He shaved his head the night before . . .
IBM T42 ThinkPad
Those of you who read this journal more frequently than I write it will remember that in September I travelled to London and purchased an IBM ThinkPad from a shop on the Tottenham Court Road.
This week I noted that the VAT rebate had not appeared in my bank account, and so I telephoned Raj who does the books at the establishment in question and asked why this was so. He explained that his company no longer rebated money electronically into banks, but instead insisted that people come in person, or send an agent to collect a cheque.
I thanked Raj and wrote the following letter of authorisation which I faxed to my agent:
Dear Sirs,
This letter introduces Mr. Phillip Lane who is authorised by me to collect from you a valid cheque in the sum of £107-44 this being the VAT rebate on an IBM computer purchased on 26-09-06.
Please deliver the cheque into the hand of Mr. Lane forthwith, and with no more hows-your-father!
With kind regards,
Stephen Bray
Today Phillip sent me the following account of how his mission evolved:
On Monday I phoned Raj and requested that he prepare a cheque for me to collect today, he assured me that the cheque would be at the shop for me to collect before noon.
This morning I tried to phone him again to ensure that the cheque was in fact at the shop and I got no answer, I tried a few times more with same result and decided that I would go to the shop anyway. Now most retail units are quite quiet places, this shop was anything other than quite. There were Chinese, Italians and Americans demanding blood, they seemed to be unhappy.
Now I am quite tall and presently sport a shaven head, I shaved my head the night before so that I could look like Britany Spears, I wore a sharp business suit and a long stockman fashioned coat and was very quite. As I approached the elder of all the assistants he mistook my approach and fled into the stockroom. I approached the next most senior looking assistant and very quitely explained that I had been appointed by Steve Bray of Amos Bay in Turkey to collect a cheque for a VAT refund and that I didn’t like to raise my voice. I got the distinct impression that they had been waiting for me and that there was no cheque. I was told that I was to have to wait, then the penny dropped! they were not going to be very helpful! So I very quitely explained that I didn’t like to wait, then another man approached and asked the elder man if there was a problem? The shop had become very quiet and the tourist were watching me.
I then had the distinct feeling that the quieter I spoke, the more they understood, I find this approach very useful, very quickly a cheque book appeared and as the man fumbled with his pen he wrote out a cheque as earlier requested. I will pay the cheque in tomorrow.
To dodgy dealers I say beware and bewarned, the hand, and shaven head, of Amos even stretches into the avenues and alleyways, where the soul of a man is easy to easy to buy!
February 24th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Last Saturday morning, having received your request, I chose to drive into work nice and early, I also had a mountain of work to catch up with.
As I drove through the streets of Hackney on the way to Farringdon, I drove past a Fiat Punto with it’s off side drivers window shattered, but with a large hole in the middle.
I drive through Hackney most mornings on the way to work and I often see that vehicles have been broken into and thought no more of it.
A few yards behind the Punto I see a man laying in the road with a man standing above him and thought to myself two drunks on their way home and equally thought nothing of that, as the man standing above the ‘drunk’ seemed to be trying to help the ‘drunk’ roll over and stand up.
I often see this in the early hours of the morning as I drive to work and gave it no second thought.
But just prior to all this happening, a Mercedes cuts me up and I give the driver (Who looked like a young Stevie Wonder), a small but curt rebuke, along the lines of ‘Who the **** do you think you are? Stevie Wonder?’.
Later that afternoon having received your fax, for the attention of Raj, I sat and caught a radio broadcast about a shooting in Hackney around the time that I was driving through Hackney.
Having checked BBC news, I phoned the Crime stoppers help line, so that I could hand myself in, certain that I had been recorded on CCTV as that area is very heavily monitored, mainly because it’s notorious for shootings, stabbings and similar dysfunctional behaviour.
Within 20 minutes, my mobile rings and a Detective from Operation Trident is on the other line and wants to interview me straight away, being the up standing citizen that I am, I decline and make arrangements to see him the following day.
Now I wasn’t exactly expecting Sherlock Holmes to turn up, but a shirt and tie would of been desirable.
So, there I am with a 31 year old, long haired hippy, looking individual wearing a combat jacket, but as he seemed such a nice chap and reminded me of myself when I went AWOL from the 5th Airborne Brigade back in the mid 1980’s, I decided to tell him all.
Two hours later, having explained about the three to five seconds of my routine drive to work, he then decided to explain to me what I had not seen, but had been part of.
A man had an argument in a nearby night club and had left and been pursued up the road and had jumped into his Punto to escape, he was then shot twice through the drivers window, he then tried to reverse and struck a car behind him, stalled the car and got out to run away and then got shot one more time before dying on the streets of Hackney.
Stevie Wonder! and the Mercedes seem to be instrumental in the execution and the drunk standing up over the ‘Victim’? who knows!
This was the proceeded later in the week, with another shoot out between the Met’ police and a group of Eastern European Gypsies after my friend Vince and I had visited a Vodafone store in Covent Garden.
Then to top it off, last night I was viciously attacked by a ‘hoody’ whilst on my way to the Chinese takeaway with Jocelyn and Becky, having seized his mobile phone in lieu of compensation for the hassle, he rode off on his bicycle.
Strange but true, Vince my friend from work thinks that I am a bad influence, as we entered the reception area of our office yesterday morning, having been out causing people untold hassle, he said to the chap in front of us ‘he looks like a nice boy, lets bugger him!’
Now Peter the chap in front of us is a gay man with no humour and just happens to be the disability and discrimination adviser from our own ‘Human Sauces’ dept.
Hey Ho!
February 25th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Sometimes life’s like that. When I was in Istanbul I bought the world’s smallest digital SLR, (an Olympus e-400). I have spent lots of time playing with it and decided to sell all my Canon equipment, so impressed have I been with the camera handling and picture quality.
Yesterday I duly packaged up all my Canon lenses and the D20 body and said goodbye to them. I then went to see Levant’s new cafe in Marmaris taking the Olympus with me. After taking two shots of Irem the machine locked up. It will probably have to go back to Olympus for repair!
Not so disastrous as your week though, methinks?