My Friend Went to Whitby and all I Got ...

I went to the UK's Goth capital at the very time when it was packed to frothing with Goth retailers and all I managed to buy was a Steampunk cross made from cogs bought off a foppish young man who looked suspiciously like a poet, and an old chloroform bottle purchased from a fiddle-tormenting antiques dealer who warned me not to take up the instrument 'because there are too many violin players'.