Well here we are, the final day of the trip. The main priority was to get my friend to the airport on time as to not miss her flight.

Starting mileage: 204,904

The route to the airport was very well sign posted, so we had no need for the Shat-Nav. We still had it on, and twice it wanted me to turn around and go back through Reading for some odd reason. Bog off Shat-Nav.

Sebastian enters a staring contest with the local champion

Green with envy?

We arrived at the airport with just over an hour to spare before my friend could check in, giving us plenty of time to nose around the shops and check her luggage wasn’t too heavy. Of course this amount of time was nothing in comparison to when I flew to Japan and arrived in London over a day early and had to try and kill many MANY hours.

The time came to say goodbye to my friend who had been on the trip since we met at Glasgow airport over a week before.

Goodbyes can be very said, eh Sebastian

Mileage check at London Heathrow: 204,955

I left London and proceded to head back home to Shropshire. The car trip seemed really quiet, even though the radio was on. Often I noticed I was singing songs to myself that weren’t even on, but thankfully I wasn’t too distracted that I had any accidents or near misses.

I got off the M54 and pulled in to Tesco to fill the car with petrol. Since I borrowed the car from my Dad, I figured the least I could do would be to return the car clean and full of petrol. I filled the car up and went to pay, also asking for the cheapest car wash on the menu, but unfortunately I hit a problem. My card was refused!

Shocked and taken aback slighlty, I left the car at the petrol station and went to the nearby cashpoint to use my non-debit card. It was here I hit another problem, it too had been rejected! Shit! I need money to pay for petrol, but I only had about half of it in cash on me at the time. I went in and explained to the cashier who, having already known my card had been rejected, sympathised and understood my situation fully. After presenting my driving license and taking details from the car, I was given a credit slip that I’d have to pay within the month. I said it wouldn’t be a problem and I’d be back later that day.

I shot home and saw my Dad on the driveway. I hadn’t seen him since the start of the trip, so naturally my first words to him had to be a really interesting greeting.

“Dad, can I borrow £50″ … typical child eh. I explained what happened to him and then headed back to Tesco to pay my bill and wash the car.

When I pulled into the car wash area of tesco, I opened the window and put the code I was given into the machine. This prompted the machine to start up incredibly quickly and shoot me in the face with warm water. Damn electric windows, damn slowly rising electric windows.

Sebastian somehow avoided a soaking.

I then went home, to which my road trip of Great Britain was officially over. It had cost a big chunk of change (petrol isn’t the cheapest thing ever), and my back was incredibly painful. I was still walking like a bit of an old man. But the trip was really fun, and it was an experience I know I’ll never do again. It had highs, it had lows, it had moments of pressure and frustration, and it had me getting sodden in a car wash. I’m definately glad this was the highlight of my Summer.

Start Mileage: 202,521
End Mileage: 205,112
Total Miles: 2,591 miles travelled
Average Miles Per Day: 259.1 miles

End Mileage: 205,112

With a relatively full tank of petrol I turned out of my road enjoying a slightly jumpy tune on the CD player (thanks to a rather bumpy road), with Sebastian, my brothers’ travelling monkey, in the passenger seat.

Starting Mileage: 202521

Sebastian shows how he intends to drive while I sleep.

Though he may have a problem when it comes to reaching the pedals.

Mileage at the end of Day One: 202663

The trip from the two tips of the island is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. When I was working in Somerset I’d already visited Lands’ End, so just needed to go up north.

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You’ll have to pardon the Japanese maps, I took them from the Japanese version of this blog entry (but the English is there aswell).

