Good day fair people of t’internet. First off today I start with a quick public service announcement…

Lemony is unwell and in hospital. Please contact me for further details, but she does need cheering up a LOT. Poor thing. I’m so worried it hurts.!

In other news, The Ham only managed sixth on the grid for tomorrows Spanish Grand Prix. Genius. But it is a very boring track so we won’t make bones about it. Wait until it gets to somewhere exciting like Belgium or Canada.

Saturday night means I am actually alone tonight, with Ghostbusters, some pear cider, a little mackarel and a laptop for company but as I had a great night out last night and tomorrow I am off on an adventure with Sexy Dave, Nay and Chili then I could probably do with the rest.

Note to all you people who eat jelly tots… Tits and Arse at work on Friday managed to pour the sugar into my coke bottle and found it turned into the English equivalent of a Mentoes bomb. Coke everywhere.. and only one of them is blonde.! Shocking.

Oh and I thought of something else I missed off my big list of things that piss me off in retail…

If you are 105 years old and want to buy a wardrobe then it is a really good idea to have it delivered. If you are 17, a slag and have 7 kids with you and wish to buy a LARGE stereo system with massive speakers that look like they have been designed by a blind boy racer from Essex, then have it delivered. If you are STUPID enough to walk up to my counter and as I struggle to hand you thirty kilos of 42″ LCD TV I hear you utter the phrase “Oh, I didn’t think it would be that big” then please don’t be offended when I leap the counter and bugger your small children.

Having an ounce of common sense doesn’t seem to factor into the heads of people who buy large or heavy items. It’s a bit like someone walking into a shop that sells atoms and moaning everything is really small and invisible to the naked eye. Or bounding into a camera shop and complaining that “all you sell is cameras”. Surely if you are at home looking at your wardrobe which has collapsed thinking “Ooooh one of the biggest bits of furniture in my house needs renewing” then it can’t take too much time to make the connection between ‘Big bit of wood’ and ‘I am going to have to carry that down the High Street’. Actually, knowing our customers, the collapse could be purely because of the sheer WEIGHT of clothing inside them… figure a fat bird wearing a dress composed of enough material to entirely reupholster every train carriage running on British Railways and imagine ten of those bad boys hanging on a thin strip of metal held between two pieces of chipboard.

Hmmmm. You know what, that reminds me of something else. When you tell someone they can’t carry it and would they like to pick it up from the delivery entrance, then INSIST that they can carry it as it is, despite it coming in three huge boxes, then as you hernia your way across the shop with it they suddenly come to their (little) senses and tell you they will take it from the back. The trouble is that when I then drag them bodily across the counter and interface them with the sharp bolts that poke out the racking it is me that gets arrested. Bastards.!!!

Slowly but surely I am turning into Parky from Viz I am sure.

Think it might be time to stop otherwise I will spend all night ranting and have no energy for tomorrow. Breakfast here we come.! Yay.

After posting that long list of annoyances I have over my darling customers the other day, I have had a few more added, mostly by Chili through gritted teeth, but a couple more from other people and my own thoughts.

So do you want them.?? Do you.???? Here girl *whistles and slaps thighs* Come on.!!

Right then, four more AAARRRGGGGHHHH moments to enjoy, listen up folks…

You stand in a queue in a shop. You are ONLY there for the SOLE reason of making a purchase. You have a little slip of paper in your sweaty paw and you have already checked it is in stock. For some reason, maybe it is busy, perhaps we can’t be arsed to have more than one till on and you are waiting in the queue for a few minutes. As you slowly shuffle forward amongst a myriad of single mothers, the unemployed and the elderly you sigh repeatedly at the waiting time. Then finally you burst forth into freedom, the next till space is all yours. As you head towards my smiling/scowling face you instantly complain about the long wait. I type your details into my till and then ask for your payment AND THEN YOU PISS AROUND FOR FUCKING AGES TRYING TO FIND YOUR PURSE. You have stood in that queue for nigh on a quarter of an hour but you haven’t got enough common sense to have your card or cash ready. Why is that so.?? Why moan that we kept you waiting but you haven’t actually got the courtesy to ready yourself for the bit you have been queuing for.! You are the sort of person I want to rip to shreds with my teeth; you really don’t deserve to be out of the house EVER.

If I’m serving someone… talking to them about a product maybe or perhaps on the phone helping someone who isn’t able to get to the store then please understand I will not help you no matter how much you wave at me, repeatedly say my name or bang on the counter. If you wish to wave at me then I might wave back politely or I might flick the V’s and mouth the word “retard” at you… if you want to repeatedly shout my name then I will usually be up for a quick shag after work where you can holler it until your throat falls out and your lungs collapse. If you bang on the counter then it is very likely you will annoy me and the second I finish with that customer I will find some excuse to ignore you and leave you to your own devices. To the woman who came up and talked over me whilst I was on the phone a while back… if MY lips are MOVING then YOU don’t get a reply other than the flat of my hand held up in your face, which seemed to annoy you, and a shake of my head. Idiot.

