Kinky La Rue

I caught a shoplifter red-handed at my local Tesco’s this morning.

I was going around the aisles, minding my own business, whistling the theme tune to Fame, when in the last aisle with all the soft drinks etc., I saw a man crouched down stuffing bottles of lemonade into a big hold-all. He didn’t take just one or two, he took at least a dozen bottles. We’re talking the big two litre bottles here. The case was obviously empty and the guy was on a mission.

Now the guy hadn’t seen me, as I had come up behind him and he was watching the other direction. I have to admit I stood there for a minute, gobsmacked at what I was seeing, my mind registering the fact that he was stealing bottles of lemonade.

So I gathered my thoughts together and went to find a shop person to let them know about it. I found a lady who I recognised as a till supervisor and told her what I’d seen and gave her a description of what he was wearing.

I tell you what, this guy had some balls. In the meantime, he had a shopping basket in one hand whilst wheeling around the hold-all on wheels, taking his sweet time. He even stop to ask another member of staff where some other either item was.
By this time I was at the till unloading my groceries and he was at one of the 10 items or less tills. In the interim the supervisor had told the security guard about the guy and what to look out for.

As the shoplifter took so long with his other items at the 10 items or less checkout, I was done paying for my goods and on my way to the lift heading to the car park, so I never got to see what happened and I thought it would’ve been a bit weird standing around waiting to see what would happen. I’ll have to ask the supervisor when I’m next in.

The funny thing was, when I was in last week I was just chatting to one of the cashiers at the till who was telling me that since the recession there was a huge increase in shoplifting, to the point where they had to put toiletries like men’s deodorant and Nurofen in plastic cases so they had to be unlocked at the till. That particular store is losing thousands each month through shoplifting and unfortunately passing the shortfall to raising the prices of goods. I was fascinated by the stories the cashier was telling me and I thought it might be good for one of my assignments, should it ever come up.

I mean with this guy, it wasn’t just one or two, as I said it was at least a dozen he stuffed his case with. Maybe it was for his restaurant, or maybe he just had a prediliction for shop brand lemonade, I don’t know. But you could tell he’d done it before. And instead of walking out immediately, he spent at least another 10mins or so, wandering around the store wheeling around the stolen lemonade in his hold-all. Talk about Mr. Super-Cool.
Human nature, fascinating.

An email I received yesterday:

“Hi,

I have just left my job as a trainee solicitor – I want to become a teacher instead. I notice you are seeking a career in law.
Would it be possible to meet you for a fee less than 150? – e.g. for a half hour appointment? Hopefully I can give you some advice on getting into law as a favour in return.
M***”

I’m not sure if he was asking for a reduction in fee, or he wanted to pay for half an hour, have the half hour booking, then give me “lawyerly advice” for another half an hour. Yeahhh, not going to happen Mr. Man, not least because nowhere on my site does it say that my goal is to get into law. I did say that I’d like to talk the hind legs off a donkey if I happen to get as clients, any lawyers, solicitors or anybody else involved in the criminal justice system. But no, trading time for “advice”, from a trainee solicitor who’s leaving the profession to become a teacher anyway, isn’t really the direction I’d like to go in.

To be truthful, I’m not sure what I’d like to do when I grow up. I’d like to see what opportunities are out there when the time comes.

£35 a night if booked in advance; £9 if you manage to grab one in one of their promotions, the Tune hotel opened its doors recently in Westminster. If you’re on a budget gents, you can’t get much cheaper than this in Central London. I’d love to see anybody try.

The Tune Hotel

Bearing in mind gents, what my brand new site looks like, with Kinky La Rue SW1 emblazoned in the top right hand corner along with my phone number.
A phone call I received today: “Hi, can you tell me where you’re based?”

Let me see, what have I been up to this past week since my last insertion.
Well, last Saturday afternoon I met up with one my favourite ladies in the business, Adorable Amy, the pitbull of Saafe. A woman after my own heart whom I met for cake and hot chocolate at the Hummingbird Bakery. As my mother would say, my eyes were rather too large for my stomach and I ordered a whopping great big piece of red velvet cake, of which the cupcake version I had already sampled. Of course I couldn’t finish it off. But I gave it a damn good try. It’s always nice to meet up with other working ladies, I know what a solitary occupation this can become. We chatted away like two old hens and the next thing we know she had to make a mad dash for the train station. It was lovely meeting up and I hope to do so again when she’s next in town.

Good things are happening at my Other Job. I had a chat with my operations manager last Tuesday and we discussed moving further with my voluntary work, which would mean training in other fields. He asked me if I would be interested in moving up and I said “duh, what do you think?” No, I didn’t really. I said of course, sign me up. So I have more training days coming up in the next few weeks. If it interrupts with my regular work days, I’ll keep you posted.

I’m having a great response to my new pictures. Unfortunately, some gents still can’t get past the pictures and read the actual info written on the site, asking for days I wasn’t available. The phone was red hot yesterday and indeed this morning. Yesterday I was at a wedding. I stayed overnight at my mum’s and came home today. So I marked a day off on my diary on the Saturday, with Sunday being a rest day anyway, but I’ve just switched my phone on to lots of missed calls. I don’t know what else to do with the guys that can’t be bothered to take the time to read the text on my site. I just dunno.

