The World According to Bob

‘No I’m not, Holly. I stopped to ask that guy for a light. Ask him if you like,’ I said.

‘You were floating, James. I saw you,’ she said, adamant. ‘I’m going to have to report you.’

I was gobsmacked.

‘What? Oh, come on, Holly. You are going to report me for trying to get a light?’ I protested, grabbing hold of the bag in which I now had only a couple of magazines left unsold. ‘I’m done for the day. I didn’t even have my magazines out.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she said, in a really sarcastic tone before sliding off into the crowd.

I wasn’t sure whether to take her threat seriously or not. Every outreach worker was different. Some carried through on their threats, others made them purely to make a point. I decided that she wasn’t going to spoil my day and carried on enjoying the party atmosphere.

I took the Sunday off and went back to work on Monday, as normal. By then I’d forgotten completely about Holly. It was on Wednesday that the trouble began.

Arriving in Islington just before midday, I went to see Rita, the co-ordinator on Islington Green to buy new supplies of magazines.

‘Sorry, James, I can’t sell you any. You are on the “To Be Seen” list,’ she said.

‘What?!’

‘Apparently someone saw you floating in the West End. You know the drill. You’ve got to go over to Head Office in Vauxhall.’

‘Bloody Holly,’ I said to myself.

It was infuriating for all sorts of reasons. First and foremost, of course, it was a complete nonsense to say I’d been floating. I’d had this problem before, mainly because so many people approached me and Bob when we were walking around London.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to sell magazines when on the move. I could only do so from a fixed pitch. I’d always tried to explain this to people and, whilst some were confused and even offended, they usually moved along without giving me anything. Unfortunately, all it needed was for another Big Issue seller or an outreach worker to see me having any kind of exchange with a member of the public and they’d put two and two together to make five.

It was a real bore having to travel over to Vauxhall, but I knew I had to keep my pitch at Angel going. The book was just a passing phase, I knew I couldn’t turn my back on what was still my bread and butter.

At The Big Issue office, I had to sit around for half an hour before I could see a supervisor. When I eventually got called in, this guy told me that I had been mentioned at the weekly outreach worker meeting where they discuss pitch disputes, misbehaving vendors and other issues.

‘I’m afraid you are going to have to serve a one month suspension because an outreach worker saw you table-top floating,’ he said.

I tried to defend myself. But it was a waste of breath. With The Big Issue you were guilty unless you formally appealed. I’d been through that process before, when I’d been based in Covent Garden. Again, I’d been unfairly accused of floating and it had come down to my word against theirs. My word apparently wasn’t worth much and I’d lost.

I knew it was pointless appealing this time so I decided to take it on the chin and accept the suspension. I signed the relevant paperwork, handed in my tabard and ID card and headed home, upset but resigned to the fact that this was the way the cookie crumbled.

‘What’s that saying? No good deed goes unpunished,’ I said to Bob as we sat on the tube heading back home.

I figured that, with the book still to be written, I would spend the month working on that, doing a little busking and return to Angel tube station in a month’s time. If only it had been that simple.

At the end of the month, I went back to The Big Issue office. I wasn’t certain that I’d get my tabard and ID back that day so took my guitar with me, in case I needed to carry on busking. I needn’t have worried. I was told I had served my ‘sentence’ and got my stuff back. I also bought a supply of magazines to take back to Angel.

‘Back to business, Bob,’ I said as we caught a bus and headed back across the Thames.

Arriving back at Angel, I emerged from the station and saw my pitch was empty. It was still registered to me, so no one else should technically have been there although I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had chanced it. So I set up as normal and got back to work.

I’d been there for about half an hour when another vendor arrived. He was a guy I’d seen around occasionally. He was relatively new to The Big Issue and had a rather scruffy and bad-tempered old dog.

‘What are you doing? This is my pitch’ he said.

‘No it’s not,’ I said, looking bemused. ‘This has been my pitch for more than a year now.’

‘It might have been your pitch a year ago, but it’s mine now. I’m registered with head office.’

‘What? I really don’t know what you’re on about, mate. Bob and I are part of the furniture here. They’ve even written about us in the newspapers,’ I said, trying to remain reasonable.

He just shrugged his shoulders and blew out his cheeks.