Surly, slapdash and dreadful, and that’s on a good day
I’m relieved to see that somebody in the UK is aware of the…….erm……..the lack of warmth in the ahem service professionals there. I wondered if it was just me.
No I didn’t really; instead I wondered if everybody there is crazy.
Surly, slapdash and dreadful. That’s how chef Michel Roux Jr sums up customer service in the UK.
“It’s not just in restaurants, you get bad service anywhere,” he says. “Even buying a newspaper you can find that you’re not even acknowledged. There’s no eye contact, no greeting or anything. Bad service is unforgivable and it’s everywhere in the UK.”
It’s true you know. It’s the surliness I can’t stand. Dignity would be all right; a polite reserve would be acceptable; but the surliness is truly awful. Buying a few harmless groceries at Waitrose leaves one feeling depressed and vaguely ashamed – as if one were an aristocrat walking on the faces of the poor merely because one wanted to buy some pasta sauce and the pasta to go underneath it.
Apparently they don’t even know they’re doing it – apparently they think that’s just how one acts.
One of the things that has shocked him most about making the show is how little some of the young people he has been working with know about basic courtesy.
“Just saying please and thank you, I was aghast that some of these kids found it very difficult even to utter those words,” he says. “There’s not much more basic in life than that, it’s simple upbringing. Whatever your background, courtesy matters.”
What a dreary picture that conjures up of their daily lives – with none of the tiny civilities that make social interaction pleasant instead of like an ugly highway to nowhere.
In Seattle it’s customary to say thanks to the bus driver when you get off. I love that.
If I sold people newspapers I wouldn’t feel very welcoming either…
Yes that’s what I was always told when I exclaimed about the savage rudeness, but it’s bullshit. Being surly and rude all day hardly makes a job more delightful. I’m not saying people should grovel or suck up, but the savage rudeness is just that.
Come to Australia. On the whole, most of our service people are chirpy – and they don’t even work based on tips!
Interesting post, Ophelia. As an Australian who’s spent time in both the US and England, I rather see Australia as somewhere in between those two countries in terms of politeness among service folk.
I’ve certainly experienced what you write about in the UK, and in US, its polar opposite. But Australians (and maybe Brits?) tend to find the automatic “have a nice day!” of the US as a bit artificial and superficial.
That said, I know which I’d prefer. A smile, even if it isn’t genuine, is vastly easier to deal with than a genuine scowl!
I’ve worked in a service industry for a bit. I found that smiling and being nice actually made my job easier because the customers responded to it and were nicer to me in return.
Same here in Portland, with the bus driver.
It depends which part of the UK you are talking about.
FWIW in my small town south of London people do still say ‘thanks’ to the bus driver.
And in all 4 of my local supermarkets the staff say their hello’s with apparent sincerity and I know from having relatives who’ve worked in them that their training puts a high emphasis on courtesy.
In many parts of the north and Scotland it is not unusual for complete strangers to nod hello to you when you are out for a walk and I remember in rural Ireland being unable to hike anywhere without random drivers stopping and asking if I needed a lift.
Sure in the cities people are frequently obnoxious – but I see exactly the same contrasts in America when I’ve travelled there.
For instance I was amazed at the contrast between Chicago and Memphis (although I admit I felt considerably safer in the former).
Class is also a factor – probably the most warm and courteous people I’ve ever encountered are ordinary working black folks in the American South – and the most obnoxious are the metropolitan British middle classes and their repulsive semi-feral children (particularly when on holiday).
I have heard it said that the British are “never unintentionally rude”. As for me, I’m Canadian – not only do we thank bus drivers, we apologize when someone else steps on our toes.
Writes Theo …we apologize when someone else steps on our toes.
And let’s not forget apologising to the light- or sign-post for bumping in to it. Not as common a habit as it used to be here in Oz, but I notice some people still do so, including myself.
It’s definitely region-specific, here in Milton Keynes, I think people are very friendly, and I wouldn’t consider them surly. London’s generally a bit surly, but I think you get a better interaction with people if you approach the interaction positively – it’s not always the fault of the service staff.
An alternative view is that the ‘Have a nice day’ service culture in the United States is a tad artificial and insincere. On a recent trip to the US, I seemed to flabbergast coffee bar staff by actually replying and conversing with them.
Oh, and I always say pleas and thank you. But I’m of an age where one might expect that!
