Saturday 22 November 2008

Orange Bastards.

There is actually a place worse than the Apple Shop and, ironically, it's the Orange Shop. I went there yesterday to buy my in-laws a phone to use during their visit to London and I assumed I could go in there, buy a phone and leave without wanting to kill everyone that's ever lived. What a fucking naive idiot I was. When I walked in I was immediately greeted with open disinterest. The four members of staff were VERY busy. One was talking to a customer who repeated the phrase "Five Mega-Pixels" like he was trying to break the previous world record for most amount of times anyone has ever said "Five Mega-Pixels" (604, Toxteth O'Grady, USA), one was laughing while reading an instruction booklet, one was actually dancing and the other was talking on the phone to a friend or, at the very least, a customer they wanted to fuck. It's simply the polar opposite to the Apple Shop's terrifying warmth and service but I decided to test how long it would take any of them to notice there was a customer needing attention by just standing in the middle of the shop doing absolutely nothing. 18 minutes, as it turns out. 18 minutes of standing alone in the middle of a tiny shop waiting for a shop assistant to wake the fuck up and notice me. Don't get me wrong, I made eye contact with the dancing one but there was no way I wanted to be served by him. So I waited. 18 boring minutes later the woman who was serving Mr. Five Mega-Pixels asked if she could help. I gave her a look as if to say that I very much doubted it but pointed to the phone I wanted to buy anyway. What was her reaction? Was it "Of course, Sir. I'll get that for you right away"? Was it fuck. She said "What do you want that for?" At this point I only wanted that phone so I could force it into her right eye socket but I lied and sarcastically said "Making phonecalls, probably". She stared at me for what felt like a week and then got the phone, gave me the paperwork for it and swiped my card all without saying another word. This was done right by the shop's counter where I stood firmly, never moving, while the dancer permanently bumped into me. I can't imagine I'll ever go back to the Orange Shop but if you're in the mood to feel abused by a bunch of lazy cunts then you can do no better. Five stars.

I'm still going back and forward to the hospital. The thing that I find most worrying about going there is the near total lack of visitors people get during their stay. Muki's had loads but most other people just lie there alone any time I'm there and I'm there a lot. But then, I did strike up some banter with the lady next to Muki in the ward. She started banging a cup on a tray and shouting "Excuse me". I asked her if she needed one of the nurses but no, it was me she wanted to talk to. Apparently she wanted me to stop talking about her. For a second I thought this might be Sajeela Kershi but it wasn't, it was another mad old woman who was letting her medicine talk for her. I explained that I hadn't been talking to her but she insisted that I kept saying her name. Obviously I didn't know the woman's name but she then said "Yes, you do. You're Irish". I'll look her up on the BNP member's list later. But maybe this is what happens when you don't get any visitors, so if you do know someone in hospital please visit them. And if you don't know someone in hospital then visit the woman beside Muki, she's brilliantly mad.

I genuinely felt really fed up after writing yesterday's blog but I'm now glad to say that the amount of nice people involved in comedy has risen to three. Along with Jeremy Limb we can now add the (Carnahan) Darbys. They're nice people who are generous and thoughtful. The rest of us are still cunts. Remember that.

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