What Goes Around ...

Faffing around. It is a phrasal verb and an excellent one to boot. Let me conjugate. I faff around. You faff around. The shopper in the Mallorcan supermarket faffs around. You will notice that in the third person the normal he, she or it is replaced. There is a possible alternative which substitutes "supermarket" with "chemist's", but I don't wish to confuse matters.

The supermarket faff is partly the consequence of things like credit cards not quite having registered as a means of payment except among foreigners who attempt to do so minus the requisite identity, the prolonged search for which ... And the queue grows longer. No, cash remains the payment means of choice. But it is not all the fault of the shopper. The supermarket is equally culpable. Go to pay with cash, let's say the amount comes to 28 euros and 36 centimos, and invariably you are asked if you have the 36 or 6 or some eccentric combination of coins and notes. Cue another prolonged search - into the depths of a wallet or purse ... And the queue grows longer and longer. If you're British and unused to the euro and centimo, the queue grows longer, longer and longer. If you're Mallorcan and still operating in pesetas, the queue starts to stretch out the door.

For reasons that still mystify, Eroski has always been the first supermarket off the trolley rank. The Mercadona lobby grows louder by the day, joined by the cries in favour of the Budgen-like Bip and Hiper. (Do they still have Budgens by the way, does anyone know?) It can only be some Eroski inertia groove thing that makes its delightful red exteriors so attracting. Or maybe it is the periodic incentive promotion. Like the current one. Spend X and you get a number of points that go towards some towels. Fabulous. You also need a degree to understand which products qualify for how many points. Pigs' trotters rate the equivalent of a whole bathroom full; a six-pack of Saint Mick not a sausage. And then when you pay, it is you who invariably has to do the asking. "Any points?" you ask, stupidly, as it says so on the receipt. It's not that the checkout girls are pocketing them, they just want you to bugger off, because tearing off the stamps that equate to the points is an arduous task when they forget to perforate them. Mind you, it has its advantage. A measly two points can easily become a whole sheet as it is just so much quicker, as that queue is now down the road.

Having acquired these stamps and stuck them onto your towel-prize grid (those that you can get the back off, otherwise you have to stick on the stamps - "sellos" as they say here - with sellotape; ho, ho), you go to get your towel. 100 stamps plus a centimo shy of a whole five euros for a bath towel. The transaction is performed separately to the main purchase. And the queue is now in Can Picafort. Then it turns out ... Why is there one euro and one centimo change? It should be one centimo. Don't understand. And you drive home past the riot police controlling the queue.

"Wasn't it meant to be a bath towel?" "It is." "No it's not, it's a they - two hand towels, sort of." "Is it? Are they? That'll be why the one euro and one centimo. Know something? I owe them 40 stamps. Two hand towels are 140 stamps." "But why not the bath towel?" "I don't know. It was on the bath towel shelf. If it says bath towel on the shelf, then it should be a bath towel. And it doesn't actually say anything on the packaging." "Yes it does. Laura Ashley Home." "Laura Ashley Home for what? Wayward towels and strays?" "What's that noise?" "That'll be the police opening fire." "On what?" "The queue. Supermarket queue." "Oh." Faffing around.


BATLEY TOWNSWOMEN'S GUILD
Harking back to 22 July, I have been emailed by Alastair who points out that the Batley Townswomen's Guild re-enacted Pearl Harbor and not Agincourt. So much for historical accuracy, albeit one related to old comedy programmes. Now I was aware of the Pearl Harbor angle, but, and it is strange how time, memory and imagination intrude, I was sure that the Guild engaged in a series of battles, Agincourt being one of them. Wrong. I have even checked the whole list of Python sketches. The women of Batley appeared but twice - Pearl Harbor and the first heart transplant operation. I shall go away and do my lines.

Alastair has also discovered a youtube of Pearl Harbor. Brilliant. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vMqSmiC_xHg.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Jam - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGsyL6DhgPU. Today's title - who?

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