Robert
The distinction between people who know they’re being rude and people who do not, is an important one for me. I have several times unwittingly committed acts of rudeness when visiting foreign countries. I just didn’t know the proper custom. Perhaps that’s my fault. But had I known the proper custom, I would have conformed to it (in most instances) so as not to be rude. I live in a big US city, the proverbial melting pot, and many times when someone’s rude to me, I sense that the rudeness might be cultural, and therefore unintentional. (E.g., From what I understand, direct eye contact is regarded as disrespect in some cultures. While in western culture, it’s usually regarded as respectful and attentive to make eye contact.) But that’s a far cry from the people who, from what I can tell, know they’re being rude and just don’t care.
Definitely a story which conflates London with the UK. Meedja types barely seem aware of life outside the M25. Not saying it’s perfect elsewhere, but I’m not alone in thanking bus drivers in Manchester.
You found someone British working in a service industry in London?
Remarkable!
(I’ve never had your experience in any Waitrose. I have always found the partners courteous, friendly and helpful)
I’m just back from four days in London visiting a seriously ill friend, and one thing that struck me was how polite everyone was in the shops I visited. It really made an impression on me at the time. Perhaps it was either a small sample, or I’m just comparing the level of service to that which I experience here in The Netherlands.
The analogy that springs to mind is the old trick of having three bowls of water: one hot, one cold, and one lukewarm. Put your left hand in the hot bowl, and your right hand in the cold bowl, and then after a minute, put them both in the lukewarm bowl. Your left hand will tell you the water is cold, while your right hand will tell you the water is hot…
Rats are smelled – Waitrose is a workers’ co-op [sort of], and renowned for attentive service.
People certainly thank the bus-driver where I live, which is an otherwise slightly run-down upper-working/lower-middle-class suburb.
Roux is, of course, promoting a new TV show, in which he tries to get some ‘underprivileged’ teenagers to learn to be waitstaff in a classy restaurant. Problems of attitude abound, naturally…
I too live in South London, and don’t recognize this picture at all. Waitrose staff have always been friendly, and the partners in the new Croydon John Lewis are positively effusive; why the check-out lady in Sainsbury’s the other day complimented me on my hair colour (it’s a gleaming silver btw). On the other hand if I were still a service person (I was once a librarian) I would baulk at serving persons who were talking on their mobiles whilst expecting me to serve them . . .
It is awful here. I still open doors for people and say thanks getting off from the bus, but most people in public seem either incapable of speaking any coherent English or are completely thoughtless.
I do think this is an incredibly London-centric view. I currently live in London, and it’s true that rudeness is rather common. Outside of London – even in the big cities in the Midlands and North – it’s normal to say thank you to the bus driver, it’s normal to make eye contact and it’s normal to be at least a bit friendly.
It’s sometimes hard to work out different cultural norms as well. On my only visit to America, I found service in New York to generally be pretty awful in shops, and good to the point of being slightly over-friendly in bars and restaurants. Other parts of the US were uniformly very friendly, and staff had clearly been trained.
I wonder if the problem in the UK stems from a breakdown in older social norms and niceties – especially in London – combined with a resistance to American style customer service training.
I live in a small town in the north of England and I don’t recognise that picture. More often than not shop staff are happy to chat.
If you happen to be a masochist (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and enjoy being abused by servitors I recommend Paris or Hong Kong: far more reliable than London.
You’re probably right, Ophelia (I’m a little biased as someone who may have to serve newspapers!).
Still, I have some empathy for surly sales assistants.
In Spain, it’s usual to thank the bus driver if you’re getting off at the front, but what’s curious is that if you’re in an elevator and somebody else gets in, they’ll always say hello (maybe not in a shop or other public place). It’s your chance for your elevator pitch to the big boss.
My recent UK experience is limited to Ambridge, though Susan in the village shop is always ready for a gossip, not that I’d want to.
Ben, that’s hilarious! I’d love to hear his views on how crops can be made to grow by cheerful romping, and the production of [let’s say] fertilisers by communal song.
I must admit I like the diagnosis rather more than the cure he proscribes. See it as a doctor who correctly notes your symptoms, gives a fine review of your complaint and recommends you seek a mystic elixir that lurks somewhere within the Amazon rainforest.
