Pirate ballad barngains

I'd briefly heard the first volume of these when it came out way back in 2006, and loved it (but never owned it), and have wanted it on CD ever since – from a charity shop, of course. I found out recently that there was a Son of Rogues Gallery (released seven  years after the first instalment). This month I got them both within a week of each other: Rogue's Gallery from Oxfam in Exeter, and Son of Rogues Gallery from the British Heart Foundation in Truro, Cornwall. Both for less than a doubloon.

Devised by Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski, director of Pirates of the Caribbean, Rogue's Gallery was inspired by the film and released without fanfare after the second Pirates of the Caribbean film, Dead Man's Chest. If the films have all the gritty realism you'd expect from something based on a Disney theme park ride, the 43 songs on the (2 CD) album feel authentic and ballsy in comparison. Indeed, they are all traditional – and often ribald – 'pirate ballads, sea songs and chanties' sung by a motley assortment of characters: from ancient rock stadium fillers like Sting and Bono to folk royalty from Loudon Wainwright III to Richard Thompson. But it's the unexpected singers (in this context) that really stand out: Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, David Thomas from Pere Ubu, Jarvis Cocker, Anthony (from ...and the Johnsons fame). Nick Cave, it almost goes without saying, features several times.

Despite being made seven years after the original, Son of Rogues Gallery continues where the first left off, with perhaps an even more motley crew of characters, including a duet by Michael Stripe and Courtney Love plus a song featuring Tom Waits and Keith Richards, two of the most pirate-like legends in rock music. Other highlights are numerous, but include Beth Orton, Iggy Pop, Shane MacGowan, Patti Smith (with Johnny Depp) and Frank Zappa. But the great thing about both volumes is famous names sit comfortably alongside the unfamiliar (to me anyway).

Maybe it's because I've been living in Cornwall a while now, and even been to the Falmouth Sea Shanty festival, but I love both CDs –  a treasure trove of ribald, rousing, sing-along tunes to shiver your timbers.

Recent barngains

Western Stars, Bruce Springsteen's best album – and album cover – for years (his last four studio albums have been terrible).

As mentioned previously, barngains have been thin on the ground in these parts – with the recent exception of the new Bruce Springsteen album, Western Stars, an impulse buy in Tesco's. I was at the till with the CD, along with some other items, and when the guy serving me came to scan it, it came up as 1p. He tried it again, and again. Still 1p. He buzzed to call someone over. No one came. He let me have it for 1p.

But it was a recent trip to London where the barngains really started flowing. In my first charity shop visit, on the way out of the shop, after clumsily looking at some records in the window, my eye caught a drawing on the cover of a large book. I picked it up and it was the rather plush catalogue to the latest Bob Dylan exhibition, Mondo Scripto, which ran late in 2018 at the Halcyon Gallery in London.

I had not seen the exhibition, but agreed with most critics about it at the time, that while his songs are full of surrealism, mystery and beauty, this new series of drawings illustrating his songs were rather too prosaic and literal: a farm for Maggie's Farm, a bed for Lay Lady Lay, a hand knocking on a door for Knockin' on Heaven's Door – you get the idea.

However, the book – £45 from the gallery shop, £3 in the charity shop – is gorgeous. The drawings are amateurish but charming. Each one has a page of hand-written lyrics next to it (often re-imagined and different from the original songs, something Dylan has done all his career). The book is large and luxurious (with apparently many different drawings to the ones in the show). I was pretty happy.

I might also have got some CDs over the next few days. In fact, there was one charity shop where I bought a lot. They must have all come from the same donator as they jumped out at me amongst the usual Robbie Williams and Adelle albums:

Flower Dance: Japanese Folk Melodies (Nonesuch Recording)
Lyle Lovett and His Large Band
Elton John – Honky Chateau (I loved the film Rocketman)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away
The Bonzo Dog Band – Cornology Vol.2 – The Outro
Bill Frisell - Have a Little Faith
Eminem – Kamikaze (for the cover)
The Cinematic Orchestra – Ma Fleur Live at the Barbican
Tom Waits – Alice
Classic Bluegrass (from Smithsonian Folkways) 
Jack DeJohnette – Made in Chicago (ECM Recording)
The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (Deluxe Edition)
The Zombies – The Singles As & Bs
Mike Oldfield – Hergest Ridge (Deluxe Edition)
Roscoe Holcomb – The High Lonesome Sound 
Crosby, Stills & Nash – Crosby, Stills & Nash

All 50p-£1 each. There were lots of other good ones: Dylan, early Ry Cooder, Neil Young, Frank Zappa and King Crimson among them, but I either had them or didn’t want them. I got a bunch of other things too, in other charity shops, including a set of three Portmeirion storage jars for H in the relatively new Shooting Star Children's Hospices Charity Shop in Northcote Road, where the woman serving me, from Malibu, L.A., wrapped them up nicer and with more care than I wrap up birthday and Christmas presents.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Barngains
Two leaks (in a week)
London through its charity shops #8: 'round Clapham Junction

Elsewhere on Barnflakes:
BARNGAINS is a select list of rated barngains from 2007 to the present day.  

