I Spy with my little eye ...

Something beginning with V For Valentino, the Italian high-end fashion designer.  In these cash-strapped times when my budget's being pulled in all directions like the legs off a spider, I felt the need for some new bits and bobs to complement my fairly sparse wardrobe.  The other week when I couldn't get my arm in, I had a peck through and culled all the Primani t-shirts, which left me with nothing to go out in.  Plenty to clean the car with but that's another story. Worse, we've got a works do coming up and Krystal has challenged us all to get out of our black feathers and into something a bit wilder.

"Why dress down when you can dress up?"  She always looks lovely and shared her shopping secrets with the team.  Charity shops darling ...

And this is where I found Signor Valentino.  I've been playing I Spy in all the best ones - LOROS, British Heart Foundation, Age UK and Sue Ryder - and found a new, New Look skirt for £2.95 but imagine my total smugness at discovering a pure silk, made in Italy, hand-crafted by elves tie for Alphonse for £1.00.  I don't know about your neck of the woods but our charity shops have become very fashion savvy these days and are almost outdoing the Vintage Clothing trade.  I spent a happy Saturday afternoon in Leicester Cathedral recently with Raven Sandra hunting through piles of clobber, mainly from the 1970's, which I'm sure I wore in my Miss Selfridge days.  I had to be dragged away from an original Biba long dress ... Sandra spied the moth holes, I just saw long grass, straw hats and Harmony hairspray.

Anyway, I skipped back to the nest utterly made up by my purchase and left it in an obvious place where Alphonse couldn't miss its shining colours and top-end artistry.  I was sure he would snatch it up when he saw the pattern number actually woven into the fabric, then scooted off to the Retail Cathedral - we Ravens like quality don't you know?  Several gruelling hours later, I stumbled in the door to be met with a mug of tea and a loaded question hanging in mid-air.

"Who owns that 8loody awful tie?"

"I do ... it's a Valentino."  Y'know, I could feel it in my water that this was going nowhere.

"You'd better give it back to him then."

"I actually picked it up for you, hoping you may part with the mouldy polyester Haymarket Theatre tie you adore [bought circa 1989] and replace it with neckwear of quality."

"Was it expensive."  Said like "is it plutonium???"  I should have been a diplomat.

"In London ... seventy quid maybe.  But a small donation to charity secured it for me."

His face said it all, as if something exciting would happen if he dared wear the offending tie just once ... if only.  So my beak drooped towards the floor and I vowed never to be so taken in by a moment of sartorial elegance again.

One moment which took me utterly by surprise - spying Grimy on tele in the Closing Ceremony at 23:03 precisely if you're watching on iPlayer.  Imagine the impossible odds of seeing a mate who lives just up the road, dressed as an Edwardian gent just before the cannon went off.  Amazing.  And do you know what?  The Valentino tie would have looked just right with his tweed suit.  Not the cap though ...

Tip of the Blog:  I Spied "Accused" on BBC1 on Tuesday night.  Will someone please give Sean Bean a BAFTA for his staggering performance as Tracey/Simon.  Not necessarily for his willingness to be stripped bare on camera, or the outstanding acting, or the fact he's got better legs than I have - but for using his voice to make me fall in love with Tennyson's poem 'The Lady of Shallott."  Sean, I owe you one.

Raven

Adieu to the Games

Shortly, the greatest show on Earth will be over for another four years.  Honestly I’ll be gutted to see it go and for London to return to its usual, grumpy self.  Even from this distance, I’ve been thrilled by the performances of all our athletes, sharing the incredible highs and agonizing lows from the comfort of the nest and I’m now horrified that all we’ve got to look forward to is Strictly Come Dancing.  Worse, in the frenetic build-up to tomorrow night, I’m a little envious of Grimy, whose dogged determination, dancing skills and staying power have bumped him from understudy to cast member of the Closing Ceremony.  Soddit … I’m actually jealous that I can’t be there.

Reflecting back over the last few weeks, I’ve no idea what the likes of Gary Lineker, Jake Humphries and Sue Barker are going to do with themselves but I’ll be buying a bike and pedaling while the sun’s out.  You already know I’ve no natural talent where cycling’s concerned but the Sky-ride looks fun if only I could find the right wheels.  Since they were first invented, I’ve wanted one of those Moulton-style, low slung numbers but it seems I’ve underestimated their trend value because they’re a monumental seventeen hundred quid.  Don’t think the car’s worth that much these days …

So, in the spirit of the Olympics I’m trying to add an element of fitness to the tedium of the working day as the Retail Cathedral is pretty much empty during holiday time.  Post re-fit, we no longer have zig-zagged tables and gondolas in strategic positions so opportunities to Zumba behind the fixtures are limited.  In their place stands a long, white set of tables which are so high maintenance, they need constant cleaning with linen spray to obliterate finger marks from the surface - they smell great though.  One regular customer [who just happens to be pathologist] took one look at the pendulum lights and quipped,
“Perfect conditions for a splenectomy Raven – just whip off the gifts and pass me a scalpel.” 
Being more snow goose than raven in stature, his booming voice reached a woman browsing through the soaps.  Visibly blanching, she grabbed her chicks and ushered them to the door.  No GSOH obviously.