Nuances are subtle and area specific. Sometimes silence (not rude silence) is expected, other times some acknowledgment is normal. At times it is the correct thing to ignore someone’s presence.
I am reminded of a cartoon years ago:
NYC ‘f— you’ actually means ‘have a nice day’
LA ‘have a nice day’ actually means ‘f— you’
Well I have the same bias, Ben; I could have to peddle newspapers at any time. I’m not speaking from the POV of a lofty rich person demanding deference from the poor.
I don’t like “have a nice day” either – although I think that’s fading out here, except maybe in banks. (Then again maybe I just don’t get out enough to know.) My wants are modest. The absence of overt surliness is a good start.
Waitrose…what can I say. I’ve encountered some real shits at the Waitrose till. Maybe I’ve had bad luck.
I thought generalisations went out a long time ago. Would you find it acceptable to say this about women? or black people? or jews? etc. etc. etc. No, I thought not.
In Manchester it’s customary to say thanks to the driver
Really??
I take it you never listen to Radio 4 then – generalizations about “Americans” are highly fashionable there, as well as in the broadsheets and magazines, on blogs, etc.
But more to the point, women, blacks, and Jews are categories people are born into, which makes generalization particularly invidious. Generalizations about taxi drivers, lawyers, academics, intellectuals, politicians, bankers, real estate agents, marketers, hippies, yuppies, New Agers, woo merchants, Oprah fans, atheists, believers, journalists…those are not exactly rare, are they.
Surly, Slapdash and Dreadful are my three favourite dwarves.
I hate it when funeral directors say have a nice day or please come again though.
I live in North West England and if anything people are over-familiar: customers and shop keepers alike often addressing each other as ‘Luv’.
I tend to apologise the animals if I step on their paws though.
Oh, I know, it wasn’t a dig: I just doubt I’d be so empathetic otherwise.
I remember in rural Ireland being unable to hike anywhere without random drivers stopping and asking if I needed a lift.
@ Roger 7
Irish people in general are over-generous in their kindness to travellers. They’ll even invite them into their homes for the wee cupan tee and a big feed-up to help them on their journey
Here’s Rich Hall on the same topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwOG-64Zeao
Mind you the article does conclude that the British have probably only themselves to blame for the bad service, as they are not very good at complaining about bad customer service. They either say nothing or tend to get very angry. Neither really helps!
It is exactly the same scenario in Ireland, where generally one would never dare to even dream of complaining about anything. One just puts up with their lot. If one happens to be brave enough to stand up for their rights in service one is mostly seen by all to be some kind of outlandish cantankerous freak. It definitely breeds bad behaviour. The valley of the squinting windows mentality gives the service providers a kind of power.
I was shocked to read this broadbrush assasination of UK retail staff on B&W. Previous comments about regional differences are correct. There is a tremendous variation in social norms between different regions. As an extreme example the norm for modes of address within the West Yorkshire manufacturing industries of the 1990s would send most of your readers into paroxysms of politically correct fury, and yet they fostered an integration of communities (forgive the euphemism just this once please)in Huddersfield and Halifax that I have found absent in other parts of the UK. There is a case for dragging the vampire of discrimination so far into the daylight that it shrivels. In the more reserved environs of the Home Counties there is a veneer of reserved politeness that conceals deep social divides. I had the good fortune to work in a business in which the accents of the directors were as broad yorkshire as those of the labourers, and neither group were too precious to have a pint with the other – and the difference in salary multiples was a good deal less than seems to be the current norm. To quote a Yorkshire proverb, there’s nowt wrong wi’ reet folk.
MikeS
Ah so it’s not the English who are rude and standoffish, just the Southern English, the Northerners favourite meme.
This Southern Englishman doesn’t recognise any of this ( particularly the slur on Waitrose ), worthy of a Guardian article in fact.
I agree that this is a view of London – though I find service in London shops not that bad. In Scotland people are friendly and chatty in shops, you say thanks to the bus driver, taxi drivers are polite and helpful and don’t expect tips.
Just to add my name to the regional variation defence. I’m from a city where we all call each other luv and, bizarrely, duck and still thank the bus drivers. Funnily enough, my son has come back from a fortnight in New York and he couldn’t believe how rude the locals were. My other son has been living in London for a few months and can’t wait to come back home because of unfriendly Londoners.
