TWO-FOR-ONE offers abound in shops. But since when were double entendres included? In recent retail trips, I've had two when one would certainly have been enough.
The first shopping trip was to a computer emporium. "I have a sticky one," I said to the assistant.
"Do you really?" he said. "Can I see it?" I showed him and demonstrated its stickiness, using my finger.
"Can I try?" he said, and used his own
forefinger to assess the stickiness.
"It's not sticky when I put my finger on it," he said, pushing so hard I asked him to stop.
It was the number "1" on my keyboard that was sticky. It made typing laborious and inaccurate. Yet this QWERTY predicament was not taken seriously and instead made the day of the man behind the counter. Or at least the length of time taken over the conversation and the number of shouted references to colleagues suggested so. "Got any remedies for a lady with a sticky one?"
Shopping trip two was to the kitchenware section of a supermarket. I could see they had milk jugs. But I wanted a larger glass container in which to mix punch and so, reasonably, asked: "Do you have big jugs?"
When his mirth had abated, the assistant lurking in this aisle beckoned others, in the guise of asking their advice on stock, location and availability: "This lady wants big jugs. Do we have big jugs?"
"No, our jugs are small," said the first colleague on the scene, touching the jugs under discussion. "Nothing wrong with small jugs."
"We used to have big jugs," said the third, as innocent as David Miliband at the Labour conference, though he was refusing to acknowledge a subtext of underwiring not undermining. "What's happened to our big jugs? They were popular."
Explaining I was seeking "ample vessels for pouring liquid" would have been a waste of saliva. The clarification would not have been heard over the guffaws.
Anyway, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed those 'fnarr fnarrs' – itself, another two-for-one. Is a special anniversary of Viz coming up? Or are people who work in shops just bored, because they have so few customers in these lean times that, when someone actually does engage with them, they want to make the most of it? If so, let's get back to high-spending days when shop assistants barely have time to serve, let alone converse. To get there, I know what kind of economy I want. One that's going "boom boom". Until then, that phrase will perfectly punctuate all these bloody double entendres.
Crunch time for service stationsTHERE is something called the 'credit crunch lunch' at service stations on the A1.
"What is that?" you wonder. A hard cheese sandwich on Gordon Brown bread? A sub-prime steak? A sandwich with no means of earning its crust? Some out-of-date rate tarts? A Libor-worst sandwich, seasoned by Northern Rock salt? Or leftovers from Lehman Brothers' canteen, soon to be sushi? No, the 'credit crunch lunch' was just another dish of overpriced stodge, rather than overpriced debt, and a reminder that the cost of food in service stations is a financial scandal that should also be investigated. But it was appropriately named. In the queue, people were turning to their friends, asking to borrow cash to finance this meal.
Refusing to sell out, we restricted ourselves to coffee; each mug was £1.99. At least lunch was liquid, which is something in these credit-crunch times.
SCOTTISH cities have missed a trick. Why was the Large Hadron Collider located under the Swiss-French border? The 27km tunnel is already lying dormant due to suspended operations. In spring, the particle dodgems will re-start but after they're done and dusted won't the big tunnel be empty permanently? So, shouldn't it have been located somewhere that needs infrastructure for a subway system? And couldn't such cities have bid to be the Hadron host? Makes sense to me. Scientists have got lots of particles, but they're a bit short of the grey matter.
The full article contains 699 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
