Hairstyles and Attitudes

I had a hair cut in Stratford yesterday (thanks Indi, fine work as usual). This alerted TCMT that I would be in the vicinity of Lakeland, a shop where she used to work and which purveys several products which we never knew we needed until we got them but now can't live without. She gave me a list. I asked for a translation. It's not a fault it's a feature. TCMT2 will cross her Ts.

And so it came to pass that I entered the shop, having arrived fifteen minutes early for my haircut, calculating that I had enough time to buy the three listed things first.

I am familiar with the layout of Lakeland and claimed the kettle descaler bags and medium sized rubber gloves within seconds. The lens-cleaning wipes were harder to track down and, although it feels like an admission of defeat, I approached the counter and asked for help. A woman of about sixty, five foot three, bobbed grey hair and large glasses pointed to the boxes three feet from my right hand. I felt an idiot but TCMT later told me that they kept them on the counter because they are a best-seller.

Hold the description of the assistant in your head. It will be important later.

Lakeland try and have sales staff that match the customer demographic. If you imagine you are selling to a sixty year old woman you won't go far wrong. I'm sure they enjoy the men who come in and see it as a badge of honour to find the stuff like a treasure hunt rather than seek help. Maybe they run a sweepstake on how long it will be before we ask.

One customer profile is a grey haired, not-unattractive woman who gives off vibes of Baroness or Mrs Something-in-the-City. This woman is used to having staff and knows how to treat them. She will never search in the store for that might suggest an interest in the stock. No, she will walk through the door, adjust her dress for the new environment, and announce her presence by shouting 'clingfilm' or some such product. She will then wait for someone to jump. They'd better.

Apparently it is worth being nice to such people who may, on a whim, choose to buy air-fryers for all their family for Christmas.

Back to my story. Satisfied that I had all the products on my list and had correctly identified any necessary deals (two for one, buy one get one free and an email every day for life) I went back to the counter and brandished my purchases. There are normally questions about loyalty here but TCMT has the Lakeland card so I said no. I was spending about £15.

'If you get the app today you get 10% off' said the kindly woman. (Ten minutes to hair appointment now.) I succumbed.

I scanned a QR code (how rock and roll am I) and went through the process. It was surprisingly easy and I reached the last stage when a message proclaimed 'Your new card will appear here - it may take a few minutes.' (Seven minutes to hair appointment.)

I read the sentence back to the assistant who looked at me as if I was the sort of person who read things aloud in shops. I went on to explain that I needed to be next door in five minutes and could I proceed without the discount. Another gormless look.

A voice from behind me said 'Are you ready now?' I turned round. Sure enough the assistant who had been serving me had wandered off to do some other task while she waited for me and had been replaced behind the counter by another woman who was clearly different but would have matched the same description precisely. Neither may have been sixty. As you can gather I don't pay much attention. I'd been drinking with a friend for an hour once when he cracked and asked if I was going to ask him about his black eye. At that point I noticed it.

Wrongs righted with a 'What am I like' and assistant A returned and my new loyalty card appeared on my phone screen. I made some comment about being glad to get the discount when assistant B told me that it only applied to purchases over £30. I didn't speak but managed to incarnate all the disappointments of my current life (medical, financial, West Brom's run of results) into a single look and assistant A folded. I got the discount. I paid the bill. I arrived at my hair appointment on the dot.

Somehow the whole process reminded me of the church at Failand which, when I arrived in the team in 2006 had fifteen members average age 75. When I left sixteen years later having observed or taken several funerals for the congregation it had fifteen members average age 75. It was as if there was a deal that every 65 year old in the village had to join the church when an 85 year old died. 'Come on Mavis, your turn now.' It worked. Also, they paid their parish share. Or maybe the baroness paid all of it.

If you fit the description, apply for a job at Lakeland. It may be your turn. Today we discovered we had run out of Moth Off, or whatever it is called now. I may need to go back.

Come to think of it the second one may not have had glasses.  

Losing It

In the mid 1990s I was helping to set up a stand at an exhibition and the hall had no heating on. So I went to a 24/7 Tesco megastore in Manchester and bought a fleece. I recall asking  my colleague, Clive, what sort of person shopped at Tesco at midnight and he looked at me and said 'You'.