Trevithick Day in Camborne, Cornwall

A terrific time was had by all – despite some early rain and wind – in Camborne yesterday (Saturday 27th April) to celebrate the life of its most famous resident, Richard Trevithick (1771-1833), pioneer of high pressure steam-power and constructor of the first steam railway locomotive in 1803. All roads in the centre of town were closed to cars to make way for a day of free entertainment, including steam engines, food stalls, a brass band and the miners and bal maidens dance (not to be confused with English Morris dancing!). The event attracts crowds of up to 30,000 and transforms Camborne with its fine sense of community spirit.

H took me off the busy main drag, down a quiet road and into Holman Park, where Rosewarne House, a Grade II* listed large granite town house stands. It was hard to believe we were still in Camborne. In the six acres of grounds were lawns, an ancient woodland with bluebells and trees in blossom.

Rosewarne House, built in the Greek Revival style during the Regency era, was meant to be having an open day. But we couldn’t see a soul or hear a sound or see any signs. We wandered round the grounds a bit, and were about to leave when I tried the front door to the house and it opened into another world.

A huge fireplace was roaring near the entrance. People were dressed in Regency attire, as if extras from Poldark. There was the sound of a live band coming from another room, and light laughter and the clinking of tea cups and saucers could be heard from afar. Almost immediately a Regency lady with a large feather in her hair asked us if we were part of the tour. We said yes and were guided around the amazing house, which had been left in a state of disrepair for some years and was now being restored back to its former glory.

We were taken up a fine staircase with an elegant wrought-iron balustrade and shown around the huge, sumptuous rooms, all with high ceilings, ample natural light and ornate plaster cornices, ceiling roses, archways and columns. I told the guide I was sold, I'll take one – the feeling of space and light and attention to detail was wonderful. The rooms were being divided into apartments but weren't for sale, the guide informed us; they would be rented as holiday homes, and the house used for events such as weddings. The house was built in the early 1800s for the Harris family, who made their money through mining. Later it was acquired by the Holman family, then became a care home before falling into disrepair. When the tour came to an end we retired to the orangery for free cream teas and the live band.

It had been a fine day: the only way to add icing to the cake (though I'd already had two Victoria sponges and a cream tea) would be some barngains – as mentioned previously, seemingly rare in these parts – but amazingly I picked up ten pretty good records for £1 each in a local charity shop, including the original limited edition yellow vinyl version of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. Who needs Record Store Day after all?

Biggest missed barngain of the year 2018

Back in London over Christmas, we naturally had a look around the local charity shops. We saw the above chest of drawers in a furniture charity shop, obviously mispriced at £50. We were going to buy it immediately – but how to get it back to Cornwall? We ummed and ahhed about it, then left it. We returned later to buy it; naturally it had gone. A few days later, H was looking around Oliver Bonas and saw the exact same chest of drawers in the shop – for £495. I cursed about it non-stop for days.

This was a rarity, however. Aside from finding a few choice Christmas presents in charity shops, there were no barngains to be found. The prices of records and books in charity shops has gone through the roof; indeed, I also browsed some secondhand record and bookshops (both traditionally fairly expensive) and noticed, in general, that they were cheaper than charity shops.

In fact, my only barngain of the season was in the V&A bookshop (not their general shop). There were numerous lovely art books reduced from £40 to £5 or £10. I almost bought about a dozen, but finally settled on just one: a lovely facsimile copy of William Morris' socialist-sci-fi novel, News From Nowhere, reduced from £30 to £5.

Top 10 Cornish towns for charity shops

When I was moving down to Cornwall, people would say to me oh everything’s so much cheaper down there. I’d look at them and say, oh is it? Is Tesco cheaper? Is public transport cheaper? They’d double back a bit and say, well, you know, property is. Ah. Of course. Aside – and I know it’s a big aside – from property, everything is actually more expensive than London (and wages are far lower), from the dentist and doctor to public transport and restaurants. I’ve never believed the myth that the country is cheaper, having lived in it before. You need a car to get anywhere. Restaurants, being few and far between, are over-priced and terrible. There’s no NHS dentists. There’s no subsidies for public transport so it costs £8 to get two miles down the road on the bus.

Worst of all, as everyone’s poor and there’s no jobs, the charity shops are like rubbish dumps. You may have noticed a distinct lack of barngains in the last six months. There are none (though to be fair H still seems to pick up some great clothes for a song).

1. Penznace
2. Falmouth
3. Truro
4. Newquay
5. St Austell
6. Bodmin
7. St Ives
8. Redruth
9. Camborne
10. Helston

Top ten missed vinyl barngains

 

 One that got away... Popol Vuh's soundtrack to Herzog's classic 1972 film Aguirre, Wrath of God (though it only contains two tracks from the actual film)

Missed, lost chances and regrets swirl around in my head, whether it be job opportunities, friends, lovers, photos, books or records. I have no explanation for why I didn't buy these records, most of which were under a tenner, and all of which I now of course desperately want.