Yes, mostly London, though I have had some startling experiences in the provinces…but mostly not in t’North. Mind you I once asked for a glass of water in a celebrated pastry shop in central York, and they thought I was feeling faint. ?? I was thirsty! (I’d forgotten my damn water bottle. Never do that.) They weren’t surly though.
I know what you’re thinking. I swan around like a privileged American demanding the impossible right and left. I do not either.
You’ll have had your tea?
ThornAvis, stick your meme where the sun don’t shine. I was born and brought up in Wiltshire, and I also deplore the slur on Waitrose. Your implication that I am a professional northerner is particularly repugnant. My point was that there are regional differences in social norms which need to be recognized and not condemned out of hand. Very Lazy.
‘The northerners favourite meme’ With undue respect, this phrase is the badge of an idiot.
I do wonder if, at least at the margins, what comes across to one person as surliness is mere reserve. It doesn’t surprise me that ‘automatic service’ tills have taken off in the UK – a lot of us secretly really don’t like having to interact with strangers at all (felt that way myself until the age of about 30) and come across as awkward and rude when we do.
On the north/south divide – my mother worked in a warehouse in the north of England and ended up dealing with all the southern English customers, whom everyone else found ‘hoity toity’ and ‘up themselves’ and whom she found ‘polite and courteous’ (with an implied ‘unlike those rude, over-familiar northerners’)
I’m consistently amazed at how much the definition of the term “rude” varies from place to place. Here in Houston it’s “polite” to ignore a person holding a door for you as if he or she were inanimate furniture, and to stop in the doorway and stand there and gaze about while people wait behind you to get in; and in general to pointedly and aggressively pretend that the people around you do not exist. It’s “rude” to hold the door for one person and then try to pass on that task to someone else; to expect to be thanked or even acknowledged for holding a door; to display any hint of impatience as a person in front of you stands in the doorway and maybe has a 10-minute conversation while some poor sucker is still standing there holding the door open for them; etc.
In short, expecting to be ackowledged as a person is “rude,” but it’s “polite” to pretend to ignore people. Unless of course you know them and can use them as an excuse to make strangers wait for you to clear a doorway.
The above rules do not of course apply to the roads, on which passing must always be done on the right, never the left, and where vehicle size ALWAYS determines right of way!
Between 1965 and 1990 I was in Britain about ten times. I always thought they were very polite, kind, thoughtful and helpful. So things must have changed in the last twenty years or so — is it really that long? But, of course, everyone makes generalisations about Americans. They’re the power. Before that people used to make generalisations about the Brits. They had the empire. Power invites disdain. Everyone who doesn’t wishes they had it.
I should add that the British tend to be much more frank and outspoken to each other than American and Canadian and possibly Australians. I spent three years in Bermuda, which at the time was very British — it’s not so much any more –and people spoke to each other in ways that, in Canada, would have started a fight, but they took it all in stride. Is this what people are calling rude? It’s not really. It’s just a cultural difference. One advantage is that Brits are often much readier to deal with differences of opinion that would be hidden in Canada and cause unhappiness in other ways.
But you are making a generalisation about a whole nation (which is also something people are born into) which you then appear to be qualify as only really meaning those of us from Southern England which then appears to be morphing into those of us who are Londoners.
As for what others (i.e. Radio 4) do, just because someone else does something, does that make it acceptable for you to do it?
Is there some other country also called Britain? My experience is that bad service is rare. May be living in a town rather than a city has something to do with it but even on trips to London or Birmingham I haven’t had the experiences described.
On most London buses one gets on at the front and off in the middle; if the driver lets you off at the front most people thank him for it, he’s bending the rules slightly. If all the passengers made a trip to the front to thank the driver before getting off in the middle – no it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Ha! Here we sometimes shout “thanks” from the middle door as we get off – but that’s rare, I must say. I don’t do it…except there’s this one very local bus, from the university district to the neighborhood where I live (and vv) – it’s such an odd little route that the people who use it start to recognize each other. I think I sometimes mutter “thanks” even from the middle door on that one.
The teenager with the cello has cut her hair; it’s a big improvement.
I second remarks about regional variations – I also live near Milton Keynes.
Also surely “good customer service” is very subjective?
Speaking for myself, I hate having to fake chit-chat with people behind counters whose only connection with me is the cash nexus. Please and thank-you on both sides, and helpful replies to questions are all I require. I’m not a person who responds to “retail environments.”