I came very close to losing it the other day. It wouldn't have been the fault of the checkout assistant at Pets at Home but it was in front of him.

Those of you who know me will probably now be wondering what sort of pet I have. I don't. I simply wanted to recharge the garden bird feeders. There is no local independent pet shop like Aaron's in Nailsea here, so I had to go to the out of town retail park world where Pets at Home lives.

I found what I needed and took it to the counter. Assistant looked at me and asked 'Do you have a loyalty card?' I kept it together and managed to say 'No'. What I wanted to say was 'Do I look like the sort of person who has a f***ing Pets at Home loyalty card?' Offered a 10% discount on my peanuts, suet balls and sunflower hearts if I signed up then and there, I agreed to get one. 

He asked me a number of questions including 'What sort of pet(s) do you have?'

'None' was not an answer the computer could stomach. He put 'bird'.

I now have a Pets at Home app. It's a VIP card and is accessed, I kid you not, through a Pawtal. And if I want a good deal on, cages, mirrors and perches it's only a click away. Just in case I forget, I get weekly emails reminding me of this plus invites to join Vets4Pets or Companion Care.

What sort of person has a Pets at Home loyalty card and app? The same sort of person who buys a fleece at an out of town hypermarket at midnight. Me. Loser.

There were no birds visiting our new garden. I've counted seven species so far. Redemption. Not quite Falling Down territory.

Lessons from Ironmongery

I have been quiet on the blogging front recently. Many of you know that I retired in January. Circumstances have conspired to leave us renting our old home until a much-delayed new one is ready. Looks like September now.

The good bit of this is that our older son, who came back to live with us last year, has a little more time to find a new home in Bristol. And the rush to downsize and get packed and moved whilst winding down and handing on my job has been much more relaxed. Whatever your position on the map of faith most kind people would agree that 37 years as a clergyman might have been a bit gruelling. I have now been retired for longer than any period of sabbatical or study leave I have ever had so my psyche is beginning to realise that it doesn't have to go back to work on Monday.

Back in the autumn, when we still imagined we would be getting out in the New Year, we went round the house looking at our possessions, especially the larger ones. Stuff had to go, as the contents of a five bedroomed vicarage prepared to be poured into a three bedroomed home.

Figure 1

We used a three-colour traffic-light label system:

Green = like it or need it, take it with us

Red = hate it or don't need it, dispose

Amber = can't decide yet

If you like my four box diagrams, which I developed during my time as a professional trainer and find usually help explain almost everything, then I have designed one (Figure 1).

Thing is, I was amazed by how little of our stuff I actually liked. All our new wooden storage-type furniture could go as far as I was concerned. Likewise  the dining room table and chairs. It is functional, plain and middle-aged. As indeed was I, once. We have a nice big leather sofa which will fit in our new lounge and a few other pleasant and comfy chairs. The chair my Dad used to sit in at the end of my family dining room is with us. I've known it since 1955. It doesn't match anything but it means something.

We agreed about keeping any books we  loved, would recommend or re-read. My vinyl and musical instruments were a deal-breaker. We are all being ruthless with our wardrobes and one or two pieces (not mine) are doing well on E-bay. Free-to-Collect Nailsea has been a way our functional stuff can help others.

Figure 2

Liz used to work for a homeware retailer called Cargo. Lots of our functional furniture came from there, discounted because it was end of line or damaged. Their stuff was a godsend when our combined incomes were struggling to furnish a big Vicarage. We will hand it on, as we will the fifty sets of crockery and cutlery we don't really need any more.

But the best deal we ever did with Cargo was the counter units. Back in the day, Cargo took over a rather traditional ironmongers called J. W. Carpenter. These shops had wonderful, made-for-purpose pine counters. Cargo chose to replace them with sleek modern plastic and stainless steel jobbies and the old units were flogged off. We offered £100 for four. And they have lived with us for over 20 years since.

Figure 3

The one covered in filing trays and a printer (Figure 2) is in my being-dismantled office. It was once my stationery cupboard and its surface where I put things that I needed to take with me next. Tip to clergy retiring. If you are not moving at once, try and change the vibe of the room that used to be your office/study.

