I agreed to meet Punk Paul on Stokes Croft at around 8 a.m. Paul was exactly where he said he would be—behind the bin next to The Big Issue office. In his early forties, Punk Paul was everything a punk should be—a devout follower of punk bands across the UK, he sported a blue Mohican (when bathroom facilities and soap rations permitted), army issue boots and a battered leather jacket covered in ‘anti-fa’ (anti-fascist) symbols. Paul fashioned the rest of his clothes from whatever he was given by church volunteers and picked up along the way. His distain of authority was firm but friendly. ‘Evening officer,’ he could often be heard saying, with a wink, to local police who regularly busted him for drinking in ‘no drinking zones’. ‘Could you spare a few shekels for an old sea dog? I’m trying to get together a pirate ship to sail off the end of the earth!’ ‘I have to pay Abdul £10.03,’ Paul said, as I approached. Abdul, Stokes Croft’s kindly but long-suffering newsagent, let some homeless people, including Paul, have beer on tick. We walked the short distance from the post office to Abdul’s shop and I waited outside with my dogs while Paul paid his debt. He was holding a can of Tennant’s lager when he reappeared. ‘It’s sort of a constant debt that I have with Abdul!’ He grinned before leading the way down City Road, Brighton Road, and onto Wilder Street. ‘You have to see this place! If you want to see what homelessness is really like in this country . . . this city could be any city, if you ask me. You have to see this place!’ We continued down Wilder Street until we reached a semi-derelict building. Through peeling paint it was possible to read ‘Bristol Transmissions’ above the long-ago boarded-up shop window. ‘It’s known as “The Black House”,’ Paul said, pushing the door. A padlock had been smashed off. Inside, there were two downstairs rooms, both hugely decayed with missing floorboards.
Branding in practice, or how an Amsterdam publisher used the city to promote Gerbrand Bredero (1585–1618)