1. Bob Dylan – The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963 
(6 LP set)
This is the only one I will probably never have the chance to buy again, seeing as it was released in a limited edition of 100 (snuck out by Sony/Legacy to prevent the recordings entering the public domain) and now sells for about £500. I can't remember why I was in Sister Ray early one Saturday morning in November 2013 but I saw it there. For £30. Seemed expensive at the time.

2. Popol Vuh – Aguirre (pictured above)
This one isn't worth a huge amount – about £40 – but the original pressing seems fairly rare. I'd seen it for £5 at a record stall at a car boot sale a few years back. I held it in my hands, put it back. Went back to the stall half an hour later – it was still there – again, held it in my hands, ummed and ahhed, but didn't buy it.

(Recently my mum returned from the V&A with a bunch of greetings cards – including one with the Indian painting of the lotuses on the cover of Aguirre – which even my daughter recognised immediately, as I'd been going on about it so much. For years. Sigh.)

3. Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers 
The one with the famous Andy Warhol crotch shot cover with an actual zipper on the original LP,  I saw this at the record stall in Barnes Fair. Quite rare for the cover to be in perfect condition (with an intact zipper, so to speak) but the vinyl had a large scratch on it so I passed. £4.

4. Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet

£2 in a charity shop in Richmond, this one wasn't in very good condition.

5. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited / 
Bringing it all Back Home
Two classic Dylan albums in great condition at a car boot sale for £3 each. Don't ask.

6. Every single Steeleye Span album
I love Steeleye Span but don't have any of their albums. About a dozen or so had turned up in a charity shop, as well as solo stuff by Maddy Prior. They were all in perfect condition, and £2 each. I wasn't sure which ones to buy – aside from all of them – so opted for none. But I did get Liege & Leaf by Fairport Convention.

7. Crates of classic rock LPs including Led Zeppelin, 
David Bowie etc.
A van pulled up at the Chiswick car boot sale and unloaded about twenty crates of vinyl. Middle-aged men swarmed around them. I had a good look, they were all £2 each, but I felt a bit overwhelmed. There were multiple copies of, say, the first Led Zeppelin album, with different coloured covers. I couldn't remember which the valuable pressings were, so didn't buy anything.

8. Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica
Classic experimental album that is very painful to listen to. I've probably heard the whole album once. Nevertheless, seeing the first pressing, double LP in mint condition in a charity shop was tempting. But not for £20. I went back a few times, waiting for it to be reduced in price. The third time I went, all the vinyl was half price, but Trout Mask Replica was gone. There was other stuff left – including Safe as Milk for £5. I should have got it. But didn't.

9. The Beatles – White Album

Never much liked the Beatles anyway*. £6 a bit steep. Mentioned previously.

10. Crazy Horse – Crazy Horse
The debut album of Neil Young's backing band for £1 in a Crystal Palace charity shop seems a no-brainer but it was a bit tatty.

I very rarely make this mistake any more (i.e. if it's a pound or two, I'll  take a chance – go crazy – and buy it), and the amount of barngains I have bought runs to hundreds, so I'm grateful for what I've managed to find – but these missed ones nag at me like a sore tooth for some reason.

------

*I remember reading in Nick Hornby's 31 Songs how he wasn't a big Dylan fan but realised he owned about a dozen of his albums anyway. I'm the same with the Beatles (and David Bowie) – I wouldn't call myself a fan of either, but find I own, on vinyl and CD, virtually every album they ever released (as well as some rarieties).

I'm also not a fan of James Corden – but found myself watching his recent Carpool Karaoke with Paul McCartney. It was surprisingly moving as Macca visits his old haunts in Liverpool, then does a surprise gig in a pub he used to drink in as a lad.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Missed Photos
Letting the barngains go
Recent barngain LPs
Recent barngains
The month's musical barngains
Top 10 greatest missed  barngains
Top 10 most valuable CDs (Consistently one of my post popular posts for some reason)

Elsewhere on Barnflakes:
BARNGAINS

Saatchi gallery barngains

It's a shame when the gallery or museum shop is more stimulating than the exhibits on show, but such was the case at the Saatchi gallery this weekend, whose current exhibition, Known Unknowns, failed to excite me or my daughter. The gallery shop, however, was full of wonders. Aside from charity shops, gallery and museum shops are my favourite kind of shops. I'd like to see a whole shopping centre of them, largely to save having to visit the galleries themselves, and to buy all my Christmas presents in one fell swoop. Imagine, shops of the British Museum, Tate, V&A, Natural History museum, etc, all under one roof. Retail and cultural bliss combined.

The Saatchi gallery shop has lots of reduced books, including The Field Guide to Typography: Typefaces in the Urban Landscape, a neat book which informs you which fonts are which in the city, from shop signs to train station signage. Reduced from £16.99 to £6.95.

