – has taken rather longer than I hoped. I am still coughing like a 60 Woodbine a day man, but not so much that I half expect my lungs to appear in my lap after a particularly energetic fit. Having been virtually housebound throughout much of that time, save a few visits into town for medicinal compound, or beer as we otherwise know it, today, I went further afield. To Wales.
When I say I went to Wales today, what I really mean is a tiny part of Wales in the middle of Cardiff. And then, only a small part of the middle of Cardiff, the record shops.
First, along pedestrianised St Mary Street, dodging the junk food delivery cyclists and, it has to be said, a significant number of apparently itinerant folk, sitting, standing, lying and staggering around. All completely unthreatening, I should add, but as in many cities, my own included, what and who you see in the middle of town gives you a greater understanding of what’s going on. I shuffled along lovely Morgan Arcade to visit the world’s oldest record shop, Spillers; a place that is unmissable every time I visit the principality, except that it’s closed on a Monday and this is not the first time in recent years I have made this elementary mistake. Mission unsuccessful, it’s on to Kellys Records in Cardiff Market.
Kellys’ has an awesome collection of vinyl and CDs but, inevitably, nothing from my long list of records I urgently need. Nonetheless, I spent a decent amount of timing thumbing through tons of stuff I didn’t want and felt incredibly guilty at not buying anything and so supporting the biggest independent record store in Wales. Then, something surprising happened.
I walked across to Queen Street where my final port of call HMV is situated. I became aware of a man, I reckon in his mid thirties, running up to me at high speed. He slowed, got close to my face and shouted ‘FUCK OFF, BASTARD’ and walked past me. My instinctive reaction was to say, ‘Well, thank you very much’, at a similar volume. I don’t know why I wasn’t shocked or in any way disturbed by this bizarre happening, but maybe I should have been. There are a lot of crazy people in the world and some of them have guns and knives. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
The record shop is dying. Most of us steal our music, often legally from companies like Spotify who rip our favourite artists off and pay them a pittance for their work. Perhaps absurdly, I am railing against the dying of the light and I am still buying my music, hard copies if possible or downloaded by way of payment if not possible. I loved flipping through records when I was young and I still love it as much now I am old. When the last record shop closes it will be a dark day for me.
If the last thing I need, according to my long-suffering partner, is more records, then the next last thing I need, she will add, is more books. And so I traipsed through more book shops before settling on yet another to add to a pile of books that will probably lie unread when I shuffle off my mortal coil. I think I like to look at records and books almost as I consume them in their respective ways.
Like Bristol and maybe even more so, Cardiff’s inner city area has been brutalised in the name of modern architecture. And even the modern stuff is starting to decay in places. I was accosted by Mr Fuck Off Bastard man, various chuggers, some very poorly looking men sitting outside the various Tescos, begging for money to, I suspect, satisfy their drug and drink habits and silently by a pair of crackpot Jehovah’s Witnesses, hoping I might sign up and believe in all the batshit nonsense that convinces them to stand around doing nothing for no obvious reason. With the latter, I am always hoping they will stop me, whereupon I’ll say, ‘Sorry, can’t stop. I am off for a blood transfusion.’ Never happened yet, though.
I thought about having a pint, having treated myself to a Greggs ham and cheese toastie (dreadful, since you asked, but their coffee was surprisingly good) but unaccountably decided not to. All the pubs I passed, bar one, were dead, it seemed to me, the one not being, of course, was the Wetherspoons by Cardiff Central where if I had gone in I might have felt a bit younger than I did after the longest walk I’ve had since Man Flu struck. Instead, I preserved what is left of my liver and decided to get the train back ASAP and, just as on the outbound journey, secured a double seat.
Rail travel, particularly on a half-empty train as this was, can still be a wonderful experience, if you can put up with people constantly prattling into their mobile phones. You are reminded that actually ours is still a green and pleasant land, as is Wales. I brought a magazine to read on the train but didn’t take it out of my man bag. What’s more I knew that would happen.
As I said, I didn’t see much of Cardiff, barring the central bit and you have to say it does what it says on the tin. The full range of gourmet food from Tim Horton to the aforementioned Greggs, boozers and, as befits a shopping area, shops. And, if you like history, Cardiff has it in spades, if only you can be bothered to find it. I can’t be.
Verdict: are you serious? I did what I wanted to do, walked loads, got shouted at by a crazy man, got caught in a hailstorm and had a crap toastie. That’s my postcard from Cardiff. Lucky you didn’t have to pay for it, eh?