The Plan

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13th August (Fri)
・From Telford to Leeds
・Sleep in Leeds

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14th August (Sat)
・From Leeds to Glasgow
・Pick up my mate from Glasgow Airport
・From Glasgow to Perth
・Sleep in Perth

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15th August (Sun)
・From Perth to John O’ Groats
・Sleep in John O’ Groats

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16th August (Monday)
・From John O’ Groats to Inverness
・Have a visit to Loch Ness
・From Inverness to Edinburgh
・Sleep in Edinburgh

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17th August (Tue)
・Enjoy the Edinburgh Festival
・Sleep in Edinburgh

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18th August (Wed)
・From Edinburgh to Leeds
・Sleep in Leeds

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19th August (Thur)
・From Leeds to Weston Super Mare
・Sleep in Weston Super Mare

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20th August (Fri)
・From Weston Super Mare to Nether Stowey
・From Nether Stowey to Lands’ End
・From Lands’ End to Exmouth
・Sleep in Exmouth

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21st August (Sat)
・From Exmouth to Salisbury (however, it’s still not been decided yet, so we might go to Brighton instead)
・Sleep in Salisbury (or Brighton)

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22nd August (Sun)
・From Salisbury (or Brighton) to London
・Drop my friend off at London Airport
・From London to Telford
・The trip ends.

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So bad, I self-facepalmed

For those doubters of my ability to get a house closer than my previous one (which, traffic pending, would have me on campus within 20 seconds) I say … well, can’t really be bothered to think of a clever and witty reply but I have done just that. My new house is right on campus, mere seconds from the Student Union Building, and my room itself is pretty damn awesome. I’ll be honest, I’m in the basement so I’m not sure how it’ll do come winter (especially if there’s heavy snowfall), so I’ll update you on that when the time comes. It’s a 10 bed house (somewhat’s larger than … anything I’ve had before, bar the dorm in Japan), but the housemates I’ve met so far seem pretty cool.

A very quick update on the bear from the last entry. It didn’t sell.

Last weekend I had the privilege of having two of my Japanese friends come down to Telford. As well as having a couple of trips to the pub (including a not so bland time at the Cross Keys thanks to a couple of awesome dancers), we had a look around just a few (time wasn’t really with us) of the things Telford has to offer.

We started off with a trip to the Blists Hill Museum, a living museum set in Victorian Ironbridge. Surprisingly I actually learned quite a bit, despite having gone there numerous times as a kid; like the origins of the terms ‘Come a Cropper’ and ‘Mind Your Ps and Qs’. Oh you crazy printer. SilverTiger has many pictures and explanations of what goes on at Blists Hill, so feel free to pop over and have a gander. By the way, their bread is unrivalled – Up yours Kingmill!

Before heading over to the Shopping Center, we also have a look at some of the other museums (having bought the passport ticket we thought we’d get our moneys worth), and of course the world famous Ironbridge itself. I’d not been to Enginuity before due to it being relatively new. Something told me it seemed to be more aimed at kids, possibly the 300 little buggers running around, but it was quite an enjoyable museum with some very frustrating quizzes.

Copyright Gordon Cragg and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence (click for bigger picture)

On the Sunday we headed to Birmingham to enjoy something sweet at Cadbury World. Again somewhere I’d been numerous times as a child, but this is a place that always changes. Somethings were missing, like the spicy drink you get at the start, but some new features have been added, like a room explaining the chocolate process in a manner similar to the Room of Living Dolls, though less terrifying. But somethings stay the same and you are given chocolate at various stages and arrive at a cheap chocolate shop at the end (misshapes, yes!).

My friends enjoying the Cadabra ride

We then headed over to Selfridges and the Bull Ring shopping center. Unfortunately I had completely forgot about Sunday trading hours, and we were left with just a few minutes to nose around before shutters started coming down. We then went for a wander around the city before making our way back to the car, and eventually Leeds.

Before I head off and continue unpacking (go get a pizza and then come back and contemplate unpacking) there is one thing that has bothered me during my time back in Telford.

View Larger Map

I’ve been living in Telford all of my life (when not buggering off here and there) and in that time I’ve always lived in Leegomery. Apply was always a small area just past the hospital where Maxell was, however now it seems like the area I grew up in is being rubbed out like an unwanted smarmy comment on an eBay seller feedback. Signage for Leegomery has gone down and been replaced by (very dull, if really must pick fault) Apley signage. Driving around I was unable to find any ‘Entering Leegomery’ signs.

