Racked off

Ever get the feeling you're being watched? The feeling that every move you make, someone is observing you... that, wherever you walk, you can hear the chilling echo of footsteps behind you ... that, in short, you are being stalked? These days you don't have to be a celebrity whose wiles have convinced Mr or Ms El Weirdo that you're in love with them. You don't have to be a secret agent; you don't even have to be paranoid or delusional to get the feeling that someone is on your case; for a harmless bout of shopping will do the trick, it seems. I'm sure I'm not the only shopper, who, while innocently perusing the clothes racks at La Shi Shi boutique, has found the shop assistant lurking behind me with evil intent. The scenario usually goes as follows: Kat Walker sees a cute chiffon blouse, lifts it off the rack and has a look, checks the price tag and pops it back. Moves on. Hears soft pad of footsteps two feet behind her as shop assistant/psychopath shadows her, arriving at said blouse, whereupon with the studied care of the functionally insane she takes it off the rack tweaks it pointlessly and returns it to the rack, all the while keeping her eyes pinned on Kat Walker's every move. Kat Walker arrives at a tempting little black number and the whole ridiculous hoo-ha repeats itself. While I'm sure shop assistants do this with the best of intentions, surely it's better to have untidy racks than to scare your customers into such a lather that they eventually run screaming "You'll never get to me!" from the store?

Inside jobs exposed
Some of us of course don't have to go shopping in an actual store to make a purchase and can therefore avoid such damaging experiences. I hear that at one trade fair the haggling and bargaining between wholesalers is rife. Not only that, there's a whole secret language to be learned. "Listen darling, I'll do you three pairs of cargo pants for one of your embroidered handbags and a viscose pashmina...and as it's you, I'll even throw in a bottle of Fire Dragon vodka for the mother-in-law" is not a phrase I've actually ever heard, but that doesn't mean it's not going on. Just consider the hand gestures...

Trends versus truth
Talking of which, angling fanatics are of course famed for their hand gestures. "It was this big!" they crow, throwing their arms as wide as Lisa Minelli in the final bars of Come to the Cabaret to illustrate the impressive size of their catch, which was actually an anorexic sardine. Rumour has it that certain fashion publications are not above similar feats of overstatement when it comes to their circulation figures, especially when angling [never imagined it possible to talk about fashion and fishing in the same breath, but I've surprised myself] for advertising revenue...