In the gallery itself, French Lebanese artist Mouna Rebeiz has gone to town on the freebie front. Her exhibition The Trash-ic or Trash in the Face of Beauty, is giving away lavish A3 catalogues of the exhibition, as well as an English edition of the French art magazine connaissance des arts (usual price: £7.80), which features – yup – her exhibition. I don't know who's paying for this free promotion for Rebeiz (presumably not her). Finally, Saatchi's surprisingly consistently boring gallery magazine, Art  & Music, now celebrating its tenth anniversary, was also picked up for free. Oh, the gallery is also free to visit, should you feel the need to go.

I don't know, I just figured as my daughter (almost 12) is into girl power, she might like the exhibition of 17 female artists. I didn't think it would be exploring mainly adult themes – spurting bodily fluids, sex, human trafficking – and my daughter wasn't impressed. Some of it actually looked quite interesting, but we had to rush through it – there was a shop to get to.

The weekend in barngains

Pictured:
The Cramps, Smell of Female LP (£2, Putney charity shop)
Yes I have it on CD, but great band, best album title ever, cool cover.

Fairport Convention, Liege & Lief LP  
(£2, Putney charity shop)
Didn't have this one at all. I only have Unhalfbricking by Fairport, which I've mentioned previously.

Rodreiguez, Cold Fact CD (£1, Putney charity shop)
Another recent coincidence this – I was chatting to a friend about Searching for Sugar Man over dinner the other evening, then this turns up. I've mentioned Light in the Attic, who have re-released the 1970 album, before. There's another 'alluring narrative' that goes with Rodreiguez: he was (re)discovered a decade ago working as a labourer in Detroit, not knowing his debut album had become a cult classic, and he had become a national hero and beacon of hope in South Africa.

Paul Nash in Pictures: Landscape and Dream 
(£3.50, Putney charity shop) 
Beautiful book.

Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon  
(£3, Hammersmith charity shop)
Even though this will turn out to be another Gravity's Rainbow, I've been desperate for this ever since going to Kosovo. H said it would turn up eventually, and it did. There was no way I was ever going to pay £21 for a paperback.

Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman 
(£2, Crystal Palace charity shop)
The best comic strip ever.

Not pictured:
Two-for-one tickets for Kew Gardens
To see the newly restored Temperate House, even if it did rain.

Free screen print from Mai 68: Posters from the Revolution exhibition, Lazinc gallery, London
To the same friend I was chatting to about Rodreiguez, I muttered something about The Clash line "turning rebellion into money" with regards to the exhibition, but fascinating nonetheless.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Barngains
London Through its Charity Shops

Elsewhere on Barnflakes:
BARNGAINS is a select list of rated barngains from 2007 to the present day.

Recent Barngains

Bookbinding: The Complete Guide to Folding, Sewing & Binding by Franziska Morlok and Miriam Waszelewski
Crystal Palace charity shop, £3, sealed (RRP: £30)
'Bookbinding is a unique and essential reference guide for designers, explaining industrial bookbinding techniques with a focus on the design and conception of print products', so says the Amazon blurb. It also says the book isn't actually released for another week or so.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog, typeface memory game
Sydenham charity shop, £2 (RRP: £13.95)
Yes, I know how to have fun.

Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs 
by Henry Carroll
Clapham Junction charity shop, 50p (RRP: £8)
Handy, simply-explained guide for taking photos using an DSLR, something I've never quite mastered.

The BARNGAINS page of this blog (just below the masthead at the top of the page) has had a recent, much-needed redesign and update, and now contains a list of select barngains from 2007 to the present day.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Barngains
London Through Its Charity Shops

Three recent coincidences

1. R had been telling me about Unit Editions, ‘a progressive publishing venture producing high-quality, affordable books on graphic design and visual culture’, that I’d never heard of, the day before. The next evening R popped round the flat (a rare occurrence btw, being allergic to my cat, Casper). A parcel was waiting for me in the doorway. I opened it up and it was a beautiful book called Letraset: The DIY Typography Revolution (with ‘free’ poster), published by, yup, you guessed it, Unit Editions and costing £55 (I must take umbrage at the ‘affordable’ claim in their blurb). I hadn’t ordered it; it was sent by an old friend I hadn’t heard from for years, completely out of the blue. He thought I’d like it.

2. S and I were sipping our Greggs coffees on a bench behind a church in Greenwich. We were talking about Krautrock, Can and Stockhausen, then onto atonality and minimalism; then came Carrie and Brian de Palma, followed by Dario Argento and Italian giallo films which led on to Peter Strickland via Berberian Sound Studio and the Duke of Burgundy, then vampire films and finally, somehow, the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Fear Eats the Soul is one of my favourite films, ever). Five minutes later we were strolling around the secondhand market across the road, and S spotted a DVD box set of Fassbinder films. What are the chances? S didn’t want it, so I snapped it up immediately. 9 Fassbinder films! For £5! Barngain.