Anyway, we’ve instigated a four-by-four-metre relay race around the central table using a cleanser bottle as a baton, and the first team to make a full circuit without being stopped by the management wins a prize.  It’s quite fun in a sado-masochistic way.  And there are bike wheels present on the new display trolley - as a sporting challenge, I believe it could be involved in a ten-metre-push, if only we could actually push it.  You see, there’s a cunning third leg at the back which means forward or backward movement is virtually impossible without a four-raven team to lift it.  As the bloke from Menkind observed yesterday,

“Can I have those when you’re fed up with them.  They’re just the right size for my fold-up bike.”  Damn him … I bet he’s got a Moulton.  So let’s forget the wheels, they’re purely cosmetic just like the half sized half of a child’s cast iron bath.  Please don’t ask me to explain, just nip along to the RC and look in the window at the forlorn thing, all by itself, draped in union flags … and bags.  Frankly, it could be used in a clean-and-jerk record attempt as it weights as much as it cost and just this once, I’m not telling because I’m embarrassed.  Seriously, you could buy two Moulton bikes … instead, there a chunk of scrap waiting to be collected.

And look out for the stick-on passport stamps in the window - the Chinese one is back to front, and the French one is upside down and backwards.  "Bienvenue" it ain't.

Tip of the Blog:  Wave when you see Grimy – he’s the Edwardian raven with a beard sporting a big grin.  Best not see his Facebook page, the ponytail's all wrong on so many levels.

Raven

Keep your voice down ...

But we've finally been refitted and despite days of nit-picking will be ready for the grand re-opening ceremony on Saturday.  Sadly, and with a touch of irony, it won't be as creative, grand or bone-numbingly expensive as last week's opening ceremony, and I won't enjoy it nearly as much but I do have a new M&S t-shirt for the event.  I've also been threatened with banishment if it's not pristine on the day, so I'll have to find other feathers to hop to the shops in until then.

Actually, the clothes I've been working in for the last two days are sealed in a bag awaiting the washing machine and some serious bio-hazard, muck removing liquid - but at least I was covered.  On day one, Wonky decided to turn up in one of those long t-shirts masquerading as a dress.  Give her some credit, she's got good legs and being determined to show them off isn't a bad thing ... until you're faced by a puritanical regional-sales-manager determined to reign on her parade.  She was taken aside by different management and ordered to cover up because [and I'm not kidding] "there are men present."  Were it in my power, I would award Wonky with a medal for not batting a false eyelash and instead tramping off to H&M to buy some much sexier trousers with a provocative zip up the back to cover her legs. 

These two days of Hell also included a much-anticipated return of our own management monster and in her wake followed the 'almost but not quite top of the pile manager' who is made entirely of dark matter.  You know the type if you've worked in retail for a while - two hundred quid jeans, a snow white never-gonna-get-dirty shirt, mahogany tan and hard-hat hair, the kind you couldn't shift with a bazooka.  And they wonder why we were a bit quiet.  Anyway, as I'd escaped day one on time, I'd missed the global instruction to fetch up early on day two so I arrived what I thought was fifteen minutes early and it turned out I was late.  Doh!  And the monster was waiting for me ... accosting me in the stock room, she said,
"Howareyoufeeling ...and would you mind telling me why you're so late?"
"I don't start until 9.30am.  If that's changed, no-one's let me know."
"You were TOLD last night."
"Actually I wasn't here as I left with Absinthe, on time.  But I'm here now, ten minutes early and ready to go."  This is true and it phased her completely.
"Well, well um..." She blustered a bit.  "We need all your energy to get this finished and if it takes until ten tonight, you'll have to stay."
It would only take that long if all the managers involved stopped telling everyone what to do and got stuck in with the rest of us ... but this is retail and they don't.  It's criminal.  Instead, she stropped off to do conduct Seraphine's punishment session, aka appraisal, and sent her back to us even more dejected and demotivated than before.  Genius!

Also on day two, the IT/systems folk turned up looking all geeky and serious because they knew what lay in store for them.  Trust me, I recognise that look because I had a similar one for ten years, especially when faced with the Herculean task of refitting PCs while other, non-technical people stood by and watched.  Closely.  When it finally came to the point they were up and working, the uber-management piped up,
"Thank god you've put them in right this time.  In [insert a northern city name here] they look rubbish because you've fitted them the wrong way up."  Well, you could have heard a pin drop - even the music turned itself off so we could hear the speccy dude's reply.

"The fault lies entirely with your own company madam.  We discussed this issue at the point of installation and despite our wise counsel and years of experience, your people insisted they be installed incorrectly - so we did as we were asked.  After all, the customer is always right."

Wonky disappeared into the facilities until she'd stopped howling and I mentally awarded the IT guys with Cadbury's Olympic gold medals for bravery in the face of abject stupidity.  Actually, I'm proud to be a geek, even if Woman's Hour this morning confirms only 18% of all IT workers in the UK are women.  And only 0.1% are Ravens.

Tip of the Blog:  It's Frangipani's birthday today and what with Wiggo's astounding victory yesterday it's time to crack that bottle of bubbly lurking in the back of the fridge.  Sadly, I have to return to the asylum ...

Raven