The Weasel

The boutique of bebop is occupied by similarly obsessed aficionados flicking endlessly through the racks of CDs and LPs

It's not every shop in London which features on ITV's News at Ten, but that honour was recently accorded to an extraordinary retailer on the cusp of Covent Garden and Bloomsbury. A corner of the metropolis which remains forever hip, Ray's Jazz Shop provided an apt backdrop for an item about Long Ago & Far Away, the acclaimed new album of jazz standards recorded by Charlie Watts, drummer of the Rolling Stones. This most elegant of percussionists, rated No 347 in a list of Britain's 500 wealthiest people, is a frequent customer. When not infested by ITN cameramen, the boutique of bebop is occupied by similarly obsessed aficionados flicking endlessly through the racks of CDs and LPs. The studious atmosphere is not dissimilar to that of a monastery scriptorium - except that the background music is likely to be the angular atonalities of Ornette Coleman or Thelonius Monk, rather than vespers or canticles.

The hermetic universe of the jazz fan enables the shop to indulge in a form of advertising which is more or less meaningless to the outside world. "Everything from Barry Harris to Harry Barris", was one slogan. "All that's jazz from Max Bacon to Eggy Ley", was another. All the names are genuine (pianist; singer; drummer; saxophonist) - but the message remains profoundly mysterious to anyone excluded from the coterie.

Every few years, jazz enjoys a momentary vogue among the wider populace and Ray's cosy empire is invaded by neophytes. Usually, these tyro fans are treated gently by the weary experts behind the counter - but occasionally the well-practised cool may crack. A friend who formerly worked in the shop had a set routine for dealing with those telephone callers who said, "I'm after a record but I can't remember its name."

"Well, how does it go?" my pal would reply.

"Der, dee, dum, dee, dee, der, dum," was the customary response.

"Sorry, can't quite hear you. Can you do it louder?" my friend would yell down the line. When the tune was repeated - now at a considerable volume - he would clap his hand over the mouthpiece and hold out the receiver for the entertainment of any customers hovering nearby.

Occasionally, however, the outside world gets its own back. Once the door of the shop burst open and a flustered woman, searching for another address in this rather confusing part of London, yelled, "What's your number?" at a man riffling professionally through the section devoted to big band music. Unfortunately, he was a customer.

"What?" he apprehensively replied, his fingers still mechanically shuffling through the Stan Kenton and Tommy Dorsey.

"Don't you understand, man?" the woman bellowed. "WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?"

Utterly mystified, and not a little frightened, the nervous customer retorted "I ain't got no number."

"Idiots!" the woman exploded, as she slammed the door and returned to the real world.

You may have noticed that this column is an Internet-free zone. Electronic jiggery-pokery has scant appeal for the Weasel, and I have even less interest in the burblings of the creepy adolescents who are in thrall to such novelties.

However, a new development in this field prompted me to break my self- imposed interdict. Call it an inexplicable whim or an unfathomable caprice, but I found myself drawn to the launch of the Bras Direct web site (if you must know, it's at http://www.brasdirect.co.uk). According to the publicity material, this innovation promises "virtual lingerie shopping", so enabling "the fairer sex to surf the Internet for all their favourite brands in the comfort of the home or office".

The event took place at Cyberia, London's "Internet Cafe" - lined with computer screens, it is an unappealing place for refreshment unless you're a confirmed propeller-head. The Bras Direct "virtual shop" turned out to be a kind of electronic catalogue, allowing users to pore over photos of models wearing scanty doodahs from 16 manufacturers, including the delightfully-named "balconette" bra and the oxymoronic "push-up plunge bra". Refinements enable viewers to enlarge the pictures "so all detailing is clearly visible" and even change the colour of the frothy fragments on display.

Yet an in-depth explanation of the systems by a genial boffin left me wondering how many of the "fairer sex" would avail themselves of the "underwear superhighway". Pecking at a computer keyboard, he revealed that there had been over 90,000 "casual visitors" to the Bras Direct web site in its first two weeks of prelaunch operation. More than 51,000 of these had been from the UK, 1,872 from Australia, 128 from Japan and 68 from the United Arab Emirates. While it is not impossible that many of these were prospective purchasers torn between, for example, Cacharelle's "underwired bra in a demure daisy print design with a slightly retro look" and Warner's "smooth, seamfree bra in lightweight skin tones featuring a high Lycra content for easy fit", I have my doubts. Apparently, most callers took a quick shufti and shuffled off. Total sales during the prelaunch period amounted to 12 items.

I expressed astonishment that so much information was available about those casual inquirers. "Internet users leave electronic footprints everywhere," my informant shrugged. "I can even tell you where each call came from. There have been calls from Boots, BT, Norwich Union... Hewlett-Packard made seven calls. And there's a whole load from Cambridge University." Though I was previously unaware that it was possible to take a BA (Cantab) in bra studies, it's nice to know that the old place is keeping abreast of fashion.

Last week, I was reacquainted with a half-squeezed toothpaste tube that I hadn't seen since 1967. No, I wasn't giving our bathroom a much-needed spring-cleaning. The object in question is so gigantic - 66 inches long, to be precise - that it would be hard to mislay even in the chaotic conditions which prevail in Weasel Villas. In fact, this memorable reunion took place at the Hayward Gallery. I last saw this Brobdingnagian dentifrice in the art gallery of the late Robert Fraser (once famously handcuffed to Mick Jagger in a Sixties drug bust). At the age of 17, I thought Claes Oldenburg's "Giant Toothpaste Tube" to be just about the most thrilling and funny object I had ever encountered. And 29 years on, seeing the sculpture again at the artist's wonderful South Bank retrospective, I still feel pretty much the same way.

When I read Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent, about small town America, I must admit that his fictitious place name of Fartville provoked a giggle. But, as always, the reality is far more inventive. An article in Spy magazine on the most annoying aspects of each US state includes a section on "dumbest towns". Among the communities singled out are: Looneyville (West Virginia), Celeryville (Ohio), Pankeyville (Illinois), Curdsville (Kentucky), Leechville (North Carolina), Whiskerville (Pennsylvania), Grubville (Missouri), Suckerville (Maine), Rudeville (New Jersey), Chickville (New Hampshire) and the sublime Blissville (Vermont). I might also mention Belchertown (Massachusetts), Smut Eye (Alabama), Toilette (Arkansas), Chlorine (Nevada), Hygiene (Colorado) and Tokeland (in marijuana-rich Washington state), but you get the picture. Mere imagination doesn't stand a chance