Retail recoil

[Big Picture | Big Tangent ]

Petteri Sulonen offers the cluestick to camera shops: it's about the service, dummy.

Because the message never seems to get through, we'll just reiterate some key points:

• If it's not in stock, you might as well not sell it. (One day we're going to open a shop called "Out of stock" that sells NOTHING; it will be a major competitor to every other high street retailer.) At the very least, know when it will be in stock. Act like you want the business.
• Nobody expects to pay full retail (i.e. a 10% markup) in the age of online shopping, unless they need the item urgently, it's less hassle to buy now and you have it in stock. Forget offering to order it, we might as well wait for hotdeals.co.uk to deliver.
• It's OK if things go wrong, providing you apologise and look like you care. That slovenly "Nuthin' to do with me" YTS schtick that you've instilled into your staff does nuthin' for us.
• If you take a number and say you'll call the customer, call the customer.

Look: we want something, we have the money, we're standing in the shop - WHAT PART OF THIS SCENARIO DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!

To end, a quick summation of the photographic outlets here in Manchester:

Jessops

Almost the only game in town (sadly). A wide but shallow range (they probably sell the item you want, even if small and esoteric, but they'll only carry the one brand, usually the worst). Film users lose out to big digital push. Stock control is abysmal (e.g. cans of compressed air but no nozzles, no Velvia, etc.). Staff variable. Long wait for service in flagship store, not helped by three miles of counter. Comprehensive catalogue. Labs appallingly cack-handed (missing negs, wrong negs, badly cut negs, once lost two valuable photos sent for restoration then returned them unrestored - lost causes all, not worth complaining). Plenty of room for improvement, hopefully by a competitor.

Jacobs

Generally friendly, willing to redirect you to another store if they can't help. Good range of stock for such a tiny shop, particularly small accessories (although don't expect them to have the exact step-up ring size you want). Lack a full knowledge of their own catalogue and too many items need ordering. Occasional special offers. Kodak lab service cheap but variable, occasional flaws in prints, sometimes slow.

Wildings Camera

Closest to an "independent", which you think would mean that they'd specialise in stuff no one else sells (the largest Jessops store is right across the road). In fact, they concentrate on the same digicams and big ticket, big brand items as any consumer goods retailer, thus there's little differentiation. Small items are special order, no timeframe and a resigned attitude. Reasonable secondhand cabinet. Generally, a missed opportunity.

Stephens Photo Centre

Mainly secondhand. Big on Leica but lots of other goodies. Prices possibly on the high side but the kit is good and they have a knack of bringing out the exact thing you wanted. Now sadly out of the way of passing browsers. Minimal web site, with stock listings.

Real Camera Company

All secondhand, quite a treasure trove and very helpful, personal service. Will buy and sell almost anything (although it may not be worth as much as you hoped). Needs an online stock list. (More when I get my Nikon EM back from repair.)

London Camera Exchange

(No experience.) Searchable web site for secondhand gear.

Advanced Photo

Owner-run, good service for in-house processing with prints individually adjusted. Less good if sending out and specialist services (e.g. uprating B&W) expensive. Good, cheap range of frames and mounts. Free album with prints!

Klick (and ex-Max Speilmann)

Reasonable for 1 hour if you don't expect much (like individual service). Avoid having processing sent out to lab; the complaints process is ridiculously long-winded. Do not appear motivated to retain custom.

NowhereLand

[Big Words ]

Round about 1995, I left the University of Wales Aberystwyth, where I had a good wage, academic surroundings, interesting work, sociable students, friends and the chance of a beer almost any night, to take a job near Oxford where I had a better wage and almost none of the rest. I put it down to some kind of mental aberration on my part, the same one that has guided all my smartest decisions (digging out a foot of soil and laying flags in the front garden on a hot weekend recently - that was another cracking idea). Hence I found myself driving back to Aber on as many weekends as I could possibly scab floor space in which to crash.