Manners cost nowt in the world. I spend eight hours at a time on a till or somewhere and I have to be polite to you sods. Even if I have had a really bad day, some puppies have drowned in front of me, Labour have won another bloody election, it doesn’t matter. If I am miserable then you don’t usually know because I am so good at having to hide it. I always say thanks/cheers/please/hello/goodbye because unlike you I have some intelligence and courtesy. If you want to buy a toaster then fine, but when I try and sell you a little insurance or something to go with it, as is my job, then rather than snap “NO” in my face, just say “No thank you”. It’s a lot easier being nice to me than finding your toaster is broken when you get home.

And finally…

Under consumer law you have a reasonable expectation of a product to last a certain amount of time depending on the price. Buy a Tesco Value kettle for £2.48 and you will GET a Tesco Value kettle. If it last ten months then you have had your monies worth so don’t worry about it. If it breaks then bin it and splash out on a new one.

If you spend £10 on an item with a lifetime guarantee then how long should that last.? A lifetime, sounds unreasonable for the price, if you want something to last then dip your hand in your pocket and pull out more money. I buy decent stuff like Mp3 players and my TV because I know in the long run it will save me having to spend on a new one. You buy a £200 Bush LCDTV and it might last a few months, you then buy another at the same price. Why not spend £300 on a JVC or Samsung LCDTV and not buy another one until a good few years later. It makes sense. Save up your dosh and THEN buy the stuff.

EYE THENK EWE.

Sunday morning and I STILL ache all over from Friday night. Called in sick to the night out last night and got home at 10.45 to an admirals pie and a glass of coke which I needed a LOT. Hehe.

Was just watching footage of Senna again, from his crash in 1994. I know it was over 14 years ago now but it still leaves me shivery and empty seeing such a talent dying in full view of everyone in the world. A few other videos popped up on youtube and I browsed those as well. What a price to pay for doing something you love.!

Anyway I am off for a bath and I would have a shave but I left all the gubbins at work. Arse, hairy I shall stay until later then.!

Oh and moved from yesterday…

A HUGE hello to Chili, mentioned for the first time.!!! You shexy lady.! At least you don’t look like the Bride of Chuckie.

Someone the other day, and I won’t name names purely because it is a side of me a lot of people don’t know, questioned my love of the band Pulp.

Now I am sure a lot of you who read my blog regularly know that I often refer to Mr Cocker, Mr Senior, Miss Doyle, Mr Banks and Mr Mackey and their crowning achievements because their music has accompanied me through so many different parts of my life. To be totally blunt I miss them right now, because since they broke up I have lost an important sound track to the stuff that goes on in my life and my head. Each album I have “discovered” by them has been associated purely with people I have dated/been friends with/known well.

When it comes to getting right down to the basic understanding of their music it is very simple. I am actually in love with that band. When I hear one of their songs, especially the early 1990s stuff, it makes me shiver. The sound gets into my head instantly and if I can I stop and let it wash over me. The only other band that does that is Dire Straits, not all of their stuff admittedly, but to pick out one particular bit is the dual guitar solo in Expresso Love, two minutes and twenty six seconds to two minutes fifty four seconds. Twenty eight seconds of a sound I can’t quite describe. Especially if you have your stereo up loud and your head between the speakers, dead centre. It never fails to make me stop and listen, even if I am really busy, NOTHING gets in the way of me listening to it.

So back to Pulp…

The epic songs. Those are the ones that made me fall for Pulp. I could take their music and leave it (the commercial sounds of Misshapes and Something Changed especially), but the first time I put that tape of Different Class into my walkman on Christmas day 1995, and heard I Spy for the first time… it amazed me. I had heard music before, but never like that. I remember rewinding it and replaying it again and again that evening… listening to first I Spy and then on the B side (tape remember) F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. From that moment on I listened to that tape at least twice a day… taking it to college and listening to it on the bus, in the lectures, at lunch. I only slowed down when another album caught my ear. His ‘n’ Hers, their previous LP which for me is one of the best written albums in history.

I’ve raved on about David’s Last Summer a fair few times as it is the perfect closing to any album, but when added on the end of His ‘n’ Hers it’s just the EXACT song that you need to hear at the close of that LP… pure closure.

