Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[ViolentPanda]

Running a bookshop's not a shitty job - I'd love to have any job, never mind be a reasonaly well paid manager of a shop

The running is fine, it's (a minority of) the customers that make it miserable.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Garf coming in every day demanding to know why the neds atomic dustbin biography isn't stocked.

When I did a few years in a bookshop, it wasn't the customers who knew exactly what they wanted that bugged me, or the browsers (because people who wandered in and appeared to browse aimlessly often bought a handful of books), it was the ones who sort of knew what they wanted, but didn't have any actual information that told me what the author or title was, just "it was that one reviewed in the TLS a couple of months ago, it's a biography of a 19th century notable" or similar vague tosh. You'd spend half an hour wrking out what the fuck they were talking about, and then 9 times out of 10 you'd say "it's £19.95" and they'd say "ooh, that's too expensive", like the price isn't usually given in the TLS (or any other) review! That used to have me reaching for my hip flask, I can tell you!

 

[Orang Utan]

When I did a few years in a bookshop, it wasn't the customers who knew exactly what they wanted that bugged me, or the browsers (because people who wandered in and appeared to browse aimlessly often bought a handful of books), it was the ones who sort of knew what they wanted, but didn't have any actual information that told me what the author or title was, just "it was that one reviewed in the TLS a couple of months ago, it's a biography of a 19th century notable" or similar vague tosh. You'd spend half an hour wrking out what the fuck they were talking about, and then 9 times out of 10 you'd say "it's £19.95" and they'd say "ooh, that's too expensive", like the price isn't usually given in the TLS (or any other) review! That used to have me reaching for my hip flask, I can tell you!

i used to work in one too and i know exactly what you mean. have you seen this blog:
http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com/2011/05/weird-things-customers-say-in-bookshops.htmlCustomer: There was a book in the 80s that I loved... but I can't remember the title.
Me: Can you remember anything about it?
Customer: I think it was called 365 fairy tales.
Me: *searches on wholesaler website* Nothing under that name, sorry.
Customer: I might have got the number wrong. Could you just type in 'fairy tales' and see what comes up?
Customer: Do you have this book *holds up a biography* but without the photographs?
Me: I think the photographs are published alongside the text in every edition.
Customer: Why?
Me: I suppose so you can see what everyone looked like.
Customer: I don't like photographs.
Me: Ok.
Customer: Could you cut them out for me?
Me: .......

 

[articul8]

I have too - I remember some guy coming in and asking for (or rather demanding) the biog of Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair (sp?) I pointed him to crime section

 

[JimW]

Read a book shop worker complaining elsewhere that you now get to spend ages helping someone work out what their dimly-recalled title is, only to have them say they can get it cheaper on Amazon and fuck off

 

[marty21]

when I worked for a major book chain, it was the staff who nicked most of the books

 

[andy2002]

I've had beef with warren ellis for riffing on Midwich Cuckoos in his Freak Angels comic then claiming not to TO MY INTERNET FACE on his mssg board thing. Freak Angels is still a good comic though.

Ellis denying that is hilarious - it even acknowledges the influence on the Freak Angels Facebook page!

 

[frogwoman]

-----

Me: Ok, so with postage that brings your total to £13.05. One second and I'll get the card machine."
Customer: No. No, absolutely not. I demand that you charge me £12.99. I will not pay for anything that starts with thirteen. You're trying to give me bad luck. Now, change it or I will go to a bookshop who doesn't want me to fall down a hole and die. Ok?

------

 

[frogwoman]

----

Man: Do you have black and white film posters?
Me: Yes, we do, over here.
Man: Do you have any posters of Adolf Hitler?
Me: Pardon?
Man: Adolf Hitler.
Me: Well, he wasn't a film star, was he.
Man: Yes, he was. He was American. Jewish, I think.
Me: ...........

---

oh god

 

[frogwoman]

Customer: Do you have any Robin Hood books where he doesn't steal from the rich? My husband's called Robin and I'd like to buy him a book, but he's a banker, so...

Haha

 

[rekil]

If the revolution is 'delicious' vegan snacks and laurie penny stamping on my balls forever then count me out.

It involves a smattering of her self orbiting hipster mates as well.