I recognise that this doesn’t apply to everyone, and that I’m at the extreme end of a distribution curve on what level of personal interaction constitutes “good service.”
I think I’m a pretty polite but reserved person (in real life, not the internet obviously) – I say my P’s & Q’s (including to bus drivers) I hold doors for people, I give directions to the lost; I don’t expect deference from or presume on people working in customer services, and I am able to understand the fact that when they can’t help you it’s often because they’re part of inflexible computerised systems and are charged with enforcing rules they don’t make (this especially applies to call centre workers.) Generally, this is the kind of polite but un-intrusive reaction I get in shops, restaurants and general life.
I have a couple of young friends who work in the service industry here in US, and being friendly is not part of their job descriptions. “Corporate” requires certain phrases (“tag lines” and “sales suggestions”) that are designed to increase sales, and if a Secret Shopper marks an evaluation sheet that indicates these phrases were not used, the sales clerk or server can suffer a reduction in pay. Evaluation is not based on performance or a supervisor’s observations, but on a generic form filled out by an amateur several hours after the transaction.
As an aside, my husband–a retired cop–has never seemed to grasp that these people are not interested in him as a human being instead of an increase in sales, and treats every sales clerk he meets as if they are both fellow travelers on an amusing journey to absurdity. He tries to brighten their day, they chuckle, and the transaction ends with a glow on both sides. I noticed this especially when we were in a supermarket in the south where he had not received the message from my sister that the colored sales clerks were especially rude to white customers. He received excellent service: friendly and welcoming. The point is that instead of demanding courteous service from a minimum wage employee, he treated a fellow human as an equal companion on absurd journey, and they both had a brief laugh before plodding on.
Having just relocated to Tokyo after my second stay in London (6 years this time), I can happily attest to the fact that service *has* improved in that city over the last decade. I was frequently impressed by the friendly demeanour of the many Eastern Europeans who now seem to dominate the restaurant scene. As for the local staff, well, the less said the better.
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All this, of course, is from the person who once complained about people telling her to cheer up… Have a nice day, OB!
In light of Jerry’s “nice” article, we should retract the slurs on the British service sector employees! Who knew they were mini-revolutionaries expressing their anger through rude service? Gnu atheist in training.
I personally can give or take it the polite service, seeing that at some times as a customer I can be surly myself, depending on my humour and in no mood to engage in mindless chitchat with someone I’ve never met before and just happen to be purchasing some cigarettes from. Perhaps it’s the likes of me who sour the humour of the employee for the next person?
That’s not to say I don’t always use please and thank you, but that I wonder why we insist that normal social niceties are applied to basic, humdrum financial transactions? It’s good to know that I should, out of politeness, thank a bus driver for completing the transaction we entered into when I paid my fare. I especially thank them when, despite adequate notice of my intention to exit the omnibus, they insist on last minute emergency braking at the stop allowing me to exit more swiftly through their windscreen rather than the irksome door mechanism.
Yet it seems people only expect pleasantries when they’re in the mood of engaging in social niceties, when they’re not, then it’s “Yankie customer service gone mad” as they balk at the over-friendly, over-the-top, presumptuous service values as if they’ve just asked whether the customer engaged in his conjugal rights the previous evening and whether it was enjoyable. Effectively, the entire service industry is damned by employing younger people who haven’t mastered the art of reading the current unique disposition of every individual they engage with and altering their social engagement to suit. They don’t need customer service training; they need to become NLP masters.
All that aside, I should point out that Michel Roux Jr really is the last person to be commenting on what is society accepts as nice, being quite an arrogant, rude sod himself.
Same here! As I found myself saying to a commenter on Facebook yesterday, at which point I became amused at the whole “not too much and not too little” Goldilocks thing, so I made fun of myself.
Still…I’m stuck with it. I don’t want strangers asking me personal questions as I deposit my tiny check but I also don’t want them glowering at me as I pay for my humble loaf of bread. I want both a decent reserve and a decent civility. I am very exigent.
Telling a complete stranger on the street to cheer up is decidedly intrusive, Dave! That wasn’t anything to do with “service,” it was random people (men) on the street, interrupting me when I was just woolgathering or looking at the scenery. It was basically “Hey, Ugly, I don’t like the way you look! Fix it!”
