Saturday, September 10, 2005
"Keane" - a common language
I spent a couple of hours this afternoon sitting outside my local Starbucks, writing emails and scrips and suchlike. And I was wearing my Keane T-Shirt from the gig I went to a couple of hours ago.
Then a girl (well, woman walks up). "Oh, I really love Keane, they're so good..." Blimey! Turns out that she's a massive fan of them, was at the same gig as me, and so on.
Anyway, this isn't a romantic thing - the point of the post is that Americans seem a lot happier with the concept of walking up to strangers and starting a conversation. It's not something that most Brits, particularly in cities, seem very good at doing. After all, we just sit in the bus/tube/cafe/park and say nothing to anyone. In fact, if we can, we'll wear headphones and bury ourselves in a magazine or paper.
In other news...
There are lots of shops and cafes here. Loads of them. Everywhere. And most of them seem to have more staff than customers. At the bottom of my road, there's a row of shops... Starbucks, Matress King, UPS Shop, about 3 or 4 small cafes, a tanning shop... but they all seem to be empty, all of the time.
I popped into Matress King as I'll need a bed for the forthcoming flat and apart from the guy working there, there wasn't a soul to be seen. He was very helpful though, gave me lots of info and prices, gave me his number, and told me that if I need furniture, a friend of his works for Furniture Warehouse down the road and can help me out.
My conclusion? Well, there isn't one really. Except that it's all very customer-focused, which I think is a good thing. Why don't they go bust? I'm not sure - maybe staffing and customer care is considered more important here than back home. And that's never a bad thing.
Then a girl (well, woman walks up). "Oh, I really love Keane, they're so good..." Blimey! Turns out that she's a massive fan of them, was at the same gig as me, and so on.
Anyway, this isn't a romantic thing - the point of the post is that Americans seem a lot happier with the concept of walking up to strangers and starting a conversation. It's not something that most Brits, particularly in cities, seem very good at doing. After all, we just sit in the bus/tube/cafe/park and say nothing to anyone. In fact, if we can, we'll wear headphones and bury ourselves in a magazine or paper.
In other news...
There are lots of shops and cafes here. Loads of them. Everywhere. And most of them seem to have more staff than customers. At the bottom of my road, there's a row of shops... Starbucks, Matress King, UPS Shop, about 3 or 4 small cafes, a tanning shop... but they all seem to be empty, all of the time.
I popped into Matress King as I'll need a bed for the forthcoming flat and apart from the guy working there, there wasn't a soul to be seen. He was very helpful though, gave me lots of info and prices, gave me his number, and told me that if I need furniture, a friend of his works for Furniture Warehouse down the road and can help me out.
My conclusion? Well, there isn't one really. Except that it's all very customer-focused, which I think is a good thing. Why don't they go bust? I'm not sure - maybe staffing and customer care is considered more important here than back home. And that's never a bad thing.