Need photographer to shoot me doing free sketches at occupy wall street, 5-7 today.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Need photographer to shoot me doing free sketches at occupy wall street, 5-7 today.

Does it have to be a photographer that shoots him/her? I'm free this afternoon!

 

[butchersapron]

How quick can you and your rifle get to new york?

 

[rekil]

Take out that stoner in the pic on the other thread while you're at it.

 

[SpineyNorman]

How quick can you and your rifle get to new york?

Bugger, I'm starting to see the obvious flaw in my plan now - why is it that you only ever see them when you've not got your gun/aren't close enough to fire?

 

[rekil]

With all the spanish civil war 75th anniversary stuff happening I had a peculiar feeling today that Laurie might see fit to cast herself and her mates (real, imaginary, whatever) as being the "new international brigades". I might even do it for her.

 

[Bakunin]

With all the spanish civil war 75th anniversary stuff happening I had a peculiar feeling today that Laurie might see fit to cast herself and her mates (real, imaginary, whatever) as being the "new international brigades". I might even do it for her.

Don't encourage her, please. The thought of her casting herself as some latter-day La Passionara would be quite enough to make me boke up.

 

[butchersapron]

Too late. Like Passionara she'd see no fighting, she'd just wave people off then decide which of them get in the same journo plane out with her when it all falls down. It's quite a good comparison actually.

 

[Bakunin]

Too late. Like Passionara she'd see no fighting, she'd just wave people off then decide which of them get in the same journo plane out with her when it all falls down. It's quite a good comparison actually.

Come to think of it, you're not wrong. She reminds me of a certain type of hack who claims to be a 'war correspondent' while filing their copy from a hotel bar in the capital of whichever country is doing the fighting.

If she'd been around for the Russian Revolution she'd probably claim to have been storming the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg while she was in fact still in Moscow, sipping vodka and patching together other people's copy before filing it as her own like her mate Hari.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Events were bloody in Moscow, so she probably would've been hiding there.

There was quite heavy street fighting in the city a few days after Piter was taken, when Provisional Government loyalists seized the centre and briefly shut down the Moscow Soviet.

 

[MellySingsDoom]

Laurie Penny's back in the UK now, but her Twitter feed shows she was right in the heart of the action in NYC:

During my trip I was also privileged to hear two Williamsburg hipsters perform the Steve Jobs Rap on their Iphones. #newyork
13 minutes ago

 

[Bakunin]

Laurie Penny's back in the UK now, but her Twitter feed shows she was right in the heart of the action in NYC:

I think I'm going to vomit.

 

[rekil]

She's clearly being ironic.

 

[rekil]

Those hipsters didn't exist anyway.

Official voice of youth's tentacles reach New Zealand.. One step closer to the syndication jackpot.

They said it could never happen in America.

Dunno who 'they' are but I bet they said no such thing. Unless she's referring to ignorant wanker mates of hers.

The air tastes of pepper spray

I saw that one coming.

 

[MellySingsDoom]

Hold tight, Spain - the Penny one is on the way:

Dear Spanish activists: help! I'm coming to meet you tomorrow for an assignment and I need contacts and a place to stay in Madrid! #15o #15m

 

[DotCommunist]

staley edwards, your time has come

 

[Bakunin]

Hold tight, Spain - the Penny one is on the way:

I don't suppose its occurred to her to actually use a hotel like any non-poncing individual.

 

[MellySingsDoom]

I don't suppose its occurred to her to actually use a hotel like any non-poncing individual.

Perish the thought! No doubt she'll blag her way into some poor sod's place, then feel free to pass comment on their living arrangements ("near the sexy danger of the Ramblas, er, no, where I am again?"), and tell us, the dear reader, what a hard life she lives in having to be forced to share living space with hardline activists (as "no hotel would take her, the hardline journalist"), and then ripping off their stories for easy copy telling us how it is on the mean streets of Madrid...

 

[rekil]

Loada shit about the SCW coming up. The IBs were formed 75 years ago today.

 

[Bakunin]

Perish the thought!

Seeing as Penny seems to think it's OK to sponge off actual activists, does that mean that when I go to Le Mans next year I can scab a few nights on the sofa of some French Green campaigners while telling them I'm doing an expose of the dreadful environmental consequences of motorsport?

Because that would make things a lot cheaper.