The next one (Figure 3) became the TV stand. It also houses birthday and Christmas wrapping paper. On the right hand end (by the yellow cushion) are two protruding nails at an angle. They used to hold the counter supply of paper bags. We left them there. I love that they have history from before they met us. All the drawers are a bit wonky but move smoothly, polished by the retail transactions they witnessed. 

'Can I have a pound of number 8 woodscrews Mr Carpenter?'

It is not beyond the bounds of probability that one of the drawers once contained candles and a customer asked for four.

Figure 4

All the doors are held shut by slightly different catches; they were probably an afterthought.

The third one holds a random collection of OS maps, DVDs, photographs and instruction manuals. It sits in a room that was once a little lounge (we called it a snug) which was great when only two of us lived here and one was running a meeting in the bigger lounge. That room has now become a place where things are sorted before leaving. My piano is a bit nomadic in our house. It's currently there too.

And the fourth, the biggest, sits at the end of the conservatory (so it is a bit sun-drenched) and houses the aforementioned 50 sets of crockery and cutlery.

Figure 5

Regular guests at our house for food-based events would often start laying the table without being asked. I love that level of hospitality where guests become family.

These are all coming with us if possible, or we will make arrangements to keep them in the family somehow. 

It's strange what possessions mean. Do your things tell any stories? Money has bought us very little which we truly value. Circumstances, memories and people however have been generous.

Why do I keep waking up with a red label on my forehead?

Training News

Those of us who consider it part of our duties to train other people have many stories to tell. TCMT and I have many fine conversations about this because I am married to someone who also has to train. And so to our story for the day. I've tweaked a few details and missed some out. People in the know will know but hey, I've tried.

Some years ago TCMT was a regional manager for a large chain of shops. The organisation was taken over by a holding company who did not, in their guts, believe that being a woman and being a regional manager were compatible. Furthermore, in whatever organisational situation she found herself, being a retail regional manager who did a good job (kept profits up and staff happy) was certainly incompatible with the European Working Time Directives (soon to be RIP'd I guess). So she and I had a bit of a chat, surrendered a bit of our joint income and she took the 'sod-this-for-a-game-of-soldiers' line and resigned.

But. and there is a but, she likes playing shops, helping customers and the retail environment. If there is a finer placater of the hostile and angry in this world then they probably work at ACAS or the UN or summat.

So she went back to a part-time shop-floor job with a different employer and got back her mojo.

Recently the store manager left and there is a gap before the new one arrives. The chain she works for doesn't do 'assistant manager' so they thrive on the sort of chaos you get when no-one is in charge. They also (and this is loving husband speaking) may take just a teensy bit of a liberty with the fact that, although low paid, TCMT could run the store and turn a profit with her eyes shut. She simply doesn't want to any more.

But from time to time she accepts that there is nowhere else for the buck to go and carries it along for a bit.

I expect you're wondering about training. Well spotted.

So yesterday was a day of being accidentally in charge. I think TCMT is an inveterate trainer. That is to say she likes moving people towards the required standard of competence by observation, conversation, direction, advice, correction, review and input. (I made that up. Like it?)

This chat ensued?

TCMT: You know that thing you were going to take upstairs?

Junior: Yes.

TCMT: But you left it at the bottom of the stairs to remind you?

Junior: Yes.

TCMT: (Knowing that it had been left approximately three feet from a sensible place) Did you think about where to leave it?

Junior: Yes.

TCMT: So what is the problem with where you left it?

Junior: Maybe someone carrying a box down stairs might not see it and fall over it?

TCMT: Anything else?

Junior: Well I guess in a fire you might not see it?

TCMT: So why did you leave it there?

Junior: You know, I thought of you as I put it down.

Whilst it must be kinda tough having a co-worker who knows almost everything, someone who knew, intuitively and then actually, as they placed an object in the wrong place, that it was wrong and furthermore dangerous and that an experienced colleague would call them on it, STILL DID IT!

That deserves the rare accolade of an exclamation mark I believe my friends. At least I get to train the trainable.