MikeS :
So touchy, I used to live in Wiltshire funnily enough and have good memories of the place, the locals I knew in those days would have recognised a mild North v South joke when they saw one.
I know, OB, I was only teasing.
BTW, have you ever read http://www.theawl.com/? They call the UK ‘Knifecrime Island’, and only mention it when there’s an opportunity to reinforce the stereotype of us as complete thugs.
Meanwhile, Wiltshire, oo-arrr!
I’m much the same with waiters (you know, there are a lot of restaurants here…). I don’t want them slamming things down and refusing to listen; at the same time, I don’t want them smirking and winking and chatting up my wife. And most especially I don’t want to hear the artificial “wait-speak” they’re indoctrinated into, with expressions like “How is everything tasting here? And did we save room for dessert?” Don’t talk to me like I’m a three-year-old, for the love of Pete!
A recent family visit convinced me that my Goldilocks expectations were not only entirely unreasonable, but also far from universal: my mother enjoys the “wait-speak,” and my wife wants to be smired and winked at and chatted up in front of me. In contrast, my father would prefer waiters be rendered mute as a job prerequisite.
Yeah, I hate the check outs at some supermarkets where the staff have obviously gone through a training programme – be friendly, be ultra friendly. I don’t want “And how are you today?” from a random check out operator. That’s fine from the guy in the local shop who I’ve been exchanging pleasantries with for years, but not from a one-off encounter in the supermarket. It comes across as familiar, rather than friendly.
Evelyn Waugh said that he liked either formality, intimacy or servility, and hated familiarity, which is what he got in the USA. Of course he was a hateful rude sod himself.
Well, it has been a while since I saw this old stereotype dragged up. I was born in the UK and lived there 29 years before moving to the US and will add my voice to the “Nope, don’t recognise this tired old horse crap” crowd, because I don’t. If saying “Thanks” to the bus driver is a marker of the politeness of a society then indeed my old town in Derbyshire was a model of civility.
However, having worked in retail for almost four years after moving to the USA I can say that, at least here in Highlands Ranch Colorado, US customers are some of the most awful, ignorant, stuck up, self centred, impatient, ungrateful, needy and downright rude people that I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. Apparently that means all Americans must be the same. I can’t imagine why people elsewhere might appear surly when interacting with them then.
Of course, just to throw more spanners in the works of stupid anecdotal generalisations, one of the American assistant store managers where I worked took a vacation in England two years ago and when she came back told me that she understood why I had so much trouble with the attitudes of US customers, since everyone she had met in England was so polite.
How confusing. It is almost as if real life can’t be summed up by stereotyped generalisations. Can we please stop flogging this dead horse now?
This is an interesting string albeit dead since the last post was in January, earlier this year, but I thought I would comment.
I was raised in the American Midwest but my Grandparents are from Scotland and England. Great gran was from Wales. I have spent quite a lot of time in the UK and in particular London. I have also been to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, most Western European Nations and South American countries. My life is awesome. Anyway. I had always found people to be generally friendly and polite in the service industries all round the World. In Hong Kong the shopkeepers were chatty and nice even if their English was a little muddled. And I appreciate this greatly as it is not their native tongue. I find the English reserved but I myself am like this with strangers so it is not odd at all to me. I like it. Sure people are a bit more dismissive in London and Liverpool than they would be in Milton Keynes or Cornwall or Peebles, but I never have felt they were surly. I prefer Sainsbury’s and I like the outlet in Cromwell Rd South Ken. Also the Sains Express up at Marble arch is nice for a late pop in after the Cinema but anyway. They are all helpful. My last observation, and i mean no offense to the Dutch, but this is a place that boggled my mind. They did seem outright vicious and surley when I was discovered to be non Dutch. Of course this was in Amsterdam, but I had always heard that they were welcoming. There were exceptions of course. The Woman in the Tulip Museum was sweet and we had a lovely chat, but over all I felt like I was intruding. The tone of voice was always harsh when they told me there were no seats or why didn’t I phone ahead. This drove me straight over to the Ethic foreign owned establishments who treated me very nicely, Indonesians and Italians and the Argentines. This had the added benefit of me speaking Spanish so perhaps that was it. Just my 2p…
That Sainsbury’s in the Cromwell Road is…HUGE. It’s so huge you can’t figure out how to get into it.
They’re terribly rude in Milton Keynes. Just kidding. :- )