Charity Shops

[Spang!]

Another Cambridge cat! I've never been to the Oakington one, is there an American airbase near there or am I imagining things?

Gotta love the Cambridge....can't wait for a summer of lounging about in meadows and supping ales in beer gardens. Or, more likely, not wanting to cycle into town because it's raining.

I don't think there is an American base near there. It used to be an RAF base, but has been shut down for years. I think it's going to be bulldozed for the new Northstowe development before long though.

[Hank_Kingsley]

Gotta love the Cambridge....can't wait for a summer of lounging about in meadows and supping ales in beer gardens. Or, more likely, not wanting to cycle into town because it's raining.

I don't think there is an American base near there. It used to be an RAF base, but has been shut down for years. I think it's going to be bulldozed for the new Northstowe development before long though.

Hell yeah, talking of ales...the ale-fest is coming up soon isn't it? 3rd week of May or something like that.

Good times, good times.

[Spang!]

Hell yeah, talking of ales...the ale-fest is coming up soon isn't it? 3rd week of May or something like that.

Good times, good times.

19-24th May, I am literally cacking my pants in trembly anticipation. I just hope it doesn't rain like last year and turn Jesus Green into a bog.

http://www.cambridgebeerfestival.com/summer/

[simondykes]

Charity shops are fantastic,I really must try to make the effort to go in them more.The best thing I ever got was a Dennis The Menace jumper,like the one Kurt Cobain used to wear,though being a larger gent,it didn't hang on me like it hung on Kurt.
I picked up an old seventies paperback of 'Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail' with different illustrations to the current edition,though I can't remember where from.I was also convinced that I'd got my copy of 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' from a charity shop,but a quick check reveals it was more likely to have come from Handsworth Books (as was) on Charing Cross Road.

I used to live in Wandsworth and there were a couple of good ones there - my old flatmate used to seem to be able to find more good stuff than me;he also started to get obsessed with collecting old action men figures (I was never into them as a kid and they still have no interest for me) and he still talks with pride about the day he beat someone else to an old action man tank but then felt mildly embarrassed at having to pay for it.(He was in his mid thirties at the time.)I used to go in the Oxfam in Putney a lot - it was almost opposite where I worked - and picked up loads of books in there,including a couple of travel books about Germany.

There used to be an Oxfam in Ealing that specialised in books and records - I guess it's still there,but I haven't been to Ealing for a long while - but that was one of the first places I remember they'd started to become aware of how much things were worth and adjusting their prices accordingly.Still,I picked up the Strawberry Switchblade album on vinyl from there.

I vaguely remember Wimbledon having some good ones - and the area around Northcote Road in Battersea.And once an friend and I went to the ones that cluster around the kink in Kings Road - which I think were pricy,but had some good stuff.Again,this was years ago.

[Small Man Big Horse]

On the pricing subject, I think I've found the most overpriced thing ever - season one of 24 on video for £17.50 in the Age Concern near Edgeware Station. I know Charity Shop's are upping their prices a bit these days, but you can get it on dvd for less than that.

On the plus side I found an audio book of James Mason reading The Third Man which I imagine might be pretty amusing, and that was only 50p...

[Famous Mortimer]

Oxfam is the daddy for expensive charity shop purchasing though- I went into my local and they had an Alabama 3 CD, not even one of their good ones ("Power In The Blood"), and it was £6. Price on eBay thirty seconds ago: £2.30. Come on Oxfam!

[Ignatius_S]

Oxfam is also the largest antiquarian bookseller in Europe now, which has had an unfortunate impact on private second-hand bookshops.

A couple of times in Cardiff, I have been past one Oxfam bookshop, which has left three huge sacks of donated books waiting for refuse collection. From the ones spilling out, the books seemed in good nick and it was a shame that this was the way it gets rid of its surplus stock – another reason why I went off them.

[Lfbarfe]

Charity shops are fantastic,I really must try to make the effort to go in them more.The best thing I ever got was a Dennis The Menace jumper,like the one Kurt Cobain used to wear,though being a larger gent,it didn't hang on me like it hung on Kurt.

I've got an absolutely ginormous Dennis jumper, which hung off me even when I was nearly 18 stone.

I picked up an old seventies paperback of 'Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail' with different illustrations to the current edition

Ooooooh, how different? That's my favourite HST book. Much, much better than Las Vegas, IMHO, and, beneath the veneer of wildness, a stunningly vivid picture of the 1972 campaign.

There used to be an Oxfam in Ealing that specialised in books and records - I guess it's still there,but I haven't been to Ealing for a long while - but that was one of the first places I remember they'd started to become aware of how much things were worth and adjusting their prices accordingly.Still,I picked up the Strawberry Switchblade album on vinyl from there.

Yes. It was still there last time I was in Ealing. I don't go in charity shops any more really, because I've got too much old toot as it is. Not being a fucking public archive, one has to draw the line somewhere.

[trotsky assortment]

Trotsky's charity shop result this week:  the really scarce 2CD version of 'Promenade' by The Divine Comedy.

[Ciarán]

Records you always see in charity shops: an occasional series...

1. James Last LPs
2. James' last LP.

Ho ho!

(Series discontinued)

[Joy Nktonga]

^^                       ^^
It's funny 'cos it's true!

[Lfbarfe]

Trotsky's charity shop result this week:  the really scarce 2CD version of 'Promenade' by The Divine Comedy.

If you bought it in Lancaster, that could well be the copy I lent to a friend, which disappeared when they were burgled.

[trotsky assortment]

Nah.  Was in Tonbridge.

[simondykes]

Ooooooh, how different? That's my favourite HST book. Much, much better than Las Vegas, IMHO, and, beneath the veneer of wildness, a stunningly vivid picture of the 1972 campaign.

I've just had a quick look.There are less Ralph Steadman drawings,and the ones there are seem to be different to the ones in the current edition (though it's also possible they've been moved to different places in the book) and it actually has a load of photos - not a section of photos in the middle,but actually printed on the page;mostly photos of the people being talked about in the book,but at least one of HST himself that I spotted.
It's an American edition,published by Warner Books in 1983 (I'd never checked the date,always assumed it was an actual '70s edition.)
Although I think it's a great book,I still prefer 'Vegas',because there was a time when I practically had that whole book memorised and am still likely to cry,"Jesus Creeping God!Is there a priest in this tavern?" at the drop of a hat.Bizarrely,I've never touched drugs (or booze) in my life - after reading that,I feel I don't need to.Hunter did it for me.