But why has this happened? Officially I don’t know, as I haven’t been in the area due to Uni I’ve not seen any notices in the news etc. After chatting with a couple of friends (who also didn’t recall being told about it), we’ve come to one pretty unpleasant theory. The houses nearer to the hospital are without a doubt nicer than those further towards Hadley, and ‘problems’ normally are less associated with the hospital area. It was our theory that the nicer area is trying to seperate from the riff-raff in an “I’m better than thou” fashion. Of course this is just a theory, but still. I wonder if it’s this easy to get a divorce.

Apley Replaces Leegomery

As a mystery shopper myself, I’d definately say that Leeds has one of the best McDonalds I’ve been to as far as customer service is concerned. The staff at the St John’s Centre branch are normally polite and I have at times had a couple of good conversations with staff members without holding up the queue. In fact one time I entered the restaurant in a foul mood and left with a smile on my face.

Donnington in Telford on the other hand is a bit of a different case however, at least today anyway. On the way back from shopping we decided to pop through the drive through to get some food. There was already a bit of a queue when we got there, and soon other cars also joined the queue behind us. The first problem came to be at Window 1 (this McDonalds drive-through having 3 windows). On arrival the window was closed and the only staff member visible seemed to be chatting to someone at Window 2. As we had to wait there in the queue for sometime anyway, we presumed the reason they hadn’t opened the window and served us was because service would begin at Window 2. Unfortunately the same thing happened at Window 2, and as I looked back to see the car behind being served at Window 1 I knew that we’d end up having to order at Window 3.

Normally the only action to take place at Window 3 is the collection of food, so when we arrived at the window I had to explain that the food laid out for collection wasn’t for us and that we still needed to place our order. A member of staff (seeming to wear a more senior member uniform) came over and asked if we were paying by cash or card, and that if we wanted to pay by card we’d either have to come in the store, or drive all the way around and rejoin the queue.

After agreeing to pay in cash he then proceeded to take our order … in his own special way. I can appreciate that there was a queue behind us getting longer, but making us rush with your face right next to the car window won’t make us speed up at all. And yes we told him that. This (possibly) senior member of staff had one of the worst attitudes I’d ever seen when dealing with customers, especially considering there was a young child in the car. We told him what we wanted and he tried to memorise it. I’m presuming here that he would have to ring the order in at another till. He recited our order back, but seemed to add menu items. For example, part of the order was a hamburger, medium fries and a small chocolate shake. He referred to this as a “burger meal”. When I asked what a burger meal was, he said it was like a Big Mac meal, but with a burger instead of a Big Mac. We then asked if they actually did a burger meal, to which he said “no”.

Eventually, he took the money over to the till and came back with our change, at which I asked his name. This member of (possibly) senior staff didn’t even wear a name badge, though claimed his name was “James”. I also asked what this particular branch number was, as I knew I’d want to take this further. Rather than give me this, he did say I could speak directly with the manager (though he didn’t make it apparent if this was the branch manager or duty manager, I doubt it would have been the franchisee).

The manager by contrast to “James” was completely sensitive to what was going on and listened to exactly what had happened and appologised. She said she would send me an email to let know the outcome of the situation, so I’ll let you know how that goes by when I get it.

To be honest, this experience hasn’t put me off McDonalds totally (especially as I’m going to head back to Leeds soon), but I know this has put me off the Donnington branch. Though I wouldn’t say the training at that branch needs more focus on customer service (because I’ve not worked there and don’t know how the training is done), if the same experience we had was also experienced by other customers, this could have a much more negative effect to the branch.

Still have no idea why we weren’t served at Window 1 though, if we had this could have never happened.

I’ve already hit my old pizza place and made use of the great (well, not bad) Leeds free city bus, but this time around I want to actually take a real bus at some point. Actually that’s not so much want, but need to. I haven’t brought a car with me this time because of what happened to the last one. I know it’s wrong to blame an entire city for what happened to it, but since I’m living pretty close to where I was before I didn’t fancy risking it either way.

On the subject of unfortunate things, my beloved television that I bought with my paper round money when I was 14 (I’m 25 now) and has travelled with me on many adventures (not to Japan though), has finally died. At some point between leaving Telford and arriving in my new room in Leeds, it suffered damage to the power button and won’t turn on. It’s also making strange ‘ticking’ noises when I try to power up. It’s gutting I know, but I know I will have to move on (and get a new TV).