A Parable for our Times

There can be fewer more satisfying feelings in the world than pulling up alongside a car at traffic lights - that car which overtook you back down the road travelling at excessive speed. One of the few occasions in life when being compared to a tortoise is satisfactory.

Hold that thought.

I have little time for mindless, unnecessary retail. I carry on with semi-defective items much loved and unreplaced - old pants, worn-out kitchen utensils and functional but dated gadgets keep me company. Bear in mind however that I have been married to unnecessary retail for some years now and it has kept the door lupine free and the table bread-covered. But no-one else could have kept her and their sanity so long. I see her as a sort of rescue-wife. The intention is that she reads that paragraph and laughs. If you see me again it went well.

Two years or so ago I was given a gift of a new peg bag. No catch in the title: it's a bag to hold pegs. Observing the way I pegged the old bag to the line and then spun the line round (it is a rotary one; I am not stupid) TCMT purchased from the shop at which she works a new peg bag which saved labour by hanging round my neck. It caused the local observers much amusement and this picture was taken. I was, and remain, unamused. Having developed a way of doing things I approach labour-saving devices the way Mrs Doyle approaches a Teasmade.

Still, not wishing to cause offence... no that's wrong. Wishing to cause offence but deciding not to, I started using the new bag. About this time my wooden pegs were replaced with some natty plastic ones. Those seabirds ain't gonna kill themselves. As you do I put all the wooden pegs and the old bag in my box of things that may one day become a youthwork activity. It did.

This week the new peg bag was taken back to the shop to be replaced because it is defective and the strap has broken three times in two years. I had stapled it back together each time because THAT IS WHAT I DO! But I am told it must go back. The shop in question will replace it because they do that sort of thing to keep customers whose average age ensures they will die before needing a second replacement. Bag for life? Sounds like a fair swap.

So, I discovered all my new pegs had been put in a 5p, plastic bag. I suppose it was intended to be used in some way as a temporary replacement but it wouldn't peg to the line properly. So I have replaced the replacement with a pleasant, if a little faded, peg-bag from my youth work resources box. And I am as smug as a fully working smug metaphor. And I am sitting in my car at the traffic lights waiting for the new Pegbag gti turbo to challenge me and old faithful to another race.

It's a lovely day in North Somerset and the washing is dry.

Advent Thought 22 and Number 24

As soon as the world of retail notices people enjoying something it takes it off them, polishes it, and sells it back to them. Tony Parsons said words along these lines in his excellent book Dispatches from the Front Line of Popular Culture. Since the book is now 20 years old it would be interesting to re-read it and see how it has aged. May do that.

Taking the long view of Advent I notice that Christmas jumpers, which were never a thing, have been thus polished.

And Advent calendars are much fancier things than the ones of my youth. In the early 1960s they were a piece of landscape foolscap paper with 24 cardboard panels or windows. You opened one each day and tried to work out how the image was related to Christmas. My sister and I were required to remember whose turn it was. I'm sure we both feel the other one cheated.

Whilst the pictures were somewhat semi-detached to the festival we both knew that a nativity scene was coming along on day 24 - the biggest window of them all. The calendar, of course, started on December 1st so there were 24 windows. Then the world of retail can keep its left over stock until next year.

This is my final Advent thought. It is Sunday, the fourth of Advent and also Christmas Eve. The 12 days of Christmas start tomorrow.

Everybody's waitin' for me to arrive
Sendin' out the message to all of my friends

I hope you have managed to wait, hope, rest and pray during this Advent season. And I hope you have managed to hold on to one or two precious thoughts that nobody can make better with polish and packaging.

Losing It

A word of advice to businesses who get enquiries from stupid customers which are nothing to do with a transaction; how you deal with such queries will help your sales. A story:

Last Friday TCMT lost her wallet. It had either been stolen (but no use had been made of her credit cards) or left at a particular place. We had only been to one place where she used her wallet.

A phone call to this place received the response, 'No-one can help until Monday.' Detecting that this was slightly less than helpful she decided to pay a personal visit, a ten mile drive. After all it only had to be established clearly that they did not have the wallet there and it was time to be cancelling credit cards.