The journeys between Oxford and Aber are remarkable; I still remark often on the stultifying dullness of each possible route. Initially, I drove straight along the A44 (the most direct route on the map), which takes you through several excruciatingly twee Cotswold towns that you will grow to loathe in detail, due to being stuck behind doddering old fools in British-made cars and several heavy juggernauts, with absolutely no prospect of passing any of them. (I could now publish a convincing examination of the case for bombing Broadway and Evesham.) There is the fiendish and terrifying Worcester one-way system to negotiate, unless you can locate the magic entrance to the Secret Bypass. Another bypass allows you to miss Leominster, although by this point you'll be wondering if you shouldn't stop for the toilet but no, you have to keep going. Through Pembridge, a sleepy medieval village where you would not be surprised if the inhabitants left their thatched cottages to shout, "Hey, you in the iron chariot, what news of General Cromwell's campaign?!" Zip round Kington (another bypass) and finally pass the blessed runes of "Welcome to Wales/Croeso i Cymru".

Later on, as my quest to knock off the journey in the fastest possible time gathered urgency, I started using the A40 to Gloucester, because most of it was dual carriageway and thus one was able to overtake the lorries (or at least hang back in frustration while they overtook each other in a bid to see who could reach 58mph first). They actually built a bypass around the town centre while I was living down there, purely to keep me and my homicidal tendencies out of it (I think). Gaining momentum from several circuits of the final roundabout, I would be flung off up the A417 to Ledbury and Hereford.

Here, time recedes. Actual Middle England lies in this region and, while theoretically it is mapped, in practice it exists only in limbo. It is Nowhereville, leaving barely the faintest impression of tiny, deathly quiet villages and tight bends in the memory. The thought of living in any of those places, miles from Anywhere, constantly haunts me and fills me with quiet horror. They remind me of the village in The Monster Club that cannot be escaped and whose zombie inhabitants are partial to the ritual sacrifice of lost motorists. I may be doing them a disservice. Perhaps the occupants of Staunton and Maisemore have a right old knees-up on Friday nights. More likely, I suspect they stay indoors smoking substances that quench consciousness and render time without meaning. If I lived there, I know I'd be so toked up to the eyeballs that even the Big Bang and the last chime of the clock would seem indiscernible.

Skirting Hereford, there is a choice of three roads to take you up to the A44. One is marked as a red 'A' road on the map, while the other two are yellow 'B' roads. In practice, there's no difference as all of them are narrow, twisty lanes where you frighten the owners of overpriced cottages by roaring past them as they mow their verges, trying desperately not to lose control and go straight through their carefully cultivated hedges. This is a place where men sculpt hawthorn to take their minds off the terrible passage of millenia. I took my mind off it by doing my damnedest to shorten the journey time, nearly shortening my time on earth as well. Just how fast could one take those bends? Despite my many heroic/stupid efforts, the total duration always seemed to be fixed at four hours, probably because of all those bloody lorries. The blindness of my obsession was brought home to me when I shot past a policeman's futile attempts to wave me down as he directed traffic around an obstruction; I spent the next week waiting anxiously for a summons in the post that thankfully never came.

Past Kington, you put your foot down as you enter the Welsh mountains, still desperate to avoid staying any longer than necessary in Walton (a hill and a dip) or Crossgates (crossroads, scabby truck stop) lest you become stranded and forced to live there forever. Hard right at the clock tower in Rhayader (almost a proper Welsh placename at last, yay!), praying that the people in front of you don't carry on driving at 40mph long after the speed limit ends. This is almost a fast road now, if there are no trucks making late deliveries (if there are, they're almost certain to be heading to the same destination as you, it being the only major town in mid-Wales). Worse, you face the bane of the Welsh road: the caravan. On holiday, no rush to get anywhere, happy to amble along admiring the view, does not have a pint waiting at the bar for them that they can almost sniff. At only a slight risk (cough), I once overtook an Avondale that was barely managing fifty only to receive an angry flash of headlights as I moved in front (I waved in return). It was then that I first conceived of the roof-mounted bazooka, an invention that would spell the end of overtaking. And caravans.

