19/04/18: Margaret Thatcher plate (All Aboard)

All Aboard, North Finchley. Price: £5.

24/02/18: The Who by Numbers (Cancer Research)

Cancer Research, North Finchley. Good to see another No Parlez. It is still THE charity shop LP. I bought the Heaven 17 album and the Sarah McLachlan CD. The album by The Who was missing the disc. But next to the empty sleeve was a different record called The Story of The Who – in badly scratched condition. I went to the till and asked if they had the record for The Who by Numbers and the sleeve for The Story of The Who, but they didn't, so they gave me both for free. So now I have an unplayable Who album in the wrong cover.

28/01/18: Royal wedding magazines (North London Hospice)

North London Hospice, North Finchley. These are the special souvenir issues of Radio Times and its rival, TV Times, brought out the week of the royal wedding of Charles (the Prince of Wales) and Lady Diana Spencer on 29th July 1981. They were going for £2 each, which may have been a bargain. That said, there would have been many millions printed. Of course the smiles and innocence would not last for long, but at the time it was presented as a modern-day fairytale. In 1992 they would be separated, in 1996 they would be divorced and in 1997 Diana would die in a car crash in Paris.

28/01/18: New charity shop in North Finchley

A new charity shop is always a cause for celebration. This RSPCA (Finchley, Golders Green, Hendon and District Branch) has just opened in North Finchey.

22/12/17: A Harry the Dirty Dog Treasury (North London Hospice)

North London Hospice, North Finchley. I found a Harry the Dirty Dog hardback anthology for £1.50 and was very pleased, having loved the original story as a child. In fact, I didn’t even know there were another two books, but all three were compiled in this volume. When I took it to the till, the young man said they were selling two children’s books for a pound. I said I just wanted this one, but that it cost £1.50. He explained that if I bought a second book the price of the pair would fall to £1. I thus began seeking another book and eventually elected a “how to draw comic characters” guide that I didn’t particularly want. He said “That’ll be one pound.” I passed him a £5 note. He said: “Do you want to pay by card or cash?” I thought he didn’t want to give change, so I said I could pay by card, but asked if there was a minimum. He said yes, and that it was £5. So we reverted to cash payment and I handed him the fiver I had been trying to give him all along. A fairly complex and time-consuming transaction, then, but I am happy with the book.

26/08/17: The Sound of Music and Big Wednesday DVDs (Cancer Research)

Cancer Research, North Finchley. The Sound of Music (1965) and Big Wednesday (1978) were a pound each and between them provided almost five hours of solid entertainment. One is about a nun-turned-governess in Austria. The other is about three friends who go surfing and slowly grow up as the world around them changes. The shadow of war (WWII and Vietnam) hangs over both stories, but that's about all they had in common.

29/07/17: Charity shop hop, North Finchley

1. The Bothy – saw a white-label record with a message written on the sleeve: "To Steve, Thought this would be a good first record. Good luck, Sam." But what's on the record? Nearly bought the Substance CD by Joy Division. Not sure why I didn't, actually.

2. Cancer Research was closed, even though the list on the door said it should have been open for an hour already.

3. All Aboard. Plenty of DVDs. "Two books for 50p" special offer still running, but couldn't find two I wanted. Or even one. Nearly bought £1 vinyl copies of Commoners Crown by Steeleye Span and Johnny Cash and His Woman, but they were both too beaten up.

4. North London Hospice. Nearly bought CDs by the Sex Pistols (NMTB), Queen (Greatest Hits) and Talking Heads (Stop Making Sense), but again the condition wasn't quite good enough. Various Anne McCaffrey fantasy novels on the crowded bookshelves.

5. RFFR. Bought three vinyl LPs for £1 each:
• Many a Mile by Buffy Sainte-Marie (1965).
• Back Home Again by John Denver (1974).
• Songs of the British Isles by Nana Mouskouri (1976; one of 200-plus albums Nana released).

02/07/17: Row of CDs (Cancer Research)

North Finchley. Nice row of CDs on the shelf, including...

• Portishead – Dummy (fairly common)

• Belle & Sebastian – two CD singles

• Belle & Sebastian – Storytelling (was tempted to buy this, but didn’t)

• Strictly Commercial: The Best of Frank Zappa (very unusual to see any Zappa in a charity shop)

• R.E.M. – Murmur (a nice change: usually you find at least one copy of Monster)

• 24-Hour Party People (film soundtrack)

• Goldfrapp – Black Cherry (two copies: see this one a lot)

• Art Garfunkel – Across America (was tempted to buy this, but didn’t)

• Supergrass – Life on Other Planets

• Daft Punk – Discovery

• Daft Punk – Homework

• Van Morrison – Audley End (a live concert bootleg: tempted, but only slightly)

• Oasis – Be Here Now (three copies: this can be found almost anywhere)

23/06/17: A brief charity shop hop around North Finchley

In All Aboard, they were selling all books for 50p and they had a buy-one-get-one-free offer. It seemed like a great deal until I actually started going through them and found a disappointing array of old cookery titles, shoddy thrillers and romantic fiction. Someone had donated an entire shelf of Star Trek novels. Looked at the 50p CDs, but there was very little of interest. They had the usual copy of Rockferry by Duffy, which can be found in every charity shop in the UK. I didn't buy anything.