They were slightly more enthusiastic but insisted the wallet had not been handed in. They allowed her to escort them to the place where her wallet might have been lost. It wasn't there. Whilst waiting for one assistant to get another to help she heard herself described thus, 'It's that stupid woman again'.

She returned home and once more we turned the house and car upside down. No joy. Then bank cards were cancelled and an awkward thirty minutes was spent trying to replace only one of our two cards on our National Trust account (we are planning to visit a lot of properties next week).

The main sadness for TCMT was that the wallet was a gift from a son and much cherished.

This was the day before our ruby wedding anniversary and we had planned to spend it chilling and enjoying each other's company. The lost wallet took the edge off it.

The next day, Sunday, we felt a bit better and returned home after a morning out to a voice-mail message from the place that had assured us it didn't have the wallet and couldn't help until Monday. It had the wallet and had called on a Sunday.

It had been put somewhere it shouldn't have been put by the person who had found it on Friday evening. Nothing sinister. Just incompetence.

Losing a wallet can happen to anyone. It is a one-off stupid act. In failing to help us the place we lost it has won the stupid battle at least 3-1. And we would, if we had been really helped, have been singing the praise of the establishment that understood the predicament. As it is we preserve their anonymity.

It's a nice wallet, sentiment is resurrected and replacement cards have arrived.

Slender Blender

When TCMT worked in furniture retail I have to confess that occasional bargains came our way having been returned by dissatisfied customers when the product was really OK. I am sitting on a fine leather sofa as I type (heavily discounted) and am looking at a set of dining room chairs which came out at about £9 each. We have fourteen of them. A dear, late-lamented member of this parish once broke one and, trying to be kind, got a quote for £90 to fix it. We passed.

TCMT has moved to a kitchenware outlet. We'll preserve its modesty and call it Pond Country. She has to wear an outfit that can best be described as Dolly Parton's away strip.

Now I am the proud owner of all sorts of devices I had learned to do without by failing to be aware of their existence. Garlic skinner. Herb stripper. Perforated cling-film. An unsqueezable mop. I own these things. They are not all entirely without merit.

But. But. But. The deal with the returned items at the new employer is this. Refunded mail order products are sold by enveloped bid to staff and the money goes to charity (cool).

One such product was a Vitamix. This is the DeLorean of blenders. If there are moments in your day when your ornaments move along the shelf of their own volition and then something drowns out the local airport then maybe your neighbour has one.

Being a bit cheeky as the product costs £500 - a moment's silence while we note that there are people who pay this much for a thing that makes food smaller - we agreed to bid £80. We now own a Vitamix.

This baby turns fruit and ice cubes into sorbet. My stale bread has never been so quickly crumbed. On full power I swear it would make you a smoothie out of avocado stones, mango cores and paving slab without breaking sweat. And when you've finished? Fill it with warm water and a dash of washing up liquid and it cleans its own crevices. It comes with a plastic rod to push stuff down if the blades are not engaging but it is designed so that it is impossible to blend that. And I tried.

Jesus clearly hadn't anticipated the existence of the Vitamix when he said it was difficult to get a camel through the eye of a needle.

There is a 'pulse' button. I haven't needed it yet but if you are an amateur seismographer you'll probably know when I do.

I think I am in love with a piece of kitchenware. But I do miss my mop.

Seasonal Produce

Is this how the retail world sees the year?

January 1st - February 14th
Valentine's Season

February 15th - March Sunday (annual variation)
Mothers' Season

March Sunday (annual variation) - Easter Day (annual variation)
Easter Season

Easter Day (annual variation) - 3rd Sunday June
Father's Season

3rd Sunday June - mid July
Currently vacant

mid July - mid August
Silly Season

Mid August - last Sunday August (or first September, regional variations)
Back to School Season

Last Sunday August (or first September, regional variations) - mid September
Currently vacant

Mid September - October 31st
Halloween Season

October 31st - 2nd Sunday November
Fireworks Season (overlap Poppy Season)

2nd Sunday November - December 24th
Christmas Season (colloquially marked by launch of John Lewis advert)

December 25th - December 31st
New Year Season (overlap Holiday Season)

The criticism of displaying Christmas produce too early is avoided by labelling such aisles 'seasonal'. The commercial understanding of such displays has been that, for the purposes of retail, 'seasonal' means 'next season'.

