Economics

I should probably, now I know more, explain the economics of a charity shop.

I don't really like economics. Always reminds me that the Department for International Development, the government's aid arm, funded a pop song in Tanzania to advocate the privatisation of the water supply in Dar-e-Salaam. That reminds me, I wonder whatever happened to Belize telecommunications. Last I heard Belize was being held in contempt of a Florida court and was being fined several million for it.

Powers and principalities. Pays not to ignore the Bible. There's a very big one at the charity shop, on a high shelf in the attic. If you ignore it perhaps it will fall on your head.

Much like the Sword of Damocles or the government, then. Look what the government are doing to the farmers again. First get the cattle infected with foot and mouth (which, again, came from a government lab, just like the 2001 anthrax in America and the last foot and mouth outbreak). It's a non-fatal disease but they still feel the need to fill quarries and landfills with the carcases of cattle and incinerate them, even thuogh the smoke carries the disease further than any wandering beast could.

I notice retardsman has been opining again. The number plate I found at the rigint board (always a source of useful information),

hopefully when your shopmate (!) draws you from yr shell, she'll be well
armed :O)

Well, my thoughts exactly. The downside of having control of yourself is that the controlling half of the bicameral mind isn't very creative or personable. The other half is a dangerous psychopath, though. Jekyll and Hyde. I've no inclinations towards being a teenage mutant hero turtle. I always prefered Bananaman, and I haven't been a teenager in years now.

Anyway, economics.

Around these parts there are lots of charity shops. Pretty town, this, plenty of rich people as long as you stay away from the sink estates and retreat to the bunker at weekends and nighttimes. There are plenty of old people, plenty of fashionable women and plenty of Polish immigrants. Seemingly endless numbers of them, in fact. The occasional Portugoose, but mostly Poles. Thousands of 'em. These are all good customers.

The staff are mostly free. The shop, for some reason or other, has two assistance managers but no manager. The rest of the staff are volunteers who get no recompense beyond a free meal. It's probably quite easy for a charity shop to make money as they pay nothing for staff or for most of their stock. The shop consists of three floors. The top floor is just a storage room for junk. Most of this stuff is supposedly there waiting for Christmas but I've seen a box of Noddy memorabilia and a couple of flags. Most of the stuff has just been stuffed up there. Big shelves full of trophies, books, cuddly toys, a Sega Megadrive 3. A teddy bear which counts down from ten, very much in the manner of a bomb, when you squeeze its hand and then shouts "welcome to the year 2000". And, of course, lots of Christmas stuff. Racks full of winter clothing. Jumpers. Coats. The odd leather jacket.

We are not, I should point out, allowed to reject anything someone wants to donate. Might hurt their feelings, apparently, if we tell the truth instead of taking their tat. Then they won't come back next time when they have more stuff to bring us. Won't come back as a customer. The fact is that, along with having too many staff (perhaps inevitable when you don't have to pay them) we have too much stuff. Far too much. We don't really want anything else. We've started accepting electricals (which was previously illegal) but we're trying not to let anyone find out in case they start bringing stuff in.

Every monday a van comes with dozens of bin-liner type bags full of stuff picked up by a van. Every tuesday another van comes from some other branch of the charity with more tat which they couldn't sell and takes anything we couldn't sell. Every day people bring in bags full of their old stuff they don't want any more. The rotate system, by which stuff unsold at one shop goes to another, is particularly stupid in that our shop always has more than it can handle and now has more (for this system has only just started) but its run because the shops we swap with live in areas full of skinflints who never donate anything. Most of the tat they send here gets put in bags and sold to a rag and bone man who strips it down for buttons and zips to recycle and packs off the stuff too bad even for him to the third world, where they worship a statue of their generous benefactor as if he was Lt. Cmdr. Spicer, RN.

As I say, the shop has three levels. The second floor is storage, the ground floor is the shop and the first floor is where we hang clothes, put price tags on and all that.

That's enough. Too hot. Where's all that rain when it's needed?