So what happens now for this Anglo-Carribbean student of Japanese in Yorkshire? Tomorrow I’m off to the Parkinson Building to work on my Japanese, and also write up my final report of my year of studying at Konan University. Why not tonight I hear you (Simon) ask? Because I’m gonna pop t’ pub.

So I’ll leave you with something weird; the cast from Spongebob dubbing three classic films (Godfather, Singing in the Rain & Casablanca).

So I had a reply from Tenpin about the travasty at the Telford bowling alley (see ‘Telford Bowling Alley Balls’d Up Again’), so I thought I’d share it with you. The email itself actually came through to my inbox yesterday (12th June), but the letter attached was dated the 10th strangely. So here’s the letter from the General Manager at the Telford branch, along with my own ever so slightly sarcastic comments.

Dear Mr Darlington,

Step 1: Know who you’re writing to, check.

Firstly let me take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to contact us and highlight your concerns with regard to your recent visit to Tenpin Telford. Tenpin Ltd prides itself on our high standards and we are keen to receive comments from our customers who feel we have failed to live up to this standard.

Trouble is most people don’t know how to get these comments to the relevant person, so will probably end up giving them directly to the duty manager, if he’s not distracted by the colourful backdrop of the lanes. For those who do wish to tell them about poor service etc, the email addresses that I emailed were feedback@tenpinltd.co.uk, onlinesales@tenpinltd.co.uk, jobs@tenpinltd.co.uk, manager@telford.tenpinltd.co.uk, sales.telford@tenpinltd.co.uk, manager.telford@tenpinltd.co.uk, telford@tenpinltd.co.uk, and mandi.cave@tenpinltd.co.uk.

My sincerest apologies to you and your party for the disappointment you experienced. On receipt of your email I was contacted to investigate your concerns, and I have taken on board all comments made and have made the relevant investigations as a matter of course.

All of them? We’ll see eh.

I would firstly like to address some points raised in your email regarding the operations within Tenpin. You have explained you were previously employed at Tenpin Telford, and in your time …

In my time? I’m not that old you cheeky whipper-snapper.

… customers were able to use a local number to call and speak to a member of the sales team based within the centre. Whilst customers may have been aware of the local number to call due to prior marketing and directory listings, from the point at which Tenpin acquired Telford Superbowl we always advertised our central 0871 ‘Book to Bowl’ number which at that time directed calls to the relevant site.

This is of course after being sent around the system for a good twenty minutes or so because the ever so intelligent machine didn’t know where ‘Telford’ was. Though to be fair, not many people around the country know that either.

We switched over to a Central Reservations (call centre) in November 2007 …

Note that although they’ll say call centre, it’s still a small room on the site (that I mentioned in that previous post). The only difference being that the calls are no longer sent to the front desk (aka, the people who (should) actually know what the hell’s going on).

… and with the introduction of online booking customers are now able to book via a number of methods. In some cases the amount charged may vary depending upon the method chosen and how far in advance the booking is made.

I would like to apologise for the confusion where pricing is concerned and can confirm that the price you paid through our externally based call centre was correct.

no, not me, try again

The total amount you have stated your friend …

that’s right, it was my friend, not me

… paid for their lane does not correlate with our records, but I can confirm they were charged £11 per person plus a £1.50 booking fee, whilst you were charged £9 per person on arrival.

So what I said doesn’t correlate with your records, but you can confirm that what I said was the same … as your record. You may have to explain that one again.

We do offer “walk in” rates to our customers and I am pleased you were able to take advantage of this on the night.

“Walk in” rates, more commonly known as the ‘regular price’ apparently.

The issue raised regarding condiments at the restaurant is still under investigation and I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. The Manager on duty that evening did however assure me that he arranged for more condiments to be served to your group. The service issues you have raised will be addressed with all the staff on duty at the time of your visit.

Ironically I can’t stand mayo and would have been happier with a mayo-free evening. As for addressing things with all the staff, well I was there for a year and we only had an-entire staff meeting once when the management changed over. When we had parties get food poisoning and we were investigated for that, I only heard about it weeks after by over hearing a conversation.

