Who’s who at the car boot sale

The New Romantics
They’ve just moved into their first flat. But there isn’t room for his CD collection, and why does he need them when he’s got them all on his iPod anyway? This stall is often surrounded by men, of a similar age or slightly older with a similar defeated sadness in their eyes, swapping Stone Roses trivia.

Little Sugars
They’ve watched Junior Apprentice and are saving up for their own Wii. Typical stock includes Action Men/Barbies that they’re a bit embarrassed about ever having been into, High School Musical paraphernalia (ditto), roller blades, Playstation 2 games, and figures that came free with Happy Meals.

Million Dollar Women
Yes her husband earns enough not to have to make loose change at a car boot sale, but giving up her successful marketing career to bring up a family has left her with untapped sales skills and a lot of outgrown DKNY Junior dresses, Kidorable wellies and Little Green Radicals playsuits. Still knows how to make a bob or two.

Tatty Declines
Chipped crockery, a Sony Discman, a random bit of curtain fabric, a CSI box set (minus series 2), novels that were given away with newspapers, an Ikea tea-light holder, rummage boxes of bangles, badges and buttons… the days when people would buy anything are over. As are the days where you could find a lost da Vinci sketch in a box of rubbish. Cash in the Attic has a lot to answer for.

The Haggler from Hell
Whatever the item, whatever the price, they can’t help asking, “Can you do me a better price on that?” Even if the price you’ve asked for is only 50p. 50p!

The One Who Though It Was A Craft Fair
Wherever there’s a group of stalls somewhere, there’s always someone selling their handmade scatter cushions?

The Pro
The ones who come every week, or often enough that they turn a regular profit, are in on the banter, pick up great bargains which they may sell on later at a mark up. Wrapped in their huge woollen coats (a ‘find’ from a previous sale) with their flasks of hot coffee, fingerless gloves, folding table, hanging rail and money pouches, they are the first set up, and make packing away an art form. For them it’s not man verses hangover, or a battle against the elements, but a great morning out. They represent the car boot sale idyll. You hate them.

CHATTERING CLASS: This week's gossip cut down to size

The week's gossip cut down to size

Eating in cinemas

Only permissible if the food makes little sound in the mouth. Pears are an ideal film food

National Watercress Week 20-26 May

We might have a party

"The point is..."

Obnoxious. Stop saying it. Now.

A good middle-class person should remove a bothersome insect or spider from a glass

Don't kill it. That's beneath you

BSkyB bid

It's hard work not to roll it together by mistake and say "B-Sky-Bid", isn't it?

Rose bushes are back in demand for the first time since the 60s

Lovely news

Coloured glassware

One or two non-matching coloured glasses among other plain glass ones can work well

Turning up late to a party

Very 70s. On time and leaving early is the modern MC way

M&S new budget range

Still not convinced we'll end up doing our big shop there

Thing to say on a sunny-ish day in May

"Well, this is more like it" and then "But let's not get our hopes up, eh?"

ONE DIRECTION: HOW TO AVOID WALKING WITH SOMEONE WHO ASKED YOU FOR DIRECTIONS

Oh, it’s so awkward. There you were, happily walking along to the train station or supermarket or bank or wherever, minding your own business. And then some smiling, vulnerable out-of-towner stops you and asks you for directions – to the same place you’re going. Despair floods over you. It’s not just a mere few paces away; it’s a five-minute walk. That means being stuck walking along with and chatting to someone you don’t know, pretending it’s a delightfully unexpected social experience. The horror. The horror!
Here are three ways to avoid having to walk with the person:

1. Send them in completely the wrong direction
This seems quite harsh, admittedly, and is probably the least middle-class way to handle the situation. But really, what’s the worst that can happen? They’ll just ask someone else eventually. And you’ll spend the entire day feeling guilty and ashamed – status quo.

2. Quickly calculate a different route to the same place
If you know the area well and can think quick-smart, give them round-about directions to the same place, making sure you’ll be able to arrive there before them and find a secure hiding place.

3. Send them off in the right direction, and then linger for five minutes before also walking that way
This is the most natural middle-class strategy, because it involves putting yourself out simply to avoid awkwardness. Find a shop window to look in, tie up your shoelaces, make a phonecall, whatever. Even if this means you miss your train or appointment, this is still not as bad as having to endure the walk of pain.

WHY DO MIDDLE-CLASS PEOPLE COOK THINGS “UP”?

I’ve noticed recently that whenever my middle-class friends and family talk about cooking, they’re usually cooking something “up” rather than just cooking it – suggesting effortless creativity, dynamism and brevity in the kitchen. This is probably something for which we can thank/blame Jamie Oliver, master of “chucking it in” and “banging it about”. In the age BJ (before Jamie), we didn’t expect cooking to be quite so… physical. Middle-class people just sliced and stirred things, and quietly put dinner on the table. Now, we like the idea of throwing things around our kitchens and whacking them onto wooden slabs. Watch the recent advert for Florette bagged salad and you’ll get the idea.

“Cooking things up” is an expression that has emerged from the intoxicating notion that we’ve all got massive, stylish kitchens with bakery-style wooden food preparation areas, and that our ordinary home cooking has become a Jackson Pollock-esque business of drizzling and tossing things into a pan from a height. We like to think we can “cook up” an amazing supper from very little – ideally, we’ll have grown our own humble knobbly vegetables, which will be transformed by being aggressively chopped up and having olive oil thrown at them from across the room. That’s what we all aspire to, anyway, in our “cook up” dreams. In reality, we’re just cooking and quietly putting dinner on the table, as we ever did.

HOW TO DISPLAY YOUR HOUSE NUMBER

First impressions are important. So let’s start at the front door and, more specifically, how to display your house number.

Express your inner-loft-lover

Have your number sandblasted into the glass above your door. Stick to sans serif fonts, but feel free to be a bit quirky by writing your number out in words.

Actually live in a loft or industrial refit? Or got and architect to build you something?

Go for it with super-sized brushed steel numerals attached to that lovely blank brickwork. Knowing the font will allow friends to admire your design flair even more.

Want to show you holiday in Provence a lot and like following the Tour de France on TV?

Try a blue and white enamel number plate (even if you bought it from a UK online catalogue).

Coolly confident of your house’s size and social standing? (It’s in the catchment for the grammar school, you know.)

Go with a stylishly subtle Welsh slate. Or get a local artisan to engrave something for you.

Live in the country or on a commuter estate?

You can get away with oval plaques or the humped-back ‘bridge’ shapes (but no one else, ok?) but you really need to be pulling a pension before you contemplate having flowers or hedgehogs on them.

Strapped for time or just indecisive?

If your door still has the brass numbers it came with, don’t worry, everyone will realise you just haven’t got around to that modern overhaul all your neighbours have gone for.