An address to the City of Edinburgh

Received a package of books at work this week from one of our American suppliers addressed to Warterstones of Endionbuirgh. Amazingly it still got here. God knows how they came up with this address – at first we thought it may have been some dim mid-Western shipping clerk spelling phonetically as he drawled out the unfamiliar city name to spell it out (but then for most mid-Westerns any word with more than two syllables if automatically unfamiliar – I would apologise to any mid-Western readers for this slur, but… Well, it’s kind of true… But at least unlike your Southern state cousins y’all have opposable thumbs) but this doesn’t account for it either since 80% of Americans pronounce the city either as Edin-burg or Edin-burrow, being incapable of saying ‘burgh’ (burra), so how they came up with Endionbuirgh I don’t know… Then again it’s no worse than British tourists who routinely mis-pronounce New York as New York instead of the more proper Noo Yoik enunciation (right, PJ?). Than smeg we don’t do business in Auchtermuchty... Still it gives us a chance for some humour in between the monotonous job in the goods-in bay and the never-ending complaints of various managers who all give a dozen priorities each, rank them all equally, expect us to stop what we're supposed to be doing to do those tasks (which they or floor staff should be doing) - all to be done at the same time of course - and will then still complain if our average number of received packages goes down while were were otherwise occupied.

Confronting on assistant manager over this when he waited until 4 minutes before finishing time to ask the goods in people to go start a large 'rush' job (which task isn't a rush one???) I blew a gasket and let him have a verbal broadside. Since I was there late as it was trying to finish the task he wanted me to stop to do something else I wouldn't have had time to do before finishing I feel justified. Knickers to 'em, this psot I've been pushed into is unfufilling enough as it is without yet more crap from managers who are unable to lead staff through inspiration and rely soley on complaining and chiding. Numpties. Needless to say when I eventually finished late on Friday I got no thanks for finishing off my task rather than just jacking it in and leaving it for Monday as I could well have done, so being a more inspirational person than our managers I took myself off to Milnes and there inspired myself by awarding myself a chilled beer. Now that's inspirational leadership! Caught my mate Gordon on the way home from his nearby work and we later ended up in Teuchters in the West End drinking super-chilled Czech beer and trying to resist the urge to pinch the cool glasses they came in.

Yes, I know - shock horror, Joe ditched his beloved real ale for lagers, albeit very good (if pricey) ones, but when it is this hot you need your beer seriously chilled (Hoegarten wheat beer is finest for this - chilled seriously and served at the Golden Rule in thick tumblers kept in the freezer so you can actually feel ice crystals in the beer - its this close to a beer slush puppy!). However, worry not about my real ale credentials since the wonderful Caledonian Brewery, whose holy chimney stack I see from my window and face towards to pray to the Holy Hops, sent me a kind invitation to join their new and limited 1869 Club. I don't know really what it is all about, but why not? Anything to do with this more wonderful brewery in the galaxy must be good...