Saturday, 14th May 2005.

BOGOF / Bog off

It was about half past one when the salesman knocked on the door. We don't often get visitors at lunchtimes, and certainly not if it's a weekday. Actually, we don't get very many visitors at all, except ones we're expecting. When Mr and Mrs Knight were staying in April I was surprised when the doorbell rang on Saturday evening in the middle of pasta. I opened it on that occasion to find two twelve-year-old boys perched by the wall of the bungalow. "Is James there?" they asked.

"Yes - well, I'm James," I said, a little puzzled. The last time this had happened was when I was in the middle of my GCSEs and a pre-pubescent second year started following me around and calling on me with an alarming regularity that could almost be described as hero-worship. Thinking about this distracted me, and it took a second or two to realise the two lads meant someone else.
"You weren't talking about me, were you?"
"No," said one. "I'm sorry, he's given us the wrong house."
"What house were you looking for?"
"120. But he just said 120 in Sutton Courtenay."
"That could be any one of a dozen streets. Sorry, I can't help."

Anyway. Back to this week, and the shaven-haired twenty-year-old in dark red polo shirt and jeans who stood before me.

"Hello. We're doing door-to-door sales of these photos taken on our recent aerial survey. Are you interested?"
He produced a large portrait-size print of our house, as if viewed from a hundred feet up, perhaps from a hot air balloon. The car was parked in the drive and a warm, deep sun glinted on the edge of the picture: it had evidently been taken in the evening.
"It's a nice picture," I admitted, realising almost immediately that this was probably not the wisest thing I could have said. "But how much are you asking?"
"Forty-five pounds including the frame."
"I'm afraid that's too much."
"Well, you said yourself it's a nice picture."
"Yes, but it's still out of my price range. Listen," I said, adopting one of those you're-my-buddy-and-I'm-telling-you-this-in-confidence smiles I use on people at work, "my wife's about to have a baby. I'm afraid that we're having to penny pinch as much as we can, and while this is nice it simply isn't something that we can afford. We're just having to buy the necessities at the moment as only one of us is working, and I really don't think I want to buy this right now."

I was exaggerating the penny-pinching aspect, I'll admit. But I've learned the hard way that unless you're firm with these people they will grab you and refuse to let go. If I thought that I'd succeeded this time, I was wrong.

"I'll tell you what," he said, his eyes lighting up as if he'd just had a wonderful idea. "We do offer them without the frames as well."
I sighed - the kid obviously wasn't taking no for an answer. He had seemed nice enough when I opened the door, but was starting to grate. "How much?"
"Thirty-five pounds."
"That's still way too expensive."
"All right, I'll throw in the frame as well."
"It is a nice frame," I admitted, not wanting to seem unpleasant. "But look, this isn't even our house. We rent here. As a result there isn't a huge amount of sentimental value attached to it and it's all the more reason why I'm reluctant to spend so much money on something that we frankly wouldn't want to take with us when we move, which will be in a few months." Again this is an exaggeration, but I felt sure that this approach would convince him. And again I was wrong.
"Yeah, but still."
"But still nothing. Look, it's good of you to go to all this trouble. But we're really not interested. Maybe some other time."
"Well, we won't be back here for about ten or fifteen years."
"Maybe we'll catch you then. Or in the meantime we're moving in the not too distant future so perhaps you'll visit our new area before too long."
"So you don't want it? It's a good picture, high quality, will look good on the wall."
"And under other circumstances I might consider it. But I've told you again that it's not something that we can afford or particularly want given our current situation, and I'm afraid that nothing you say is going to convince me otherwise. Now -"
"Is your wife home, perhaps?" he said, giving it one last try. "How about you take this in to show her?"

Sheesh. Anything for a quiet life. I headed into the lounge, where Emily was just swinging her feet off the edge of the sofa to see what was taking me so long. She examined the photo briefly and said "Tell him that we're charging twenty pounds a time to take photos of our house. That'll get rid of him."

Perhaps I'm losing my touch; ever since we registered for that telephone preference service the number of unwanted sales calls we get has decreased dramatically, with the result that I rarely find myself having to get rid of people. I know that they're doing their job and that makes me feel bad about being rude to them - but sometimes you have no choice. In this instance, the bald student in the polo shirt had outstayed his welcome by at least two and a half minutes and for whatever reason he was having a lot of trouble accepting the fact that I wasn't going to buy his goods. I pictured his manager, a greasy overweight Spaniard perhaps, waiting in the back of a van (or even a cart pulled by a donkey), swigging Tequila from a hip flask and beating his lackeys with an iron rod if they didn't make their commission. But it's not even as if it has mass appeal - it's a niche market and in the case of rented property there is very little point in investing.

All of this was lost on our would-be salesman, who I have to admit I admired for persistence alone. I handed him back the picture and gave one last shake of my head. "I'm really sorry. But categorically no. We don't want this. Now..."

I couldn't exactly tell him to go away because he was interrupting us while we were trying to watch Brainteaser, but he finally seemed to get the point. I watched him as he wandered slowly down the drive, head bowed slightly, presumably trying to work out if he'd earned enough to escape a lashing that evening. Maybe it's merely emotional blackmail on their part - nonetheless it's hard not to wonder why they're so desperate to sell. I'm glad I didn't cave in, but I still felt like a heel.