Customer Feedback

Sometimes, when you write a short and simple question to a company, the length and breadth of the response tells you that a nerve has been touched.

Cawston Press apple juice cartons are extraordinarily PC. A long list of the non-ingredients appears on the side of recyclable packaging. Having time on holiday, and realising that the package gave the impression of a home-grown product without mentioning sourcing, I sent off a web-site customer enquiry:

Do you have orchards abroad? The source of your apples is not written on your packets or web-site?

Here is the reply in full:

Hi Steve,

Cawston Press has been producing pressed apple juice for over 25 years. We use all our combined expertise of apples and blending to produce what we believe is the very best tasting pressed apple juice that has a consistent blend which can be enjoyed all year round. A key factor to achieving this is the care and attention we take in selecting specific varieties of apples. To produce the long acclaimed Cawston Press Apple Juice we always include some English Cox Orange Pippin and Bramley apples - the Cox delivers a rich full flavour, and the Bramley provides the 'bite' and sharper refreshment that we look for in our signature product. Other apple varieties used will be mainly Jonagold, Braeburn, Gala and Golden Delicious and for reasons of availability of just picked fruit we source these varieties from Europe. The exact proportion that we use of each variety will be decided by taste and will depend on the level of sweetness and acidity that will inevitably vary with each batch of apples

The approach we take to sourcing and combining these specific apple varieties is unique to Cawston Press but it enables us to produce a consistently great tasting juice for our consumers to enjoy all year round. Unlike other leading brands all the apples that we use for Cawston Press are 'picked and pressed' rather than held in what can be many months of long term storage prior to pressing (as is the case with fresh apple juices pressed all year round).

In producing the other blends in our range we select the sweeter apple varieties to balance the sharper taste of the other ingredient –for example the Rhubarb or Blackcurrant. Alternatively we will select the more delicate flavoured varieties to blend with ingredients such as Elderflower to ensure that the lighter tastes come through.

It is the careful selection of the best apple varieties available for a particular product blend, the belief that it is best to ‘pick and press’ the apples direct from the orchard, and our skill in blending the juices to achieve a consistent range of blends all year round – that together make Cawston Press the very best tasting juice whatever the time of year.

Kind regards...

You will note the actual information I sought in six words I have highlighted towards the end of paragraph one. It could have been edited still further, down to one. 'Yes'. It is delightful juice and I am not against importing apples as they are a seasonal product. Never defend yourself before you are sure you have been attacked.

Back to 1965 for a Bit

The photo from Waitrose Weekend of the opening of their Henley shop in 1965, by which time Mr Waite's name had lost its final E to fit neatly with Mr Rose's, is fascinating. It makes me realise that the 1960s, looking back, are almost indistinguishable from the 1950s. The prices are in shillings and pence per pound weight, the coats haven't changed much since the war, most women wear hats outdoors and everyone is happy to leave children unattended, albeit in massive prams, outside a shop. All men are at work? Or at home not shopping? If you wanted to phone someone you needed a call box. Nobody had any computer power in their pocket. No microwave meals could be purchased. Dishwasher powder probably hadn't an aisle to itself yet, nor 'foreign' food. The idea of fair trade was a way off. We need to remind ourselves how innovative simply being a supermarket was in those days and, for my part, congratulate Waitrose on still doing so many simple things well.



SEP

Do you ever wonder why someone changed their mind in the supermarket and left a packet of biscuits next to the loo rolls, or a bottle of coke in the stationery. This blog chronicles such moments with submissions from around the country. Thanks to the ipaper for the spot. Very funny.

Love Come To Town

A few weeks ago Somerfield (latterly Co-op) supermarket sold out and left. Somerfield, Nailsea was the sort of place you could film a zombie movie simply by recording in real time with the regular crowd. It was slow and had a smoker's complexion. There was too much salt in the sandwiches.

After just six weeks we have a bright, friendly, well-stocked Waitrose. The green and grey clad, share-owning staff have a sense of urgency and purpose. I went for a Guardian and some skimmed milk. I bought a Guardian, some Duchy, organic skimmed milk, a bottle of English sparkling wine, two bars of fair-trade chocolate and some individually cut and crimped balsamic vinegar and sea salt crisps each of which has been butterfly kissed by an attractive blond checking clerk. I may have imagined this last bit but they are expensive crisps and will still kill me slowly.

