Eat: Goodbye Mr. Basil
He was there for the toaster, again and again. There for the remote control. For the alarm clock. For the whoosywhatsit-blendery-thingummy. Mr Basil has been there, at Olympic Electronics at 213 Kensington Church Street, London W8 for 46 years, selling things and fixing things.
Now he's leaving, on 25 September. (And selling things cheap – you have only days in which to get there and go mad)
He CAN'T go. What do I do, the next time the toaster fails? I wanted to keep my Dualit toaster forever, and now I'll have to buy some crappy new cheap job the next time it fails to toast.
Nobody else will fix it, in a day, for a few quid. Nobody else has a soldering iron on their counter. Nobody else makes their own parts for a DVD remote control if they don't have them in one of their little boxes on the shelf. Nobody else says "bring it in, I'll have a look", as he did this very morning when I somehow fused the Magimix, mid-pastry. Try as I might, I couldn't get a pulse.He's closing forever next week, and it's still "bring it in, I'll have a look".
I don't begrudge Mr Basil his time with his grandchildren, or wanting to spend more time in the sun in Greece, but I can't help but get depressed.
Because it's not just this Mr Basil, it's all the Mr Basils. Now, when the world is going to hell in a handbasket, we need our Mr Basils to help us keep things going, so that we don't have to throw out perfectly good toasters or food processors and have to buy new ones. So we have some one to talk to about how alarm clocks shouldn't tick too loud, and should have luminous numerals. We don't need another Starbucks. We need another Mr Basil.
You were lucky to have a Mr Basil for so long. Most of them are long gone, and our streets and environment are the poorer for it.
Posted by: Will H | Saturday, 20 September 2008 at 10:23 AM
The entire community breathing the rarefied air of Notting Hill Gate and Campden Hill will mourn the withdrawal of Basil and Olympic Electronics from our midst. Above all we will miss the inexhaustible forbearance and patience of Basil at the universal electrical illiteracy of his clientele.
This illiteracy Basil invariably met with silent humour, treating every problem brought to him, however daft or minuscule, however serious, with equal gravity and concern, never for a moment mocking our sustained idiocy or helplessness, or aggrandising his own formidable knowledge or skills.
What a reputation Basil built for his compatriots! There was a time when his island of Corfu was a dependency of the British empire. Basil has made two generations of the population of London W8 a dependency of Corfu: a dependency of the heart.
Posted by: Tom Stacey | Saturday, 20 September 2008 at 11:25 AM