p24 Sports Arkwright:p24 Sports Arkwright 29/12/2008 12:40 Page 24
VOICE - Sports Retail
SGB
Sports and Outdoor www.sgb-sports.com
Arkwright
The Independent
Voice
H
elp! I’m being taken over by free
. . . My
rest of the year so that over the coming children yours?”
long life light bulbs and have days if I was finished as quickly again to go
worked out that if I’m to get full
customers –
and sit in a coffee bar for a couple of Saturday Boy and I are reduced to
use out of the quantity now in my hours, certainly don’t come back and offer communicating through a third person.
possession I will only need to live to be
who’d been
to do other work. Those heady days of He’s never really listened to me and now
120 years old. With careful use I think I demarcation! So disgusted was I by his no longer speaks to me. My attempts at
might be able to make them last till I’m
debating on
approach to work I felt no guilt when I sign language are ignored. Its all a silly
even older than that which is a reassuring accepted and pocketed any of “his” misunderstanding, he feels his reputation
thought and a real saving. Filling in a Christmas boxes during the remaining is permanently damaged but worse than
couple of vouchers started the ball rolling
whether to invest
period of my employment. Any further that there’s an issue about Father
but somewhere in the system my illuminating taunts from my current Christmas. After he (Saturday Boy not
registration must have multiplied and I’m
in a noseclip but
postman and he could find his Christmas Father Christmas) finished cleaning the
now receiving a package of another two or box redirected too. windows last week I asked him to clear off
three bulbs almost daily. The postman’s
witty “Guess what I’ve got for you today?”
held off pending
some graffiti that had appeared overnight.
Much of my time in the early part of As he worked on the offending scrawl a
has really started to wear thin and his
pre Budget
December was diverted to price mother and child were passing. The small
persistent jibes about “Seeing the light” adjustments thanks to Mr Darling’s boy asked, “What’s that boy doing?” Mum
and “Being switched on” have pushed the reduction in VAT. One can imagine that glanced over, wrongly assessed the
boundaries of my humour in the season
announcements
attending Cabinet meetings at the situation, and said “If someone does
of goodwill. moment is probably like sitting at the Mad something bad, like writing on the wall,
Each year at this time I am reminded of
– came rushing
Hatter’s tea party but not as funny. My then they have to put it right. It’s called
customers – who’d been debating on community service and he’s an offender.
my six days as a Christmas postie, the first
paid employment I ever had. What an eye
through the door
whether to invest in a noseclip but held off Father Christmas won’t be bringing him
pending pre Budget announcements – anything this Christmas because he’s been
opener that week proved to be. I bounded
into the sorting office at 6am on my first when they saw
came rushing through the door when they naughty”. Usually when he’s doing the
saw the price tumble by 7p, others were windows Saturday Boy has his ipod
morning full of enthusiasm. In those days quite overwhelmed when they could save plugged in and is oblivious to what’s said
no thought was given to inductions or
the price tumble
almost 20p on a football. I was ill- around him, unfortunately this was not so
health and safety, I was simply assigned to prepared for the stampede in business on that day and his hearing was
a full-time postman who told me under
no circumstances was I to take “Christmas
by 7p
created by Alistair’s tinkering with the tax unimpaired. He burst back into the shop
rates! I have been even less prepared for ranting at what he had just overheard.
boxes” from grateful householders and not the intrusive questions some members of “Stop making such a fuss, anybody would
to bother delivering mail if I heard a dog the public think it’s OK to ask about my think Father Christmas was real the way
barking. That said, he told me I could start without mishap so I returned to base business under the guise of today’s you’re going on,” I said. I might just as well
sorting letters into little pigeonholes. Yes it imagining I’d be given some more post to financial turmoil that go way beyond just have tied a Newcastle scarf round his neck
really was that long ago, before technology deliver. You’d have thought I’d walked making conversation. Decorum obviously he looked so shocked. “Of course he’s real.
took hold, but not quite so long ago as the back in with two heads the looks I got; I went out when the credit crunch came in I won’t speak to you again until you write
Penny Black. After a couple of hours I was sidled back to the pigeonholes. My minder but I soon shut them up with retorts like to him and tell him I haven’t been
entrusted with a postman’s sack and away clearly wasn’t happy and hissed at me that “How much do you owe on your credit naughty”. I bet somewhere in
I went to do my round which went I’d done the round quicker than he did the cards?” or “Are those badly behaved Employment Law it says I have to!
24 DECEMBER 2008
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