Who works at a Bookshop??

[fulvio sammut]

How about "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds"? The expurgated version, of course.

Why, does the latest edition leave out a cockortwo?

[Ecky]

What "Biggles" titles do you have?



...and when will the others catch on?

[Ecky]

How about "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds"? The expurgated version, of course.

I like the gannet. Just a personal preference

[chibi]

Chibi works in an adult shop, we do sell books however...

[LarryNJ]

Chibi works in an adult shop, we do sell books however...

TIF already has all those books in his library!

[travelling_gerry]

Customer: (entering the bookshop) Good morning.
Proprietor (John Cleese): Good morning, sir. Can I help you?

C: Er, yes. Do you have a copy of "Thirty Days in the Samarkind Desert with the Duchess of Kent" by A. E. J. Eliott, O.B.E.?

P: Ah, well, I don't know the book, sir....

C: Er, never mind, never mind. How about "A Hundred and One Ways to Start a Fight"?

P: ...By?

C: An Irish gentleman whose name eludes me for the moment.

P: Ah, no, well we haven't got it in stock, sir....

C: Oh, well, not to worry, not to worry. Can you help me with "David Coperfield"?

P: Ah, yes, Dickens.

C: No....

P: (pause) I beg your pardon?

C: No, Edmund Wells.

P: I... think you'll find Charles Dickens wrote "David Copperfield", sir....

C: No, no, Dickens wrote "David Copperfield" with two Ps. This is "David Coperfield" with one P by Edmund Wells.

P: "David Coperfield" with one P?

C: Yes, I should have said.

P: Yes, well in that case we don't have it.

C: (peering over counter) Funny, you've got a lot of books here....

P: (slightly perturbed) Yes, we do, but we don't have "David Coperfield" with one P by Edmund Wells.

C: Pity, it's more thorough than the Dickens.

P: More THOROUGH?!?

C: Yes...I wonder if it might be worth a look through all your "David Copper- field"s...

P: No, sir, all our "David Copperfield"s have two P's.

C: Are you quite sure?

P: Quite.

C: Not worth just looking?

P: Definitely not.

C: Oh...how 'bout "Grate Expectations"?

P: Yes, well we have that....

C: That's "G-R-A-T-E Expectations," also by Edmund Wells.

P: (pause) Yes, well in that case we don't have it. We don't have anything by Edmund Wells, actually: he's not very popular.

C: Not "Knickerless Knickleby"? That's K-N-I-C-K-E-R-L-E-S-S.

P: (taciturn) No.

C: "Khristmas Karol" with a K?

P: (really quite perturbed) No....

C: Er, how about "A Sale of Two Titties"?

P: DEFINITELY NOT.

C: (moving towards door) Sorry to trouble you....

P: Not at all....

C: Good morning.

P: Good morning.

C: (turning around) Oh!

P: (deep breath) Yesss?

C: I wonder if you might have a copy of "Rarnaby Budge"?

P: No, as I say, we're right out of Edmund Wells!

C: No, not Edmund Wells - Charles Dikkens.

P: (pause - eagerly) Charles Dickens??

C: Yes.

P: (excitedly) You mean "Barnaby Rudge"!

C: No, "Rarnaby Budge" by Charles Dikkens. That's Dikkens with two Ks, the well-known Dutch author.

P: (slight pause) No, well we don't have "Rarnaby Budge" by Charles Dikkens with two Ks, the well-known Dutch author, and perhaps to save time I should add that we don't have "Karnaby Fudge" by Darles Chickens, or "Farmer of Sludge" by Marles Pickens, or even "Stickwick Stapers" by Farles Wickens with four M's and a silent Q!!!!! Why don't you try W. H. Smith's?

C: Ah did, They sent me here.

P: DID they.

C: Oh, I wonder...

P: Oh, do go on, please.

C: Yes...I wonder if you might have "The Amazing Adventures of Captain Gladys Stoutpamphlet and her Intrepid Spaniel Stig Amongst the Giant Pygmies of Beckles"...volume eight.

P: (after a pause for recovery) No, we don't have that...funny, we've got a lot of books here...well, I musn't keep you standing here...thank you,--

C: Oh, well do, do you have--

P: No, we haven't. No, we haven't.

C: B-b-b-but--

P: Sorry, no, it's one o'clock now, we're closing for lunch--

C: Ah, I--I saw it--

P: I'm sorry--

C: I saw it over there! I saw it...

P: What? What? WHAT?!?

C: I saw it over there: "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds".

P: (pause; trying to stay calm) "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds"?

C: Yes...

P: O-L-S-E-N?

C: Yes....

P: B-I-R-D-S??

C: Yes.....

P: (beat) Yes, well, we do have that, as a matter of fact....

C: The expurgated version....

P: (pause; politely) I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that...?

C: The expurgated version.

P: (exploding) The EXPURGATED version of "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds"?!?!?!?!?

C: (desperately) The one without the gannet!

P: The one without the gannet-!!! They've ALL got the gannet!! It's a Standard British Bird, the gannet, it's in all the books!!!

C: (insistent) Well, I don't like them...they wet their nests.

P: (furious) All right! I'll remove it!! (rrrip!) Any other birds you don't like?!

C: I don't like the robin...

P: (screaming) The robin! Right! The robin! (rrrip!) There you are, any others you don't like, any others?

