Well, yes, I am, and I guess perhaps I should. It was, after all, a very strange experience indeed.
Today my wife and I went to buy some wallpaper in order to redecorate the bathroom. There are advertisements all over the area for one particular firm….in fact, they are so common that I joked in the past that it is not unlikely that one day I’ll get off a plane at Heathrow and the first thing I will see is an advert for this particular shop. So we thought we would give it a look.
In the event their selection was disappointing, but as we were about to leave the shop the proprietor engaged my wife in conversation, and launched into a political lecture that rather took our breath away. He was the first out-and-out conspiracy theorist I have ever met, and went banging on about the way in which the Rothschilds are running the world. He also trotted out the old favourite about Hitler having escaped to Argentina. (I’ve heard that one before.) It seems that Donald Trump is up to something with a conspiracy of generals. I couldn’t follow that one, although I think that the implication is that the USA is about to experience a military coup. The basis of his profound knowledge of these things is that he is able to get direct access to the FBI files. At this point we made our excuses and left.
As we drove away I told my wife that I thought that his establishment was probably not actually a wallpaper shop but a rather thin cover for the headquarters of a global conspiracy. Well, why not? Surely the village of Wyke is as good a place as any from which to begin an operation to take over the world. I was reminded of Leonard Cohen’s “First we are Manhattan, then we take Berlin”, which by comparison seem to be more realistic a proposition. Perhaps there is a chain of these places. Be warned! If you want to buy wallpaper, be sure to check out the place carefully before you go in.
Seriously, though. I’m not very bothered. We did manage to get our wallpaper in Keighley.