Anyway £30 spent against a £1.85 budget so it's not looking good. Also they had run out of sandwiches at 3.30 p.m. so I bought a pasty. There are not enough car park spaces in Nailsea for all the people who now want to visit. It is a good retail experience if such is possible. Maybe walking there would be good and keep my purchases down to what I can carry.

We're not buzzing and happening yet but if the rumoured W.H. Smiths, Wetherspoons and Cargo happen then who knows. Who knows.

Beer Off

As you travel the country you find that there are strange local names for the:

• Off Licence
• Offie
• Outdoor
• Beer Off

Well a new one (to me) has opened in Backwell, almost opposite the Spar. It seems to have a good selection of wines and some fine local beers and ciders. I've just purchased some interesting bottles of Gorge Best Cheddar Ale and some equally wonderful Spring Loaded Glastonbury Ale.

The very good news - 2% discount for cash.

The very bad news, and talking of puns for names - it's called Aimee's Wine House.

I shall drink in memory of my friend John Rankin who died on Monday. Obituary to follow.

The Sony E-Reader

In order to take enough books on holiday without bursting her hand luggage, Mrs M purchased a Sony e-Reader last year. I warned that her holiday reading would be devastated by dropping the device in the pool, whereas my book would dry out by the next day and in the meantime I could start another. 'Technophobe' she chanted.

She failed to drop the device in the pool and enjoyed reading on holiday last year and this. 117 free books came her way as a bonus. Shortly after returning from holiday the on/off switch of the Reader began to feel a little strange, then loose and then stopped working altogether. A minor fault but annoyingly two months out of warranty.

She contacted Sony who charge £176 for all e-Reader repairs. This compares to the current £179 cost of a new device. 'Blow that for a game of soldiers' she would have said if she said that sort of thing and took the Reader back to John (never knowingly undersold) Lewis. 'Ah' said a helpful, assistant. 'We probably could fix that easily but Sony won't release their parts to us so you have to send it back to them.'

So, dear Sony, I am advising my friends, family and lurkers not to buy one of your products and to purchase a different sort of electronic reading system. They tell me Amazon's Kindles are OK and so are i-pads. Hope you don't mind.

Security

I have had some calls from Orange over the last few days since I upgraded my phone. All these calls have begun with 'Is that Mrs ...' I was a little paranoid at first that the truth was getting out but call centre operatives rarely hear the first words uttered by the 'phone answerer so I forgive them. I am often tempted to say 'Yes' and see what happens.

So many years ago I have lost count, Mrs Mustard's mobile phone became mine when she was given a work one to use. We have never changed the contract details and she continues to pay the bill, bless.

All the operatives have asked when Mrs M might be in so they can ask her a security question. My explanation that she is never in has not put them off and they have continued to call at regular intervals at the specific time I have explained she is not available. It doesn't appear to have crossed their minds that she may be buried under the fireplace.

This afternoon I was asked if the account had been taken out for me and I said that it had. No secret that, after all. 'Then I must ask you a security question,' said the bubbly lass on the other end of the call. 'What sort of phone is it you have upgraded to?'

This was a terribly baffling security question but I did what any self-respecting 'phone thief would have done and LOOKED AT IT.

'It's a Nokia X6,' I said.

She complemented me on having a lovely phone and proceeded to try and sell me the insurance I had declined on upgrading because my bank account already includes free phone insurance as does something else I can't remember.

Curse this demanding security everywhere.

