Saturday 13 April 2019

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell




The Diary of a Bookseller was described by the Daily Mail as 'warm, witty and laugh-out-loud funny'.  I agree with this but also found it a tad repetitive.

But I had to post about it because of one entry that tickled my funny bone – it was worth reading the whole book just for this.

So here it is –

In the emails today was one from a former employee, Sara, who worked for me during school holidays a few years ago: 'You Bitch-tits, I need a reference.  Here's the form attached.  Make it good, you bastard or I will come and get you.'  So I wrote this and emailed it to her.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

REFERENCE FOR SARA PEARCE

Sara worked Staurdays at The Book Shhop, 17 North Main Street, Wigtown, for three years while she was at the Douglas Ewart High School.  When I say 'worked', I use the word in it loosest possible terms.  She spent the entire day either standing outside the shop, smoking and snarling at people trying to enter the building, or watching repeats of Hollyoaks on 4OD.  Although she was generally punctual, she often arrived either drunk or seveerly hungover.  She was usually rude and aggressive.  She rarely did as she was told, and never, in the entire three years of her time here, did anything constructive without having to be told to do so.  She invariably left a trail of rubbish behind her, usually consisting of Irn-Bru bottles, crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and cigarette packets.  She consistently stole lighters and matches form the business, and was offensive and frequently violent towards me.

She was a valued member of staff and I have no hesitation in recommending her.'

I imagine the recipient just copied the last sentence and used it!

1 comment:

Your comments are most welcome. I have currently disabled anonymous comments due to unwanted spam. Cheers