Tenpin prides itself on excellent customer service and I can assure you that all customer comments are taken seriously and fully investigated to ensure that this type of incident does not occur again.

Well whenever we had the results of the Mystery Bowler, like a mystery shopper coming in to assess levels of customer service, how the lanes are etc to a certain criteria, hardly anyone even looked at the results let alone acted on them. Likewise poor comment slips were generally ignored as ‘just a piece of faff’.

It is clear that on this occasion your visit to Tenpin Telford did not meet expectations.

Oh really?

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us regarding your visit and please be assured that all issues raised will be investigated and dealt with accordingly.

Yours sincerely

D***** S****
General Manager

So there’re the words from the boss at Telford. Whether or not they will actually be looked at or not no one will ever know, except for him of course. Though truth be told I’m not expecting anything to happen. Strangely enough he didn’t mention anything of the general rudeness of staff members Lanky Larry or Timmy Turner especially when they decided charging us more for the night would in fact make it fairer (not to mention that they couldn’t do that anyway).

The staff definately need training but as I said it’s very likely that it’ll happen anytime soon. It’s a shame that one of the few remaining fun things to do in Telford, but I guess sooner or later we’ll be losing that aswell.

Still no word of the bowling vouchers I was meant to receive for that old complaint back in July last year.

Here’s a copy of the email I have just sent back to the staff member who forwarded to me the email from the site manager, just to keep correspondance in the open.

Dear J****,

Thank you for forwarding the email from Mr S**** to me, and once again I’ve made the correspondence available to any and all customers who may wish to see at http://www.darlosworld.co.uk/2009/06/14/the-reply-telford-bowling-alley-ballsd-up-again/

Sarcastic comments aside I personally don’t believe that any action will be taken at the site. I do believe the staff need better training, and unless it has been improved significantly since I worked there (when it was pretty much a teach yourself system), then there is little hope for improvement. As I have also worked as a mystery shopper for years myself, had this been a mystery bowling visit then it would have been a disasterous result for the site.

I would if possible like a further response as to the duty managers idea of making prices fair by offering to charge the two walk in members of our party (myself included) extra, as it was from here the evening seemed to begin it’s descent.

Regards

John Darlington
www.DarlosWorld.co.uk

Dear John,

Thank you for your reply. Having also read your blog and the comments you have added regarding the response from the General Manager, I will take the time to explain some points that seem to require clarification.

Central Reservations – it is as explained, a CENTRAL call centre in one location taking incoming booking enquiries for 36 of our 38 centres that have the bowling system technology to operate in this way. This call centre is located in Northampton – it is not an office within the bowl.

Well my only response to this is that my friend still working for Tenpin (at the Star City, Birmingham branch) must be a dirty rotton liar, or possibly they’re one of the 2 centres which aren’t linked to such system.

Recipients of your original email – your email was indeed delivered to all addresses you have stated you sent your email to, and we appreciate from this you were keen for your comments to be noted.

Keen being one word for it.

Customers have a clear means to address feedback to us via our website to an inbox that is currently managed by the PA to the Operations Director, as the initial response send to you shows.

Then I’m sure fellow customers won’t mind knowing the other ways of contacting you and I’m sure you also won’t mind your customers being able to offer their comments via such alternative methods.

The total amount charged – the rate PER PERSON you stated originally is correct, whilst the TOTAL you stated is not. That is where the figures do not correlate.

OK, lets have another look because the original post as the night we’re on about started with a misunderstanding of numbers which escalated into the awful customer service which is what my main complaint is about.

Now that they’ve actually told me which part of what I said didn’t make sense rather than just “The total amount you have stated your friend paid for their lane does not correlate with our records”, I’ve had another look and yes there was an error. Yes that’s right Tenpin, there are people willing to admit when they make mistakes. Where I said “… the total price paid (£73) and …”, I should have said £62. The confusion was caused by the same way that happened in the alley itself where an extra person was accounted for too early (I didn’t bother mentioning the booking fee). This in turn meant that later on when I said “… taking the total to £82.” I should have said £71.

