This week I was mostly...

This week I was mostly looking forward to the English translation of Anna Sam's French bestseller, "Les Tribulations d'une Caissiere" or "The tribulations of a check-out girl" to you and me. This tale of woe from a former checkout girl has sold over a hundred thousand copies in France and has caused a bit of a rumble in the process. Her, behind the toilet roll, exposé of life on the front lines at a supermarket register looks right up my rue, if you know what I mean. In it Ms Sam details the abuse, tantrums, lies, thievery, sex, and humour of life at a supermarket. Sounds almost restaurant like! From sleazy Pierres asking if "she is open" or if she "is available" through to the untold joy and rudeness of people carrying on telephone conversations whilst she is trying to deal with their purchases Anna Sam has seen it all.

She hadn't intended to work in a supermarket but found herself there after failing to get anything else after graduating from University. One thing lead to another and she started a blog to document the daily shenanigans and malarky of her customers. From this came the book. Huzzah for her.

It makes you wonder though - with waiters, supermarket employees, bar staff, teachers and so on all blogging about the loutish, rude and unbearable behaviour of your average member of the public just where can one be a total asshole and not worry about being written about!

The English version will be out later this year.

This week I was also mostly striding about the grounds of a 18th century mansion, pretending I owned the place. As you do. Pity there were a few thousand others doing the same thing. Talk about ruining my afternoon dalliances. Yes, like most of the good people, and I'm sure quite a few of the not so good, we decided to get out of town on Monday. So we headed off to Castleward for a wander about the grounds.

It was all very jolly hockey sticks and what-what and tally ho. A little too much for my working class sensibilities if I am being honest. There were also too many children with names like Milly and Jack and Nora for my liking. There wasn't a Chantelle, a Shakira or a Britney Jane to be seen anywhere. I was worried for a while I had wandered on to the set of a Roald Dahl adaptation, "Milly and Molly and Ben and the case of the Lost Volvo." But that said they did have a decent gift shop, which is important to me, and the grub from the various stalls was scrummy, as little Jack probably would have said.

The only downside to the trip was the no show of the much lauded and heavily advertised pot bellied pig. I was a veritable mess when we couldn't find it. I was left to wonder just what it looked like, sigh. I picture it as being a frightening beast with three heads and seven tails. But a ride back up the long hill on the back of a tractor did perk me up somewhat and soon I forgot about the pig. I did enjoy my evening bacon sandwich more than normal that evening though.

When I wasn't reading about lovely French writers or wandering about mansions with the middle classes I was mostly listening to my chum's new single, "When Jackie Shone" by Cashier no9. Dan Todd et al, released their new single during the week and it's a spiffingly good tune. I urge you to get on it, as the kids might say, and eh I dunno...party down? Does that seem right, party down? I partied down once, didn't like it, got my head stuck. Anyhoo it's available from iTunes etc. and well worth the £1.58 for the 2 tracks.

Have a meh free weekend,
it's the best you can really hope for.