3. I was moaning on the phone to H about many things, including this very blog. 12 years I’ve been writing it, I said, and virtually no comments, no feedback, nothing in return (I blame social media for the death of blogs). Why do I bother writing it, I asked her. She didn’t know. I didn’t know. Anyway, just as I said no one ever leaves a comment, I was checking my emails and a notification came up that C (for Caspar; different spelling to my cat, so, no, they're not one and the same) had left a comment on a recent post. Faith in mankind was temporarily restored.

Recent barngains

 Joanna Newsom, Have one on me, 3 LP box set, £1, RSPCA
This was almost a missed barngain – a young hipster (beard, hat) had the record in his hands, wasn't sure about it, looked it up on his phone – I was watching him out of the corner of my eye whilst pretending to browse a book (Jay Z's Decoded), heart beating like crazy – then he put it back. What made him put him back (apart from my staring with daggers at him)? That it's a great album (9.2 on Pitchfork)? That it's worth over £30? I admit, Newsom isn't to everyone's taste – her combination of childlike, sometimes screechy vocals combined with difficult lyrics and accompanying harp grates for many, but I love her. One album over three LPs (clocking in at just over two hours) though, involves six switching over of record sides. Nevertheless, a beautiful box set, not complaining at all.

Grayson Perry, updated and expanded Thames and Hudson monograph, £4, Sue Ryder
Signed by Grayson Perry! Found on the floor, underneath a pile of other books, underneath the actual bookshelves.

Brutal London: Construct your own concrete capital, £4, British Heart Foundation
Lovely book focusing on nine buildings in the capital (including the Alton Estate); includes card cut-out models of each so you can construct your own mini brutalist city.

L'Amour, Lewis
Silent Passage, Bob Carpenter
Crossroads, Kenny Knight
All CDs, £1 each, MIND 
To sell anything nowadays, a good story is needed. Audio obsessives love a treasure hunt and mystery to be solved as much as anyone, and record labels such as Paradise of Bachelors and Light in the Attic specialise in re-issuing long-lost gems, along with alluring narratives to go along with them.

A 1980s Nick Drake, if you will, all hesitant and almost whispered vocals, synths and guitars, Lewis was the nom de plume of stockbroker Randall Wulff, who privately pressed a couple of LPs which vanished without trace. His first LP was eventually found in a flea market, and the rest is history. Sort of. Randall was eventually tracked down several years after the CD release, and showed no interest at all in it, or any of the royalties.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Barngains
London through its charity shops

The month's musical barngains

Top to bottom: Scientist – Dub Landing (CD); King Crimson – In the Court of King Crimson (LP); Thelonius Monk – Monk's Music (LP); Thelonius Monk –Straight, No Chaser (CD); Moondog – Moondog (mp3); Thundercat – Drunk (mp3); Fela and Afrika 70 – Zombie (LP).

Barngain of the day: Flora by Nick Knight

I found this book in a charity shop in Croydon. It was priced at £2.50; already a barngain until the shop assistant informed me there was a half price sale, so it was £1.25. I've vaguely wanted this book for years (first published 1997) not because I'm that interested in flora, but because it's a beautiful and elegant book (and tall; it doesn't fit in my bookshelves).

Nick Knight is British fashion photographer who came to prominence in the 1980s with his book of photos of skinheads; a stint at i-D magazine led to photographing Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto's fashion catalogue (like this book, in collaboration with Peter Saville). He has also photographed album covers for the likes of Massive Attack and directed music videos.

Peter Saville art directed the book (though Paul Barnes actually designed it; presumably he did all the actual work). Never one to rush his work, Saville's poster for the opening of the Factory nightclub in Manchester famously turned up late for the event. His own website has been 'under construction' for years.

Photographers from Karl Blossfeldt (whose book Art Forms in Nature was very successful when it came out in 1928) to Irving Penn (whose book of flowers was published in 1980) have produced books of flowers and fauna in close-up, exploring their beautiful forms in much the same way Georgia O'Keeffe did with paint.

Flora is a result of Knight visiting the herbarium (library of pressed flowers) at the Natural History Museum and sifting through thousands of samples; forty-six of the 'most beautiful' were chosen. They are stunning; a riot of colour, texture and shape, all beautifully arranged. The second half of the book has text by Sandra Knapp explaining each plant photographed. Most interestingly, though, it lists when and by who each sample was collected. Amazingly, some date back to the 1800s, and as Knapp rightly states, the stories behind how they were collected would fill volumes and be almost as fascinating as the plants themselves.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Barngains
London through its charity shops

London through its charity shops #34: Marylebone W1

Ah, mythical minted Marylebone High Street – its fabled charity shops are always in lists of best charity shops in London (such as Time Out and the Evening Standard). I was in the area anyway, and decided to check out Daunt Books too. I'd not ever been there but seen every other female hipster toting a Daunt Books tote bag (what great, free advertising). A lovely book shop with a great travel section.