Coming down from the Rhayader road, you approach the roundabout outside Llangurig. This is IT! This is so close, you can almost taste the sea air beer at Aber. Your pulse quickens. There's still another long and winding mountain road to face, including two incredibly tight bends (if you're doing sixty, that is) and more lorries but psychologically, you've practically got your foot at the bar. You've certainly got your foot to the floor. The light is fading fast now (the pub! the pub!) but we didn't endure the arduous wastes and infernal damnation of Herefordshire to lose heart here. Bouncing over the uneven kink in the road at the Red Kite Cafe, maybe some quick overtaking of the stragglers (only sixty-five? pah!) on the straight stretch past Goginan, carefully threading the car down the winding descent to Capel Bangor (don't spill it!) ... ghod, this is just down the road! If you weren't trying so hard to best one final lorry at the junction to Capel Dewi, you'd lift your hands from the wheel and punch them through the sunroof in triumph.

Time begins to slip again - how much farther is it?? - but eventually you pass under the railway bridge outside Llanbadarn with a whoop (whoops, bit narrow, sorry mate!) and reluctantly slow to thirty at the lights before the final putter through evening streets to your weekend bunkhouse, your mates and the PUB. Home! Aaahhh....

On the other hand, by Sunday I would be staring the inevitable reverse journey starkly in the face. Aber always conjures up a pleasant sunny evening on these occasions. A last circumnavigation of the town on the one way passes students popping to the Spar, only vaguely aware that tomorrow they would blissfully awaken here while I was staring wide-eyed in confusion at the white walls of a rented granny flat in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. I have no idea whether I ever really drove this bit or whether I was always transported instantly to the A40 junction past Gloucester with the gathering darkness now seeming to forebode only mortality and doom. I could have turned back, found a cheap bedsit on the seafront, signed on the dole and had my stuff sent to me but no, there's that bloody mental aberration again.

It's the best worst journey in the world, if you're heading in the right direction.

Upgrading to Red Hat 9

[Big Job ]

Every so often, I get bored with the stability of my home PC and, in the absence of Microsoft to break it for me, decide to mix things up a bit by jumping to a newer Red Hat release. The multiple upgrade attempts! The disk corruption! Reconfiguring all the services! Clearing up all those *.rpmnew files! Ah yes, it keeps me entertained for days afterwards and ensures that I have no excuse for doing any real work. Plus, my Glamorous Research Assistant (GRA) is so desperate to get her email back that she lets me work uninterrupted on the computer for hours without complaint.

Following another update from 7.2 to 9, I've begun to suss the process. Here are my tips for this particular release:

• Always boot the CD with "ide=nodma" to avoid the infamous IDE corruption bug, which hangs the install midway and shafts your root filesystem. I heard it was fixed a few times and subsequently discovered it wasn't, so now I just swallow the overhead and save time spent otherwise running fsck.
• Don't bother customising the package install list. This is a guarantee that the upgrade process will fail midway and require another attempt, thus wasting all that time you spent selecting packages. Sort out the RPMs manually after the upgrade completes. (Don't forget to add the GTK2 devel RPMs if you often compile additional apps.)
• If you have a customised sendmail.cf, move it to /etc/mail/ (new location - a standard config is installed by default). Ideally, rebuild it from the current sendmail.mc template, otherwise you may get unresolvable "Permission denied" errors when it updates your hash maps (something to do with the RunAsUser stuff in recent versions).
• Watch the links via /etc/alternatives/. I found several (connected to the mail system) that weren't made; this may be a consequence of installing the alternatives RPM from 7.3 on 7.2 earlier, without the rest of the release.
• Sigh. Once again, edit cupsd.conf and add the necessary ACLs & listen directives to enable remote access by clients on your network.

One other slight funny I noticed on a newly installed RHL9 system. GTK+ applications suffered corrupt font displays, with square blocks appearing between each character. A quick check by running the same apps remotely on a different X server (with the same symptoms) confirmed it wasn't an X display problem. It turned out to be caused by the use of UTF-8 locales in /etc/sysconfig/l18n; removing the utf-8 extensions from the locale names fixed the problem. Presumably GTK+ and GNOME are compatible with the extended locales, but the GRA just wanted her audio player working and I don't debug weird Unicode issues at home for fun.

Hole in One

[Big Picture ]

Arty, that's me.