Mad Day No. 2 – Grrrr! Super Chains (by sarah)
Right - there was on thing I really liked about Cheltenham - a thing I have adored since the first time we visited it on some long ago Litrature festival. What is this wonderous thing I hear you ask!
I was Otticas a large apparently Tin Tin themed bookshop with a coffee shop deep in its bowls - ok well on the 1st floor anyway. On any outing to Cheltenham we have gone and had a little sit down in there. So when I started about two mounths ago having to go to Cheltenham for appointments I thought excellent - I get physio excersie walking to the shop for coffee and its not a Star Bucks - ok so its a costa but I thought it might help a bit with the whole Star Bucks, Tescos, Waterstones take over thung that is going on - ie the Super Chains as I have dubbed them.
Last Monday Otticas had a notice on the door saying they were shutting for three days for staff training - Oh not too bad I thought as it wont hit a Monday so I can still browse the books - maybe get another one for Als project and drink my hot choc. So I wondered up to it yesturday - past the Waterstones smiling to myself and feeling proud that I support the other book shops when I got to the door of Otticas - but it no longer said Otticas - no in fact it said Waterstones - I stood I stared, I steped backwards - I thought I had gone mad!
Ok I thought if its a take over then all the deals and stock will be different the layout will have been changed wont it? Andwhy is there still the other Waterstones which as always was doing a stonking trade. I said out loud 'Mew - I dont want it to be a Waterstones' then realised I was talking to myself! I went in - it was all the same... same staff, same books, same layout, just with Waterstones written on things.
In the coffee shop actually asked if it had been a Waterstons last Monday and the girl said no - they'd been taken overand I wasnt mad (I suppose lots of poeple would have been thinking the same).
Still I did find a nicer place earlier on to have lunch in a place called Moo Moos - its really lovely I will probably drag people there for tea and cake!
Tue 19th Sep 2006 2:05 pm 
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