Andrew's beach front bar

Add to basket? nooooo!
i was only browsing....I dont want to buy a new camera!
Dont browse when your half asleep, it could be fatal.
I had a lucky escape, realised what i was doing in the nick of time.

Hey, this Rum is nice, cheers everyone.

Customers! What do they want from me? Blood?

You have to understand that i am not refering to all customers, obviously, without them we would have no business. What i do object to are the ones that come in making demands and being stroppy and we have to stand there and smile because 'the customer is always right'.

This woman has just come in screaming at me and telling me that she is not happy with the fact that the canvas painting that we have streched for her cost £20. That is the price she was quoted when she brought it in, a price that she said ok too, and asked us to do the job.

So, the job at hand, a painting on canvas, 3 foot by two foot, thick oil paint. Obviously, whith the paint being so thick, and the fact that she has left very little matereal to stretch it is difficult to pull it and staple it onto the wooden strecher bar too tightly as the paint has a tendency to crack.

She came into the shop, and i brought her the picture down from the third floor workshop. She took one look at it and said, 'is that it? twenty pounds for that? all you have done is staple it to 4 bits of wood. I could have doone that myself.' What pray, did she think she was getting for her money? What else did she assume i was going to do to strech a canvas? She didnt want it in a frame, so she got what she paid for. Why is cost twenty pounds? Well, let me see....The wood, the staples, the labour, we are running a busines here you know.:

She told me that she wasnt happy with it, that she wanted me to 'make a better job of it and she would return within the hour'. What could i do? If ther customer isnt happy it is up to me to put it right, so she leaves the shop and i climb the two flights of stairs to the workshop. Ten minutes later she is back, shouting at my sister on the counter (Its a family business) and then she comes stomping up the stairs, and into the area that is for staff only, yelling 'Oy, you. are you up there?' So i caome down to her, and she says. I havnt time to mess about, take it off the strechers, i'll leave it.' Then she sights, really loudly, swears at me and says, 'oh, i havnt got time to mess. i'll take it. wrap it up for me.' Then, as a parting shot as she goes back down tears she mutters under her breath, 'Twenty quid for some tatty bloody wood!'

I wrap it for her, take it down stairs where she has allready paid, she snatchesd it from me, forces a 'thank you'. and off she goes.

The amazing thing is i kept my cool through the whole thing.

AGGH! also, what has anoyed me, the nerve of it, i mean, oh my god! I have a record collection, it consists of about 2000 vinyl 7" singles, mostly from the 70's and 80's, some of which are limited editions, others not but they are all in my parents loft, and have been for the past ten years since i moved out. We dont have room, for them at our house, and my wife tells me she doesnt want them cluttering up the place. Out of interest i decided to call a record dealer, se what they were valued at....
'A hundred quid the lot!'
'Excuse me. Do my ears deceive me? One hundred quid the lot?'
'Why yes sir, my final offer'

Yea right.....What am i stupid or something?
Maybe i'll have to get them on e bay. But parting with them will be so hartd, they are part of my childhood, part of my youth. How can i let them go?

Those clicks that you hear in the night
those thuds that you can not explain
the stairs that creak when no one is there
the pipe that hums with a distant echo
those footsteps at the door
make you pull the duvet high
make your eyes dart from side to side
your heart beat faster and faster
I cause that to happen
I am the one makes you afraid
I put those thoughts in your head
you listen to me when i tell you to fear
'Whats that?' I ask 'Do you hear?'
I make you do as i wish
I am your mind
I make you what you are.

There are some new flats in Rotherham town centre advertised in the local property guide as luxury appartments. Abve Specsavers, , next to Dorothy Perkins, opposite Woolies and the HSBC, around the corer from Primark and 3 night clubs? Luxary? <Do you not think that if you could aford 'luxary' appartments you would chose to liv somewhere better than a flat above Specsavers? Just think how many people are going to be around on a Friday and Saturday night, . And lets face it, as towns go, Rotherham isnt the best is it? Never been? If not, you havnt missed much.