Laureen tipped us off to the curry festival on Brick Lane this afternoon, so we took the bus down to Spitalfields, where the sun was out and then not and then yes and then maybe. We turned left off Hanbury for a stroll through the Sunday UpMarket (“Just in case,” Olive said, which I think means he is in the market for a new T-shirt) and then wandered down the street in search of said festival. I’d imagined stands and stalls and curries galore, and balloons, maybe, and – this thought was fleeting – cardstock cut-outs of sequined tigers, and smiling men holding trays of small and spicy samples.

What it was was this: where the Bangladeshi restaurants lining Brick Lane will, on a normal day, position a man at their door to entice customers in, today they each had a man and a number of tables and chairs set up outside. “This is the curry festival?” I said. “Surely this cannot be the curry festival.” One man leaned into Laureen with a smile and an arm open as if to indicate the many culinary pleasures of the Indian subcontinent. “Is this the curry festival?” Laureen said, because she likes to get to the bottom of things. “Yes,” the man said, and still he was smiling, “curry festival, yes. Table for three?” We made our excuses and walked down the street with the plastic tables left and right and the red paper napkins held down by overturned glass goblets and Laureen said, “This curry festival sucks.” Still, we soldiered on to the bitter end of Brick Lane – because “just in case” holds for other things but T-shirts, too.



The grand philosophy of just-in-case brought us to a woman behind a couple of card tables pushed together who sold us a bag of veg samosas for a pound fifty, potatoes and peas and cauliflower bits nestled in a light and salty crust, and just-in-case led us by the nose to Sweet & Spicy, where no tables had been set up outside, and a man behind the red storefront rolled and packed treats for a takeaway.

The handwritten Help Wanted sign in the window read thusly:

Wanted
Counter Helper

And then, in a smaller print:

(Experience Required)
(Leave CV on Counter)

And then, smaller still:

(No Students)
(No Time Wasters Please)

“Come in,” the takeaway-wrapping man mouthed through the glass, so I said, to the window, because, me, I have no time to waste, “OK!”



Inside, they were pleased to introduce us to the stacks of puris and pratas, to more samosas, to the potato ball. I got a kebab wrapped with salad and sauce in a warmed puri to go, and then we went back up the lane to where the kids dressed crazy queue up for cheeseburgers on the grill.