Buddha

This is the kind of shop I like; when you walk past it’s just a blurred blare of colours and shapes, and then when you look closely you can make out the tormented soul of the owner, who doesn’t seem to know whether to plump for expensive good taste, or just tat.

Timepieces are not lacking and come in all shapes and sizes, including Louis Quinze (whatever that is). Brass swans splash about in imaginary water, an effect caused, at least in my head, by the large quantity of crystal, much of which imprisons objects in frozen time, objects such as ships, or dolphins, or love birds or flowers.

Onyx abounds, galloping across the savannah (or maybe that’s Oryx; I always mix them up). Either way, onyx is one of my favourite words, verging on the pre-vocal grunt of an earlier era. Anyway, if you share this passion then your onyx can be sold to you as a chess set, a tortoise or an egg.

Failing that you can buy a tasteful pair of gramophone player bookends, an egg on a plinth, a glass dolphin in mid-leap, or a carved ivory tusk (aren’t they supposed to be illegal?)

Carved wooden fish, a cat made of cork and steel, Massai warriors looking grumpy and of course Buddhas in all shapes and sizes and, not to limit the market to exotic Far Eastern religion, a transparent Christ crucified.

When grapes are out of season (if such a thing can happen in the global village) they are available in bunches of jade, quartz and agate.

A solitary knight stands in full pint-size armour (although it may be décor rather than product, a bit like the fire extinguisher at a modern art museum, where you’re not sure if it’s making a statement or not) competing with a plethora of Samurai warriors in advances stages of leaping and slicing, while for the quieter moments there are chopstick sets and hip flasks.

‘Buddha’ has three ample, ‘illuminated’ shop windows, being on a corner, and as you move round to the right, tasteful turns tacky and you come across Bart Simpson key rings, Fallas figurines that look dated even for Fallas, and a clock shaped like a pineapple which doesn’t look much like a pineapple and is too offensive even to be shoved behind a sofa.

There are all kinds of wooden and gem-encrusted boxes, which may be for lost buttons or may be for snuff. There are Chinese vases and urns that could be Ming but are more likely Bing and play White Christmas when you open them, and next to the urns a series of ashtrays, which might reveal a macabre sense of humour on the owner’s part, but probably doesn’t.

It has often been an ambition of mine to open a museum dedicated to bad taste, and at Buddha I couldn’t certainly make a good start.

Buddha is near Valencia’s lively Central Market on the corner of C/ Madre de Deu de Gracia and Avenida Baron de Carcér, although as any Buddhists knows, life is an illusion and the only map worth following is the map of the soul.