Everyone, well almost everyone, loves music. Some listen to it every day, others barely at all. But how many of us are actually in love with music.? The next time you pop a track on your mp3 player and sit there on the bus or in the bath, listen properly to whatever track you have put on. Pick out the defining sounds, the little moments that make you go back to a REALLY good song over and over again. That line in a song that you remember all day, reciting it in your mind. People come and go, music is always there with you.

And now on a totally different note…

I have been reading stories about customers from hell in restaurants. It instantly put me in mind of those ignorant assholes that I sometimes have to deal with. Got any pet peeves in your workplace.? Well why don’t you enjoy a few of mine…

People who INSIST on talking on their mobile phones while I attempt to serve them. If you aren’t listening when I tell you the item you are buying isn’t returnable and then you complain then fuck you, YOU were stupid enough to not put your phone call to some old slag called Tanya down for five seconds. I have started refusing to actually put anything through the till until they stop their conversations or talk very close to them and very loud so the person they are talking to becomes inaudible over my voice.

Sweaty/pissy/infested customers. For fuck’s sake buy some deodorant/puppy pads/Canestan and sort your filthy life out. I don’t want to serve you if you smell and I will always walk away and leave you on your own if I can possibly get away with it.

Bastards who put the selection form and cash/card etc on the counter when my hand is open and waiting three centimetres away for you to just hand it to me. I now purposely put the change/card/receipt on the counter instead of handing it to the cunt who has just ignored my outstretched palm. From now on I shall also be flicking the selection form off the counter onto the floor “by accident” so they can sort themselves out.

Kids… I don’t like you children, they are loud, annoying and piss me off. If you insist on letting them run around I will happily tell you to control them or I will ask you to leave. When the little shit falls over and takes both his eyes out on the flyer stand or runs into the cabinets and ends up with bits of glass in his face, I am the poor sod who has to fill in the forms and YOU will be the pathetic inbred who tries to sue us for having a dangerous shop.

The elderly. No offence peeps but the queue behind you is getting impatient and although you are a truly wonderful polite customer, I personally couldn’t give two fucks about your husband dying in 1975 of some horrible disease. I also don’t care if you have weeping sores on your legs, a pustulated vagina or a chicken stuck in your rectum. Just move along please.!

People who don’t understand the concept of OUT OF STOCK. I have none of the thing you want in my store. No store for 100 miles has it either. The warehouse is as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard and deliveries are not expected until a month from now. Why do you still insist on keeping on at me when the items don’t even exist in this dimension.!!! Wanker.

Huge Pakistani families, I don’t know why you insist on taking your eight kids AND your grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins just to buy one £5 sandwich toaster… you get in the way, you take up all the seats with your bloody kids while my older customers have to stand and you are unable to grasp the fact the second we see you coming we move the mobiles off sale.

And finally… If you come in to the shop at 5.28 then expect to be told to be quick. If you are slow then I will ask you to leave. If you insist on staying then your item “may” be a lot quicker appearing than you realise, for reasons other than efficient little me.!

Right… off for dinner I think.!

Half way through my week off. Been a lot of fun so far… Lots of fun indeed.

Bought a lot of stuff this week, not all for me, but today I actually spent some on me and splashed out on a new shirt or two, a top (which has been instantly “borrowed”, lol) and some more jeans (don’t care if you think I look funny, no one else does). So I am all set for Friday night, just need my three friends to get me the heroin, speed and kilo of coke and it will be excellent.

Any one fancy doing a little running for me..? Got this big fiery torch thing, needs to be delivered to Beijing at some point. Had a bit of trouble with the whole “stopping people attacking the torch bearer” thing. Now you see alllllll these people in the US, UK, France etc (although not so much the Frenchies) lining the streets to watch the flame trundle by, carried by ex-Blue Peter presenters and Jimmy Saville at some point possibly, are then treated to the bizarre spectacle of a gay man carrying a fire extinguisher trying to put the flame out “because of China’s record on human rights”.

*Sound of teeth grinding*

More so, Richard Gere, yes the man with the gerbil in his bottom (apparantly) in the USA, has taken time outto talk to Human Rights Activists over the invasion of Tibet by China, oh and about the Human Rights stuff too.

*Sound of dental enamel snapping*

Surely China invading Tibet isn’t that far removed from the Invasion of Iraq.? Does China not have slightly better human rights records than the US.? Why in hell does Peter Fucking Tatchell have to stick his ugly face in at every point in the modern world, why has no one killed him yet, or given him AIDS just for the amusement maybe.

Yeah, yeah, I know… China is Communist, The Red. The old enemy. But why do these stupid people think they will influence a country with the largest standing army in the world by jumping out in front of someone jogging down Pall Mall dressed like an advert for 118118 whilst holding the world’s most ridiculous firework.!!?!! It’s totally bonkers.

Idiots.!