Training – as a former employee you will hopefully appreciate that staff work varying shifts, and investigating issues and addressing feedback is not always done in a full team meeting. However, we will address your feedback with those directly concerned at the earliest opportunity and strive to communicate it in a positive manner to all staff so they can improve their service standards.

I sure do hope so.

As Regional HR & Training Officer for the North region I also deal with the customer feedback both positive and negative and help the management to address the issues raised through training.

As regards your other outstanding concerns, I am awaiting further details as to the investigation with the manager and staff, and will endeavour to respond to your concerns as soon as possible.

Again I do hope so.

If you would like to send me a copy of your prior complaint I will look into the matter of your vouchers not having been received.

In the original post for this recent complain, I linked to that older post in the first two words. So incase you missed that one the link to it is http://www.darlosworld.co.uk/darlo/archive_july08.php, just scroll down to the final entry (this was before the site went WordPress).

If you are happy to provide me with a contact number I can also contact you by phone to discuss your concerns at a time convenient to both.

I’d prefer to keep to email if it’s fine with you. This way everything either of us says is written down and we can avoid further errors. Also as I’m running back and forth between Telford and Leeds I wouldn’t want to schedule a time to call and then have to rearrange it (over and over).

Once again, thank you for your feedback.

Yours sincerely,

J**** W****

To which my simple reply is,

Dear J*****,

Once again I thank you for your rapid response and also helping to clear up the errors in the total values paid. As per usual I have updated the blog entry at http://www.darlosworld.co.uk/2009/06/14/the-reply-telford-bowling-alley-ballsd-up-again/, and the original complaint back in July can be seen at http://www.darlosworld.co.uk/darlo/archive_july08.php. As this post was made before the blog turned into a WordPress styled one, you’ll have to scroll to the bottom of the page to see it.

As I mention on the page, I’d prefer to keep to email if it’s fine with you. This way everything either of us says is written down and we can avoid further errors. Also as I’m running back and forth between Telford and Leeds I wouldn’t want to schedule a time to call and then have to rearrange it (over and over), though as you have requested it my phone number is *****-******.

I do eagerly await your feedback in regards to those mentioned in your email.

Regards

John Darlington
www.DarlosWorld.co.uk

What a load of balls

Booking over the phone also incurs a £1.50 booking fee which strikes me (no pun intended) as kind of strange. Perhaps if the sales team you spoke to were in a proper office somewhere and that £1.50 went towards running that I guess it would be somewhats understandable (bare in mind I didn’t say reasonable). However rather than speaking to a different location, you’re just talking to a staff member a few metres away from the reception desk; in the case of Telford they’re in a nice warm little room away from customers and enjoy acting snooty to other staff members who they believe they are ‘above’. At least this was the case a couple of years ago when I worked there.

So let’s come forward to last night. I went bowling with my brother, sister, and a group of their mates. For the same unlimited bowling, they had paid £11 each (plus the telephone booking fee) by paying in advance, whereas me and my sister, who did not book in advance, paid just £9. I didn’t know the ins-and-outs of their booking, and thought they’d booked two lanes next to each other for five people (hence me and my sister paying seperately), so a total of 7 people were playing. This wasn’t the case though. The group looked at the total price paid (£73) and compared it to the £9 me and my sister had paid so presumed the full groups entry had been paid.

When our game stopped prematurely we were rudely approached by a member of staff demanding to know who hadn’t paid. Since he wasn’t wearing a name tag I’ll just call him Lanky Larry, or rather, think of Dave Gorman but with glasses, skinny and stretched out (sorry Dave). The group explained to him that everyone had paid and it was during this explanation that I realised what had happened. The manager, not wearing a name badge but since he wasn’t a fan of paying attention and seemed to have the attention span of a gnat I’ll refer to him as Timmy Turner, then came over to add his two pennies. He said that he could make everything completely fair by charging me and my sister an extra £2 each; yes his idea of a ‘special bespoke offer’ was to charge extra. Then he sauntered off after seeing something sparkly (well that’s how it seemed), so we then just paid for the extra person taking the total to £82.

