That's me with my paternal granddad Edmund 'Eddie' Oliver, who died twenty seven years ago today. Nothing to do with the blog, but I'm the only one of my siblings and Oliver cousins old enough to remember him, so I like to pay tribute every February 9th. If I ever have a son, he will be named after Granddad Eddie.

We went to town today to do a bit of shopping and general Saturday afternoon meandering, and because I had to go up to the radio studio, I wanted something to eat just to put me on. I had in my mind a sausage roll, and went into Byrds. They didn't have any, in fact they didn't seem to have anything, and when I pointed out that it was four o'clock the woman informed me that they closed at five. That sums up what is wrong with this country, when someone in a customer facing job would rather spend an hour before closing standing around doing fuck all than make up some more food to sell. Why not close at four? I pointed out that all two million branches of Greggs in the city centre were still open and still selling microwaved shit that they get delivered in the morning, and reheated the next day if they don't sell, (Greggs don't throw food away at the end of the day), and that people of limited intelligence will buy their product. It seemed to fall on deaf ears. If there's one thing I really can't and won't put up with, it is piss-poor customer service. I most certainly will be writing a letter to their head office and if it means that these two women get sacked for being lazy, then so be it, there are plenty of unemployed people waiting for an opportunity to get off the dole. If it turns out that it is company policy to run out of food and then stay open with nothing to sell, then hopefully they will see what a fucking stupid waste of money it is, especially on a Saturday when they're shelling out time and a half for the privilege.

In need of a cup of coffee, we went to Hartleys (I didn't steal the apostrophe, it was missing when I arrived). Maybe it's a first for Nottingham, maybe we should inform the press, but we actually went to Hartleys as a first choice. It didn't even occur to us to go to Lee Rosy first and only resort to Hartleys once we saw that Lee Rosy was full.

===

My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

My daily blog is available as an audio book, either free or name your price (link)