A comedic near miss

I've served a few well-known people in the three-and-a-bit years I've worked in classical CD retail: James Fleet (who played Tom in Four weddings) in my London days, the author Ian Rankin and (I'm told) some footballer or other when I was in Glasgow. Today it was the comic Dylan Moran.

Let me start off by pointing out that I make an effort to treat anyone well-known (I have a thing against the term "celebrities') in the same way as I would anyone else. It was the same thing when I worked in the hotel industry, where I felt it was wrong to kick up a fuss about serving a public figure when they would rightly expect to be granted a degree of privacy. It comes down to respect. Add to that the number of my customers who tell me how much they appreciate the peace and quiet of the classical department and it only strengthens my resolve to act with utmost professionalism.

There was a fly in the ointment today: Mr M (bless 'im). Here, I felt (and my colleagues agreed), was a minefield of material for a stand-up comedian. Although they were in my department at the same time, it was only very brief and try as I might, I could not bring myself to recommend Dylan Moran to study the old coot for use in his stand-up routine.

Being professional can be very frustrating!