Another One Bites The Dust

I had a day off yesterday and went to the Yorkshire Dales to visit a few farmers who let me metal detect on their land and give them a bottle of wine for Christmas. At the last farm I decided to have a few hours detecting but within thirty seconds of walking into the field found myself covered in mud having unwittingly stepped into some sort of bog. I managed to dry out enough to have a pleasant few hours in beautiful countryside but only managed to find an old knife and a few of the farmer's .22 bullet cases.



Sadly my escape from work didn't last the full day as I decided to pay a visit to a slow paying customer on the way back. Whilst en route I whiled away the time trying to conjure up excuses for Instanta's managing director turning up on the doorstep covered from head to toe in thick red crud. Sadly, I didn't get the opportunity to use the excuses as the premises were vacant and the neighbours told me the customer had gone bust. Another one bites the dust. That's two in the last seven days.Paranoia is starting to set in. Every order is treated with suspicion (especially if it's not a regular customer)and the number of cheques that must be "delayed in the Christmas post" is frightening. We can read postmarks you know.

The bad thing about the credit control is the sheer nastiness that we get from late payers. All we are saying is "Can you please tell us when you are going to pay your account which is overdue? Or "Sorry we can't let you have any more goods until you account is straight". If we ever became late payers ourselves our own response to such calls would be "We are very sorry. We'll get back to to you straight away with a payment date" . But what do we get? "Huh. We're not buying anything else off you!""You are blackmailing us" we even got "You must be scared" It seems that in the world of the late payer, the supplier is always wrong. I thought I'd try it out myself so I went to Tesco last night for some Xmas shopping. I told them I'll pay you in a few weeks or I'm not buying anything off you again ever. A nice young man escorted me to the car park sans shopping.



Marion and I are off to see Elton John at the Liverpool Echo Arena tonight. We aren't huge fans but his music was part of the soundtrack to our teens and, if he plays his old stuff it could be a bit of a nostalgic evening for us.Mind you, I read that he had a go at X Factor during his concert a the O2 Arena on Saturday. Watch it Elton there are a lot of X Factor fans out there. I'll finish with an appropriate song for today from the same era.