Two Questions and a Note.

Why is it that a teenage girl shop assistant can stare at me pointedly and intensely (in the fruit shop, of all places!) and that’s OK – but if I were to stare pointedly and intensely at a teenage girl shop assistant (in a fruit shop or anywhere else,) the phrase ‘ageing Lothario’ would spring to people’s lips?

*  *  *

Why do people throw their heads back when taking tablets? They don’t do it when they swallow anything else.

*  *  *

I’m getting my old photographic equipment into shape to see service again, and so I went into Boots and asked the shop assistant:

‘Do you stock button cells?’

She looked blank.

I tried ‘little round batteries.’

‘Oh them, yes. They’re over there.’

You’d think a shop assistant would be familiar with the common terms for their merchandise, wouldn’t you? As it happened, I didn’t get them from Boots anyway. They sold packs of two button cells to fit my cameras for £4. The hardware shop around the corner sold packs of twenty assorted watch batteries – which included four the right size for my cameras – for £2.99. The hardware shop got the sale. Isn't the retail business odd?

All I need now is for this late taste of winter to end (despite assurances from the weather forecaster last night that there would be no snow down at this level, we had a raging blizzard this morning) and then I can start putting some pictures of the local landscape on the blog.