Mothers, daughters and colour coding

"This really isn't what I call a mother and daughter shopping trip," says Beth, staring round the packed shelves.

"What's wrong with it?" I say. "There's more things than you can shake a stick at. And that's what it's all about. Things. Looking at them. Trying them on. Laughing at ourselves. A rare moment of inter-generational togetherness."

"No offence," she says, "but somehow, when you said 'let's hit the shops,' I wasn't thinking Oxfam."

"You're striking a blow againsy rampant materialism," I say. "Be proud. This is the first of many sub prime shopping trips. And it's my treat. I've got two pounds in small change in my pocket, and I'm not afraid to dig deep into it."

"Too kind," says Beth. "Well, I suppose I could look at the books."

She wanders off.

Meanwhile, as I run my eyes up and down the shelves, not letting them settle for two long lest somebody sticks a price tag to the iris and tries to flog them, I can't help overhearing the conversation between two other customers.

Their conversation sounds completely normal. But it is also extraordinary because it is completely lacking in inflection; so flat, so unaccented that it is as if they have learnt their words by heart before they came out and are now acting their lines in public but without any real feeling for the words.

"Isn't that nice? It's not too tight on my bottom, is it?"

"I think we might nearly have spent our money..."

"That would look nice, wouldn't it, on a hot summer's day?"

The smaller of the two women has a neat bob of black hair surrounding the tiniest of faces, a downturned mouth. She utters her lines in a vaguely nasal voice that is lacking all conviction. I listen, avidly.

"What does this look like?"

"You could wear it in the winter...."

"It's a bit big. I'd have to put poppers on it. What do you think?"

There's no sequence, no conclusion, no continuity. I am surrounded by their words, pushing my way through them like somebody in a snowstorm when Beth, fortunately, reappears.

"Come and see the books," she hisses and drags me to the back of the shop.

The books look - odd, somehow but, like the conversation I've just overheard, it's hard to pinpoint exactly why that should be.

Then - "Do you see?" says Beth. "Look at the way they've been arranged."

I look again and see that she's right. The books haven't been arranged by topic - Crime, Fiction, Biography; nor by author, alphabetically. Instead, somebody has painstakingly organised them by colour.

There are five shelves of books with white spines. Another three or four with dark blue or black spines. Other colours take their place in a rainbow like display between them. It's magnificent. It's striking. And, unless you happen to know exactly which colour your favourite authors are published in, it's almost completely hopeless.

We admire it for a while, then leave, empty handed.

"You see," I say. "That was very good for us both. What about Princess Alice next time. I hear they do a great line in almost matching lampshades?"