But onto the charity shops: Oxfam is large, spacious, posh and pricey. Stacks of records and books at the back but people come for the bargain designer clothes, apparently. As they do at Cancer Research, a little further along. Mainly clothes with a boutique feel, it's not really my kind of place. But if you want cut-price Dior or Miu Miu, this is the place for you.

That's it for the High Street, but just off it on George Street is Barnado's. Again, mainly clothes with a small book and CD section. Best of all, though, and not just because the chatty Scottish lady working there complimented me on my jacket and my shoes, is Geranium, on the other side of the road to Barnado's. A fraction of the size of the other charity shops in the area, it feels like an Aladdin's cave. Lots of bric-a-brac, art books and auction art catalogues, an old accordion (£199) and a great leather jacket (£69) which the Scots lady proceeded to try on and model for me.

No barngains today (when you can't even afford charity shops, you know something's wrong) but the previous weekend I'd got some good vinyl: King Crimson's Discipline in Octavia Barnes and Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here in Cancer Research Clapham Junction (£5 a piece).

Previously on Barnflakes:
London through its charity shops

London through its charity shops #32: Beckenham SE20

Ah beautiful Beckenham, one time home of a young Bowie and with a gracefully curved High Street full of lovely charity shops. Before we go up the High Street, though, a quick trip over the road to Croydon Road, where there's a Mind charity shop. It's okay, smallish but with a wide variety of sometimes quirky gems (The Beatles' White album was there on vinyl when I popped in – for £60). A few doors along is a decent, large, if overpriced, record shop called Wanted Man.

Back onto the High Street and first up is the Salvation Army; I've never found anything interesting in there and it's quite small; mainly clothes. Over the road is a decent British Red Cross, small too but full of goodies, including a Jellycat teddy (my daughter's current obsession) and my barngains of the day: two brand new Pantone coffee makers, for under a tenner. Good selection of books, clothes and bric-a-brac, nicely laid out.

Next is Scope with lots of books and some records. British Heart Foundation is probably my charity shop of choice, and this is a good one with lots of clothes, CDs, bric-a-brac and books. A decent Cancer Research is next, followed by a long and spacious Oxfam with tons of books at the front; clothes, books, records and CDs at the back. And a tiny clothes rail for men, as usual. Next there's an average Sense. Around the corner at 24 High Street is a St Christopher's Hospice; I hadn't high hopes for it but turns out it's a bit of an Aladdin's cave – a buzzing atmosphere, with piles of bric-a-brac and pictures, plenty of clothes, books, DVDs, records and CDs. Reasonably priced too – men's Versace and Hackett shirts were £4.50.

Nine in a row: by then I'd had charity shop fatigue.

There's generally good quality stuff in all the charity shops – but not great for men's jeans, though: I imagine the demographic is quite elderly and conservative. Far too many beige pleated chinos with elasticated waists.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Bedlam: the art of madness

London through its charity shops #30: From Lewisham to Blackheath

Colourful Lewisham: my boon companion in the foreground

There was rain, wind, hail and sun, there was coffee and Greggs sausage rolls, and starlings catching the crumbs in their beaks mid air, and there was giving fried chicken to a very grateful homeless man. Along we way we passed Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's former house and Danny Baker's current one and popped into, oh, 13 charity shops (unfortunately we had to miss out a few) where my boon companion bought about twenty books and I got absolutely nothing, but there were some close barngains.

My esteemed colleague had enthused about the charity shops in his local area for some time so I asked him to put his money where his mouth is and we met up on a Saturday outside Lewisham train station. Walking towards town, one is greeted with the ugliness of roadworks and construction sites, with flats going up and bollards all over the place. Things got better once we walked through the shopping centre, with a fruit and veg market on the other side and some charity shops.

We started with the British Heart Foundation, which had friendly, helpful staff (a rarity nowadays), good CDs and lots of cheap paperbacks – my companion picked up half a dozen thrillers for his missis and declared the non-fiction section to have seen better days. Next was the 'uninspiring' British Red Cross which had plenty of women's clothes and a poor book department. Scope has a nice feel to it; it's small and pleasant yet the music is too loud and the staff "dozy".  Good CDs but bad placement of the books, next to the changing rooms and till. Cancer Research had loads of CDs and women's shoes, cheap clothes rails and a small book section.

Soviet sci-fi style staircase, Lee Green

We took a bus to Lee Green, where's there's a large Geranium charity shop with some furniture and electrical good; plenty of bric-a-brac. Books were cheap. Next door was a smaller Geranium 99p shop. Nearby is a huge Sue Ryder furniture store which also sells white goods. Along the walls were lots of books, CDs, DVDs and bric-a-brac.