Ten reasons not to be married to a retail area manager

Well I showed her the post and she issued a threat, 'Go on; do it then.' So, with all the caveats about how love can overcome an overwhelming set of obstacles, here goes. This list is peculiar to those whose partners are female and employed by the homeware sector:

1. Life is materialistic enough without your partner constantly talking about sales figures.
2. Normal hours of work are 7.00 a.m. - 7.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m - 10.00 p.m. Monday to Friday, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m Sunday with occasional weekend duty and nights away from home to enable an early start the next day.
3. You will have to sit on the sofa next to someone doing their emails on a laptop.
4. If you get up from the sofa to get your partner a drink, when you return there will be papers where you were sitting.
5. Pay rises don't exist when a recession is expected, happening or being recovered from. Ever?
6. 42,000 miles a year loses us a lot of credibility with the green lobby.
7. Meal times will be fixed by an order being placed from the motorway.
8. Your house will be full of possible candidates for the 'Next year's worst possible Christmas stock item' competition. Some of these will occasionally need to be test-consumed.
9. There are only so many times you can talk about a shop as a lifestyle destination and keep a straight face.
10. Interesting discussions about current affairs can be timetabled by training as a beautician so you can do nails, hair or waxings.

Luke 15 Again

Every now and then I post a 'Rejoice with me for that which was lost is found' piece. Yesterday was such a day. It was a good day.

By way of background to item one I must share the Mustard theory of ecclesiastical tableware generation. All church hall kitchens are fitted with a crockery and utensil magnet. However this is powered by a complex boggleomatic drive (named after the scoring system in the game Boggle in which only original words score points) which ensures that only one of each type is attracted or retained. After a period of a few years no item of church kitchen crockery or cutlery matches any other.

The advantage of this is that I was quickly able to identify the better-than-average baking tray that had arrived since I last cooked anything there using the oven as the one I had lost shortly after purchasing it a few months back.

Later, taking a bottle of wine to a dinner party I found my favourite barkeeper's corkscrew at the bottom of the wine carrier, where it had clearly been since the parish weekend last November when I thought I had left it at the conference centre.

And whilst more replaced than lost, during the afternoon I popped up to Tesco and bought some bits and pieces - croissants, bread, fruit, yoghurt. Although the bill of £36 may surprise you it included, get this, a DVD player. And not, at that, the cheapest DVD player Tesco stock. Since the old DVD player developed a grudge on Friday and would only play DVDs it was familiar with and no new ones, this was a bit of a result.

I probably need to offset the carbon footprint and make a donation to a charity for impoverished far eastern electrical workers but for now I am simply smug.

Tidiness

I was putting my trolley back in the shelter thingy (what is it called?) in Tesco's car park. I always do this neatly following the Don Humphries' houseparty boarding school hire motto - always leave places tidier than you find them. So sometimes I rearrange a whole load of trolleys so they don't block the parking spaces. Then you get invited back, in the case of the schools, or are just a useful member of society, in a car park.

I was vaguely aware that the bloke who had just placed his trolley had also been neat. As I walked away he turned and said, 'Why is it only the men who do that? The women just shove 'em in anyhow.'

I suggested it was not all men who did it but that it was because the two of us were obviously well brought up and came from north of here (in his case well north). He nodded sagely.

It was a nice moment of contact with a fellow human being both of whom had accidentally discovered the other doing something good without seeking credit.

But is it true? Let's have a MSS sample survey. Do you put your trolley back neatly?

Customer Services

My email to M&S Customer Services Department:

Thank you for providing four delicious cakes for a birthday party at the weekend. The quality was good and the iced lettering excellent.

It may interest you to know that it is impossible to order four similar birthday cakes through your web-site, with different wording and ages, at the same time without paying for each one separately. We had three birthdays to celebrate at once but had to settle for a generic wording rather than making the cakes different. Thought you'd like to know as we can't be the only people to celebrate a double or triple birthday.

Steve Tilley

Their reply:

Dear Mr Tilley

Thanks for contacting us about ordering cakes with messages on it.

I'm sorry to hear that you had to order it with a generic wording and for any upset or disappointment that this may have caused you. I can advise you that this isn't up to our usual standard of service.

I've looked into your query and can advise you that I've passed this onto the relevant department and they're certainly looking into it. Whenever there's a problem like this we're committed to putting it right and improving our customer services.

Thank you for getting in touch and I hope that you and your family had a great party and best wishes to those who celebrated their birthdays.

If we can be of any further help, please feel free to contact us on ...

Kind Regards

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Help. Apart from the disappointing grammar, did they? I'm really not sure that an answer of yes or no even begins to do justice to this question.