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.!

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 9:44 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.