Onto Blackheath, where there's an okay and cheap Cats Protection shop, featuring lots of cat figures in the bric-a-brac section. The Community Hospice is small with good bric-a-brac and cheap books. The British Red Cross is lovely and colourful, with lots of designer clothes. I spotted a lovely pair of black Levi's 501s, as new, for £8.99. Unfortunately a few sizes too big for me, but I joked with the shop assistant I'll put on weight to make them fit. She told me of the harm of being overweight and the possibility of getting diabetes. At the back some good records too, but I wasn't going to pay £8.99 for Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits.

We walked past lovely houses and across the heath to get to Blackheath village, where there was a uber chic Mary's Living and Giving Save the Children, which we didn't dare go into. There's a nice Cancer Research where a near barngain was the pop-up 3D ABC book, unfortunately some letters were damaged. I had nothing and was getting desperate: a cool Wrangler shirt was frayed; a nice Penguin shirt was too small. The final stop was Oxfam, our first of the day. Women's clothes are downstairs; upstairs there's a large book and music section. Nothing grabbed me. Still, it was a good day. It had started raining again and the light was fading.

London through its charity shops #28: Eltham SE9

 I still go to charity shops – indeed I still find it hard walking past one without going in, you know, just in case, though I usually stick to the south west London ones – East Sheen, Putney, Battersea and Wimbledon – that I know and love. My series London Through Its Charity Shops becomes out of date every month a new charity shop opens and others shut down, or are refurbished, usually for the worse, or one charity shop where I used to get lots of art books or records just don't have the same kind of stock anymore – this is the nature of the beast. Recently I was visiting the charity shops on the Fulham Road and an old man, who reminded me of Colonel Blimp, was doing exactly the same as me at the same time. We fell in line, and started chatting. He looked at me and said: "I bet you never thought you'd end up with a tripod today" (I'd just bought a as-new Leica tripod), and I retorted, "I bet you never thought you'd end up with a goldfish bowl today" (his recent purchase). And this is the beauty of charity shops.

But this year a quantum shift has happened to my charity shop habits. I used to head straight for the records, CDs and books – but have reached saturation point: I own over 300 records, 1,000 CDs and 500 books in a small, overcrowded flat, and actually need to read and listen to some of them. So, the shift also occurred when I realised I hadn't bought a pair of jeans in a decade; mine all had holes (Gap jeans with gaps) in the pockets (loose change tumbling down my leg in particular became quite annoying) and were misshapen and worn. So, I went to buy a new pair of Levi's and did a double take when I saw the £80 price tag. I decided to look for jeans in charity shops. Admittedly it involved a fair degree of hunting in order to get the right size but after a weekend of searching I emerged with two pairs of Levi's, a pair of Wranglers (as new, unworn, with the labels still on) and two pairs of Abercrombie and Fitch, all for less than half the price of a new pair of Levi's (I'd recently had repairs to pockets to some of my old jeans and paid more for the alterations than a pair in a charity shop). If I was thinner I would have bought twice the amount – I saw lots of pairs of Levi's as new for less than a tenner, though usually size 28 or 30. This is all a revelation to me. I've never looked for clothes before but once I focus on one thing and one thing only, I find I have a fair degree of luck (yes, this is further evidence of my Asperger's-like obsessions). Condition of jeans in charity shops is generally and surprisingly very good; certainly a lot better nick than my ten-year-old rags. So, in short, now I look for clothes in charity shops and aren't afraid to say so. This is where the new barngains are.

Anyway: Eltham. It has lots of decent charity shops (and a Wimpy!) – Barnado's, Marie Curie, Scope, British Heart Foundation, Save the Children, Cancer Research, Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice Shop and Demelza House Trading Shop – all within ten minutes walk of each other (not that I managed to do all of them), either on or just off the High Street. Nothing spectacular, but all spacious, bright and reasonably priced. I looked for jeans first – tempted by a pair of grey Levi's (£8) but they were a tad tight – then moved onto records and books. I spotted an LP by The Enid called Something Wicked This Way Comes. I hadn't heard of the band, but liked the cover, looked them up, didn't feel the need to buy it. This is progress for me.

Though Eltham is synonymous for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, it has a lot more to offer beside racist killings and charity shops: Eltham Palace is a stunning Art Deco building (above), surrounded by parks and mansions – Kate Bush's former house (pictured, top) is just around the corner – though later owners added the Wuthering Heights lettering. Sevendroog castle has amazing views of London; from the top you can see for thirty miles in all directions, and also has a nice cafe.

Previously on Barnflakes:
London Through Its Charity Shops
Car Boot Sales
Barngains

A Life In Art

I really don't have a problem with (say) Tracey Emin not being able to paint or draw. So what? When she declares that there's no separation between her life and her art, she reveals herself to be a true artist. So, if she can do it, why can't all of us?