Tomorrow is another rest day. Well, I say rest day, but I will be out and about first thing uniform buying. I’m hoping my progeny will have reached the end of the growth spurt that usually happens during the school holidays. Tuesday it’s back to the Other Job.
Throw in a couple of bookings, including a long one with a guy I call my cricket man and it was indeed a good week.

I’ve added a new page to my blog with news of my latest tours, seeing as I have a couple going at the moment; the one to Glasgow in October and having made up my mind after seeing some interest in coming up to the West Midlands, I’ll also be visiting Wolverhampton. I was thinking Birmingham, but gentlemen interested are either in, or closer to the Wolverhampton area. So Wolves it is.

I do get asked to tour other places, I got a call from a guy in York last week, and I still get the odd call from gents in Ireland. I’ve been getting them for years and I’m sure I’d do very well. Unfortunately, due to some racist and ignorant comments I read on an Irish forum a few years ago, I vowed to myself I’d never visit. It’s not so much that the comments were made, what rankled me more was that the poster wasn’t admonished in any way and the comments were allowed to stay. Which just showed me how tolerant of racism the owner/s were. It may or may not be an indication to how things are over there, I don’t know. But the comments I read stopped me cold.

I’m sure I’m missing out on meeting some lovely gentlemen, I’ve met a few here in London who’ve come over either for business or a vacation. Indeed, the gentleman who paid the price of an overnight, paid for a night’s stay in an Edinburgh hotel and also paid my air fare to Edinburgh, just to spend a few hours with me last year, was from Ireland. He was a persistent soul. But I’m sorry, you won’t catch me visiting the country for love nor money.

Why would I want to visit a place where such ignorance is still prevelant in the 21st century? I’m fully aware that racism is still in full swing in certain parts of the Greater London area and beyond, I just happen to read the comments on an Irish board.

I know I’ve broken the old adage of “it’ll never happen”. But believe me, it does apply in this case. It’ll never happen. But on a lighter note, I can’t wait to visit Glasgow and Wolverhampton.

After much knashing of teeth and bashing of heads on any nearby flat surface, my new site and pictures are up and running. And as you can see I’ve changed the theme on my blog too. It took bloody ages to find but it was the closest colour theme to the site.

The site is bigger than my old one, so I had to add new text. And because there are some fantastic facesitting pics that Twiggy took in Manchester, I had my webmistress create a seperate gallery.

But do take time and have a look at my new site. I hope you like it.

I’ve been busy with my webmistress putting together my new website. I’m using the new pictures that Twiggy took of me during our time together in Manchester and I must say he’s done himself proud. I’m not sure if it’s sunk in with him yet that he’ll be forever immortalised on my website. Well, for the next year at least anyway. But I’m really pleased, I love the site and I love the pictures. It should be ready to go live in the next couple of days, providing my poor webmistress hasn’t run out of steam yet, bless her.

Which means I also have to change the theme to my blog. My webmistress sent me a link to the WordPress blog site with another 90, yes 90 pages of new themes that I hadn’t seen before. I won’t tell you how long it took for me to get through it, and I still haven’t decided which one I want to use.

So I’m going to have a quick look again this morning before I go off to Victoria for my 11am booking with my Newcastle favourite. I’ve got it down to a handful, thank goodness. I was beginning to see squares in everything.

To start with, I didn’t end up buying the car. Well, actually I did but it was bought back off me.

The condensed version is; I bought the car last Sunday, took it for its MOT on Monday. Turned out it needed over £200 worth of repairs. Called the previous owner and said that I thought he should be responsible for half the costs (even the garage agreed with me), considering he told me how brilliant the car was and that it should pass its MOT no problem. Seller got all huffy with me and got p****d off  because I didn’t trust him, which is ironic because it’s why I’m in a pickle with the car, because I trusted him. He demanded the car back, told him come and get it, and he bought it back from me, plus the £206 for the MOT.

I know a little bit on consumer law and whilst it’s true that I, the consumer didn’t have as many rights buying privately as I would’ve had buying trade, the car wasn’t roadworthy and I could’ve sued if I was mean and nasty enough. Plus he broke our original agreement (which I had put in writing and we both signed) that he was going to take it for its MOT himself, but says in the end he didn’t have the time to. Alarm bells should’ve gone off really, when he asked if he could keep the car for another week, whilst he had £100 of my money as a deposit.

So, my old bird went for her test on the Tuesday, failed as expected, being so old, but the repairs needed were nearly half of what the Volvo had.

So I still have my old banger and no new car. But the fan belt’s fixed and it doesn’t make that annoying squeaking noise when I turn the engine. And it’s starting fine too.

I’m still in need of a car but I think I’ll take my time looking. But two things I learned from this experience, never trust a guy when he says it’ll pass its MOT no problem, and stick to Japanese brands. Oh, and don’t buy privately.

My package arrived from the Open University on Wednesday. I am now officially a “mature student”.

I haven’t had the chance to go through it yet, but I got a lovely canvas carry case to go with the books, along with a dvd. I may walk about with it so I can look bookish and studenty,lol.

I’ve yet to be assigned my tutor though, but as the course doesn’t officially start until Sept. 1st, I guess there’s still time. I’m new to all this and not sure how things are done.

But here goes. Wish me luck.