Bring back Barmy?

It has been mentioned that Barmy has gone missing. For two weeks now his calming and creative influence has been absent from Greenwich Market. How you must miss his cosy little chats on the correct way to suck eggs. How you must miss his arrogant confident strut and assertive clipboard tapping.

I say don't worry. The poor guy (as you were - that's his brother, who's also gone walkabout) must be burnt out after his huge expenditure of energy on the Thames Festival. He's probably just resting and he'll back among you soon.

Hold on though. It wouldn't be the first time a member of the Greenwich Market team had been "disappeared". Perhaps at this very moment Barmy is the unwilling recipient of a shafting at USM HQ. Perhaps he'll be sighted next at Elephant & Castle clutching a tube of Anusol.

Just in case, perhaps I should start a "bring back Barmy" campaign. What do you think?

Lost weekend

Well well well. Who would have thought the Thames Festival could have generated so much debate?

First off - to anyone who left the market for the weekend to do the Festival I say well done. You're running a business and you have to turn a profit. If anyone took a personal pop at you in my blog I have to say that's not fair. Unless you cravenly crawled up Barmy's arse to achieve your ends - but I'm sure nobody would do such a thing.

To Barmy I also say well done. You're in this market business to line your pockets and blow your own trumpet (and Eric's too no doubt) so sod Greenwich. As you've made crystal clear for the last four years, loyalty's for shlubs.

I think Barmy made a magnificent fist of the Thames Festival. Sure there were problems - arriving on the day to find he didn't have the right power couplings to light the stalls was inspired - but overall the idea of using another market's resources at someone else's expense to enable his own enterprise was brilliant.

What other manager of Greenwich Market would have thought of taking its manager (himself), its assistant manager, its stall erectors and half its regular traders away from Greenwich for a whole weekend. Genius.

So Greenwich Market was half empty and looked like shit, leaving half the visitors with such a bad impression that they won't come back again. So what? So Greenwich Hospital's profit-based rental income was nixed for a whole weekend. So what? So USM staff had to neglect other duties to fill in for the missing ones. So what? So the remaining market porters and Barmy's substitute manager had to erect and break down stalls for the missing stall erectors. So what? It was all for Barmy - be proud and bask in his reflected glory.

When Barmy's stand-in at Greenwich was asked "where's Barmy and Pat?" the reply was "on holiday". Can the dynamic duo really have been getting holiday pay from USM while trousering a fee from the Festival for neglecting their duties at Greenwich? Surely not.

Bravissimo Barmy! You're a complete prick - oh bugger this keyboard - I meant prince, of course.