I found myself at the Electric Ballroom for the second time in three days. To go there once may look like misfortune, but twice looks like you've gone Christmas shopping with your girlfriend. Yes folks, it's Camden Market.

It's frankly astonishing that there was once a time, in late 1989, when the prospect of a trip to NW1 on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning caused me to become mildly excited. There's never a lot to be said for walking at 0.34 mph over the bridge at Camden Lock in a cloud of dope smoke, with only the spectacle of some godforsaken ornament made out of a baked bean tin to look forward to. But Jenny needed a parka, as she's off to the chilly wastes of Sweden in a few days, and also a specific garment for her 10-year old niece. So off we went.

It's as vile as I remember it. A hideous collection of supposedly underground fashion and kooky accessories sold at jawdropping markups to gullible teens. But not just teens. At the Laibach gig on Thursday I was reminded that some people take their teenage obsessions with gigantic boots, zips and bolts through their noses, and carry them ceremoniously into middle age, as if it's all they have to hang on to. So the stalls keep carrying the stuff, younger people snap it up, and thus a look that was cutting edge among Bauhaus fans in 1983 somehow pervades among anyone who claims to be misunderstood. I didn't see any 3/4 length jeans and deelyboppers on sale, which all, er, normal people were touting 20 years ago. It would be good to stamp this kind of thing out – or at least make people think a little – by staging an aggressive takeover bid for Camden Market and replacing it with stalls selling Arran sweaters, scones and home-made jams.

So, the parka. I really wanted Jenny to approach all the stallholders and say “Parka?” until one of them replied “Yes, M'Lady.” But she didn't. Eventually a blue one with orange lining was snapped up for £25, and on we went to Camden Lock to find a turquoise oriental top, size 6. I saw stalls selling t-shirts stating proudly “I Do Mingers”, as if that would be likely to ingratiate the wearer with young ladies. Except perhaps the kind of young ladies who are already wearing t-shirts saying “I Am A Minger”, which isn't out of the realms of possibility. As you move away from the main road, you become dangerously embroiled in alternative craft and healing crystals. I started to squeal, as I saw someone selling something called “vegetable ivory”. I can understand the need for people to own shiny ornaments that haven't been sourced from the body of a dead elephant, but vegetable ivory? What IS that? I scanned adjoining stalls for some vegetable gold. There was none.

Jenny had her hair cut on Friday. One of the juniors in the salon has a sister who is about to give birth. She already has one child, a boy called Armani. ARMANI. But that's not the worst of it. She has decided that it is to be pronounced “Armané”. So for that poor boy's whole life, he'll have to correct people, saying “No, ArmanÉ!” Maybe he'll end up working in a cafe. Sorry, café. Anyway, the name lined up for the new child is Georgia. Georgia and Armani. Some people have no respect for their offspring.

God, I sound old.