When I was working there staff didn’t seem to last very long, managers too, and I can only presume that it’s still that way as no one seemed to have much of a clue about anything. The girl at the bar didn’t know about offers on drinks and had to go ask, Lanky Larry didn’t know how to do much of anything on the desk without running off and asking, even the manager didn’t know that you could perform certain actions right at the lane without the need to run up to reception (which was often unmanned) such as changing names. The only staff member who had a clue was the technician who had been there for years.

But the best staff member for shere stupidity and bone-idleness was the guy in the kitchen. Sporting a pair of glasses and a level of education to rival that of 18th century pile of grass, good old Winston Bennett (no name badge) told us with utmost certainty that there was no mayonnaise in the kitchen. At the same time, one group member was asking the same question to the manager and was offered a choice of normal or garlic mayo. Oddly enough when we’d ran out of mayo and went to the kitchen for more, Winston Bennett still denied there being any mayo on the premesis, despite us showing him the empty punnett.

The staff, sorry, the vast majority of the staff at TenPin are a joke, but truth be told this is how it’s been since the company took over. I was told that back when it was still the Telford Superbowl the staff were treated a lot better and thus took more care and attention in their jobs, meaning customers were treated a lot better. However it seems that Essenden, the owners of TenPin are only after your money and couldn’t care less about how they get it (though that’s not surprising when you look at the Board of Directors and see only one person who mentions any bowling experience). While I was there I was tempted to ask about recent Mystery Bowler results, but thought it might cause too many headaches while people ran around asking other staff members what one was.

Folks if you’re going to be going to Telford’s TenPin anytime soon (truth be told I’ve not been to other locations, they might be better), don’t expect anything great, no wait, don’t expect anything average. Go in with low hopes and you’ll find you won’t be dissapointed.

Once again I leave this open to comments, so if you’ve had crappy service or even (by chance of a miracle) good service jot something down. If by chance anyone from Tenpin or Essenden see this you are also welcome to add any comments.

Walking through Wellington shops were empty and even the atmosphere seemed to be quite gloomy. Also for some reason an automatic door has been installed on one of the market entrances; a bloody stupid door which halves the number of people that can enter/exit the building at anyone time and makes the market feel more restrictive and less open. In fact everytime I walked through it I did say “bloody stupid door”.

Telford Town Centre too had it’s own array of closed down shops despite works going on near the bus station. Whether or not this is due to the recession or the overall remodelling of the centre that was planned some time back I’m not sure, but I was shocked to see that Spencers Mall itself was closing down and the last few shops inside were neighboured by empty space.

I went into Telford Library to do some Japanese work but hit a huge stump. The computers at Telford Library have no idea how to read Japanese text without converting it into boxes. This isn’t just websites, but my own files were reduced to what resembled an empty chess-board when I tried to print off a list I planned on learning that day. When I asked a staff member about computers reading non-European text, he told me that none of them were capable of such a task. Flipping great. I then had a nose at the foreign literature section where I found a wide variety of books in different languages (can’t say it was a wide variety), but none in Japanese. I didn’t bother asking and just went home. I had the same problem at the newly built Hadley Learning Community library, only here the foreign literature section was completely empty (though the staff member here explained to me that they were “on the way”).

I sent Telford & Wrekin Council an email about the computers and they said they’d get back to me within 20 working days … which means 4 weeks … oh wait, there was a bank holiday in there … I’ll probably here back after I’m back in Leeds. If you’re wondering why I can’t just study at home, well the only real place I have the space to study is in the conservatory but with the fantastically hot weather we’ve been having lately I can only really refer to it as an oven. Not to mention we’ve had the patter (or thunderous roar to be more precise) of little feet in the house during the holidays so it’s been difficult to keep concentrating.

So what’s with the Beagle I hear you ask (Simon)? Well yesterday I was in Bolton with my sister and nephew while they were filming an advert for … I dunno, some bed company. I was mainly taken along to watch over my nephew while his mom was filming, but considering they spent most of the time filming together I couldn’t help feel continuously in the way. But towards the end of the day two Beagles arrived on set also for filming. Apparently one of them was in Eastenders as Ian Beale’s dog … or to rob a joke I heard yesterday “Ian Beagle”.