In the trying-on booth, a woman was trying on summer tops without having closed the curtain. She seemed quite happy to do this in full view of the customers, even though she had nothing on underneath.

In North London Hospice I bought one book (Thomas Wolfe's 1935 autobiographical novel Of Time and the River: £1) and one CD (Vanessa Paradis by Vanessa Paradis: £1). They had a live-from-Glastonbury broadcast on the radio, and a woman was singing along to the music to entertain her young child in the pram.

In British Heart Foundation I looked at the books and CDs, but they only seem to stock new and recent-ish items now. That's fine if you want last year's "beach read", but not if you have more exotic tastes.

Looked at the T-shirts. The only music shirt was for Oasis. No thanks.

I couldn't put it off any longer, so I went to have my hair cut.

06/05/17: Everyman's Library Classics (North London Hospice)

North London Hospice, North Finchley. I'm fond of the Everyman's Library classics series and was happy to see a selection of them for sale. Thought about it a bit, then went back the next day and bought four of them:
• Charles Dickens – Little Dorrit
• Charlotte Bronte – Vilette
• D. H. Lawrence – Sons and Lovers
• Thomas Hardy – The Woodlanders

Many happy hours of reading ahead.

25/03/17: L'Image head (Cancer Research)

Cancer Research, North Finchley. Price sticker (£5) on forehead. Gift aid sticker on cheek.

18/03/17: Basket of dollies (North London Hospice)

North London Hospice, North Finchley. Basket of dollies.

22/01/17: Graffiti Bridge/Taxi (North London Hospice)

In North London Hospice, North Finchley, I was pleased to find Prince's Graffiti Bridge and Bryan Ferry's Taxi. I heard the former when it came out, and recall it not being especially good – Prince was in decline post-Lovesexy (1988) – but for £1 it seemed worth another play. Bryan Ferry was well past his best by 1993, but this also seemed worth the "gamble" for a quid. Original HMV prices were £12.99 and £11.99.

22/01/17: Cher – Believe (British Heart Foundation)

British Heart Foundation, North Finchley. They had a CD sale and seemingly quite a few copies of Cher's 1998 album Believe.

28/12/16: The Very Best of Julie London (R.F.F.R.)

RFFR, North Finchley. I saw this CD the other day and was tempted, but foolishly bought a disappointing Carly Simon CD instead (see HERE). Passing R.F.F.R. today, I was delighted to see that Julie had waited for me. Two discs and 50 tracks for a mere 50p – that's one penny per track: not bad going in 2016's broken Brexit Britain. Interestingly, both Carly and Julie cover Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye".

28/12/16: Frog and rabbit (North London Hospice)

North London Hospice, North Finchley. I was very sorry to hear that the author Richard Adams died on Christmas Eve. Maybe I was just feeling sad about all the famous people passing away this week (Rick Parfitt, Carrie Fisher, Liz Smith, etc), but this frog/rabbit scenario suddenly seemed like a bad-dream version of Watership Down.

17/12/16: Back Into the System (R.F.F.R.)

RFFR, North Finchley. Was tempted by Julie London (who wouldn't be?), but ended up buying a Carly Simon CD called Film Noir. Mike Peters' Back Into the System was signed by the former star of The Alarm himself. The gold writing looks like it says: "To Rennie with respect Mike Peters". Clearly the respect wasn't mutual.

03/12/16: I Love Rock 'n' Roll (All Aboard)

All Aboard, North Finchley. I very nearly bought this copy of I Love Rock 'n' Roll by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, but the pages of the booklet were stuck together. Instead, I bought The Visitors by Abba on CD – a masterful album – for £1.

16/07/16: The Green Room – "A New type of charity shop"

A new charity shop has opened in the Grand Arcade at Tally Ho Corner in North Finchley. Calling itself "A New type of charity shop", the Green Room is housed within the former Haircode and promises coins, curios, costume and jewellery. I looked at the books and CDs. There was no sign yet of the "unique seasonal gifts".

16/04/16: Anne and Evelyn (North London Hospice)

North London Hospice, North Finchley. Bargain books. Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread was shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize. Evelyn Waugh's Scoop is a 1938 classic comedy-satire about a newspaper journalist. I read it in the late 1980s/early 1990s and would like to read it again soon.