A few words from Rob Mansfield

Obviously having spent most of today in a bland Croydon shopping centre, I don’t really want to stop stores opening on the Day of Rest, but I’d be quite pleased if they did for one reason alone.

The reason? So the crap Sunday staff don’t get any work. The one big problem with weekend trading is that the proper full-time employees rarely work on Saturdays and Sundays.

One example: I went into (whisper it quietly) TKMaxx (look, it’s where I get my pants, OK?).

Having queued up patiently, I reached the till and handed over my purchases. The girl took them from me and rang them up. At the moment, one of her co-workers appeared alongside her and started to put them in a bag.

This co-worker started a conversation with ‘my’ assistant which lasted the entire length of the transaction. It wasn’t until the girl handed me my receipt that she looked at me and said the first word of the entire process: ‘Thank you!”

I’m not actually quite sure what she was thanking me for. Perhaps, allowing her to carry on her personal life with her mate, while still serving me.

So you see, if we ban Sunday trading, then people like this won’t have jobs and won’t be able to inflict their particular brand of customer dis-service.

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The current stand-off between the military regime and pro-democracy protestors in Myanmar/Burma is pretty nasty, given the number of deaths that have already occurred.

However, I did hear something on the radio today related to this situation that made me chuckle.

A posh-sounding British foreign official was describing the latest situation in the country and produced this corker of a description:

“There are still knots of small protestors demonstrating on the streets.”

Now, I know what he wanted to say, but I immediately had visions of small groups of Burmese dwarves tramping up and the down the pavements brandishing mini placards written in coloured pencil.

Just me then…!

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This is hard to believe, but the warbling Georgian that is Katie Melua releases her new album on Monday.

First, before you disappear immediately, this is not a plug for the album. Far from it. And anyway, I very much doubt that anything I say will stop her third offering hitting the top of the charts next Sunday.

I guess I’m still baffled by the popularity of her. She’s apparently the biggest-selling female artist in the country and the question I have to ask is: why?

Among the least obvious attributes are her bland, monotonous voice, equally uninspiring songs and older-than-her-years attitude. Come on, we’ve all wondered what the difference is between 22 and 17, haven’t we?

Sure, she’s a nice enough girl and, funnily enough, she wasn’t beaten with the ugly stick when she was born, but that alone shouldn’t mean she has maintained a career beyond her 2nd album, should it?

What on earth do people get out of her music? “There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing…” - well, whoopee, what a great premise for a song.

And possibly the biggest crime she committed was duetting with Shane McGowan from the Pogues a couple of years ago on a new version of Fairytale In New York. Kirsty MacColl would have been spinning in her grave!

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