C: The nuthatch?

P: Right! (flipping through the book) The nuthatch, the nuthatch, the nuthatch, 'ere we are! (rrriiip!) There you are! NO gannets, NO robins, NO nuthatches, THERE's your book!

C: (indignant) I can't buy that! It's torn!

P: (incoherent noise)

C: Ah, I wonder if you have--

P: God, ask me anything!! We got lots of books here, you know, it's a bookshop!!

C: Er, how 'bout "Biggles Combs his Hair"?

P: No, no, we don't have that one, funny!

C: "The Gospel According to Charley Drake"?

P: No, no, no, try me again!

C: Ah...oh, I know! "Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying".

P: No, no, no, no, no,...What? WHAT??????

C: "Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying".

P: "Ethel the Aa--" YES!!!YES!!! WE'VE GOT IT!! (throwing books wildly about) I-I've seen it somewhere!!! I know it!!! Hee hee hee hee hee!!! Ha ha hoo ho---WAIT!! WAIT!! Is it?? Is it??? (triumphant) YES!!!!!! Here we are, "Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying"!!!!! There's your book!! (throwing it down) Now, BUY IT!!!

C: (quickly) I don't have enough money.

P: (desperate) I'll take a deposit!

C: I don't have ANY money!

P: I'll take a check!!

C: I don't have a checkbook!

P: I've got a blank one!!

C: I don't have a bank account!!

P: RIGHT!!!! I'll buy it FOR you! (ring) There we are, there's your change, there's some money for a taxi on the way home, there's your book, now, now..

C: Wait, wait, wait!

P: What? What?!? WHAT?!? WHAT???!!

C: I can't read!!!

P: (staggeringly long pause; very quietly) You can't...read. (pause) RIGHT!!! Sit down!! Sit down!! Sit!! Sit!! Are you sitting comfortably??? Right!!! (opens book) "Ethel the Aardvark was hopping down the river valley one lovely morning, trottety-trottety-trottety, when she might a nice little quantity surveyor..." (fade out)

[LarryNJ]

I hope that you copied & pasted that!

[fulvio sammut]

Ah, the bibliographical trip down memory lane....

In my day it started with The Little Golden Books, progressed to Noddy, and eventually moved on to the Famous Five and their poorer cousins, The Secret Seven.

From there to the William books, which had me chortling surruptitiously but uncontrollably under the sheets, in the ever fading glow of a flickering electric torch, long after the fall of the parental curfew.

Then out of America came the Bobbsy Twins and the western adventures of Pocomoto and his omniscient Golden Palomino; The Hardy Boys, and, dare I say it,
the pubescent stirrings aroused by Pollyanna, although to this day I can't say whether it was the book that did it, or the gorgeous young Haley Mills in the movie of the same name.

Back in England I befriended Billy Bunter and his band of jolly chaps and ne'er-do-wells at Grayfriars, then moved on to Biggles and his battles with the Hun, though I never did trust Biggles again after the yarn about him encountering Polar Bears on an ice floe near the Kerguelen Islands....

As I grew older it was The Pickwick Papers, Sherlock Holmes, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, where I battled with giant Squid, and Moby DIck where the whale absorbed my attention.

From there it was a short step to all things Mark Twain, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson (the South Sea adventure was great, but even then I was struck by the anomally of a Helvetian having a surname like Robinson) and I also came across a ponderous but fascinating story of the South Pacific called Masterman Ready.

I could go on beyond my early teenage years, but I can sense your bordom already.

I was a bookworm then, and I never stopped loving reading, although failing eyesight in later years made it all a little harder.

I just wish the kids of today, including my own, had the opportunity to experience the joy of books to the extent we did, but alas Television, computer games and all manner of modern electronic technology has put paid to that....

The sermon is over, go in peace...

[shasta]

Not Monty Python class. But.............

A chicken walks into a bookstore. It goes up to the counter and says: "booook, book, book, booooook".The sales clerk hands the chicken a book. It tucks it under his wing and runs out. A while later, the chicken runs back in, throws the first book into the trash bin and goes back to the counter saying: "booook, book, book, book, booooook". Again the clerk gives it a book, and the chicken runs out. The sales clerk shakes her head. Within a few minutes, the chicken is back, dumps the book and starts all over again: "boook, book, book book booooook". The clerk gives him yet a third book, but this time as the chicken is running out the door, she follows it.The chicken runs down the street, through the park and down to the riverbank. There, sitting on a lily pad is a big, green frog. The chicken holds up the book and shows it to the frog, saying: "Booook, book, book, booooook". The frog blinks, and croaks: "read-it, read-it, read-it".

[.X.]

Chibi works in an adult shop, we do sell books however...

Members Discount?

[Jess]

Do you have that red book?... you know... the one with the picture of the dog on the front? I can't remember the name...

Customers can be so clueless

[The InnFORCEr]

Customers can be so clueless

But they are always right Jess

[travelling_gerry]

But they are always right Jess

Have you actually seen a customer lately TIF?

[The InnFORCEr]

Have you actually seen a customer lately TIF?

One case sold and awaiting a call on the other nine today

[jono]

But they are always right Jess

i love it when the customer says this
"well i'm the customer i'm always right"
"so the fact that i am a manager and have worked in lenards for four years doesnt come into it?"