It occurs to me I will probably never have enough room to display all my stuff. And it occurs to me I want to display My Life Of Crap. I want it out there. In public. Maybe just for a week or two (I'm not that much of an egotist). I'd been to see the Chris Marker exhibition at the Whitechapel gallery. He'd died recently and I thought the exhibition was like a celebration of his life, with his films, photos, travel guides but also letters, notebooks, sketches. This is how I want my stuff displayed in a similarly sized gallery. A huge space to display my life's work: paintings, drawings, sculptures*, films, photographs, sure, but also newspaper clippings, books and magazines, records and CDs, posters, clothes, toys, bric-a-brac. But I actually want to be alive when this happens, and curate it. Everything will be for sale (there would be barngains galore).

The idea of preserving an artist's or writer's room exactly as it was, ie Charles Dickens' or Thomas Hardy's study or Lawrence of Arabia's house, is how we should all be remembered. I've written about this before; that a gravestone is essentially a boring, impersonal reminder of a person's life, and far more intimate and relevant would be a recreation of the dead person's living room or bedroom with all their stuff. This is us now, right? Our stuff? (Even if it's digital stuff, it's still stuff.)

*Someone will have to recreate the giant plug switch I made out of leaves and grass and the huge cardboard light switch, the mini cinemas, palace of mirrors, etc.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Head in the Clouds
The Museum of Everyone

London through its charity shops #26: Streatham SW16 & SW2

Streatham, or St Reatham as some wannabes are pronouncing it (apparently – I've never actually heard anyone say it this way in earnest) is on the up. You can tell by the house prices and quality of the charity shops: they're mostly great, plentiful and vaguely overpriced. Streatham's okay; it has a nice common, an ice rink, bowling alley and the newly opened Streatham Tate library, so named after its builder and benefactor, Henry Tate, founder of the Tate galleries, and former local resident.

Streatham's charity shops are all along the long and wide, boulevard-like (even on a Saturday afternoon it felt relatively empty due to its size) Streatham High Road. Streatham is big: it's spread over the boroughs Lambeth and Wandsworth and has three train stations (more than some cities have!): Streatham, Streatham Common and Streatham Hill.

Streatham Hill is the nearest station for the charity shops. I started with Give A Little  – 'a non profit charity shop with a difference'. I wasn't entirely sure what the difference was, but it's a lovely little shop with an ethnic feel and chilled out reggae music playing. It's clean and well looked after with quality items. Plenty of clothes and lots of CDs and DVDs only £1. I continued walking south towards Streatham Common. Trinity Hospice is very spacious and pleasant with wooden floor boards. Mostly clothes with some books and CDs.

PAWS (just off the High Road) is small and cramped but pretty cool, with plenty of clothes, posters, CDs, records and bric-a-brac. British Heart Foundation have a lovely Books and Music shop. Old jazz was playing; there were stacks of well-ordered records, CDs, books, DVDs and comics. I was in heaven. By contrast, Rffr charity shop was a shambles, but I like that too. Lots of VHS tapes. Next is a large Oxfam which stocks shabby furniture, electricals, books, music, DVDs, bric-a-brac and clothes.

Another Trinity Hospice is small but well ordered; lots of men's shirts, stacks of CDS and some records and books. Another Oxfam too, this one small but impeccable, apart from the records, which would have been great (The Grateful Dead, Neil Young, Patti Smith etc) if they weren't mouldy. On the corner is a decent Cancer Research, good to see some toys actually – charity shops seem to be largely neglecting them nowadays. Next is an excellent, and large and spacious British Heart Foundation. All Aboard – Working for Charity was closed. Probably for the best, by now I was seriously starting to flag. Finally, a nice assortment of clothes in Shelter. A section of new stuff too, which never really appeals to me, as well as a few books and CDs.

By my count, that's twelve charity shops. Is this a record for a single road?

I wasn't really in the buying mood, so no barngains today. Besides, I've just moved into a rabbit hutch and am trying not to fill it with crap.

Barngains on Israeli Road, SX15

There are currently barngains to be had on a daily basis on Israeli Road, SX15. A very well-to-do road, it regularly sees people throwing 'quality' stuff outside their house for people to take. In the past fortnight alone there's been a skateboard, electric guitar (without strings), various bits of furniture, an owl print, a small wooden carved horse and four soft toys (pictured). I usually pass by, stop, ponder, then move on. Do I really need these things? Just because they're free should I take them? No, I don't bother usually. But with the soft toys, I took a photo and rushed back to show my daughter in case she wanted any. She wanted one. We rushed back and there was a woman with a baby who had knocked on the door near where the toys had been dumped to ask the owner if it was okay to take them. It was, and she did. I mentioned to her that my daughter wanted one of the four, but that was the one her baby really wanted. Okay, any of them, I suggested, but her baby wanted them all. So she loaded them all on her buggy, and off she went. Anyway, even though the residents lack the ability to walk five minutes to a charity shop (though admittedly some of the items, like an electric guitar with no strings, probably wouldn't be accepted; charity shops are so fussy nowadays), I like the freecycle ethos of leaving stuff on the pavement for anyone to take – at least it's not being chucked in the bin, and items do get taken within a couple of hours. In fact, Israeli Road is now my favourite free charity shop. It's impossible to guess what's going to turn up next.