I have been walking for two days down the Suffolk coast with Ian.
When I was in Bratislava I bought a bus ticket costing 70 cents and was given a free bottle of water (normal price at least 1 Euro) on boarding the bus. At W H Smith in Liverpool Street station on my way to stay with Ian and Patricia in Norwich I bought a bottle of water for £1.50. Except that I could have it for £1.40 if I took a free copy of the Daily Telegraph. Not wanting the DT, even gratis, I refused. The salesperson patiently explained that I needn’t take the paper; she could scan it at the till and put it back on the shelf, which she did saving me 10p. Every bit counts when a pensioner but I can only imagine the extent of the desperation in the DT marketing department.
“Let’s hand it out free, like the Metro and the Evening Standard.”
“Oh, they’ll never fall for that. The paper’s too big and they won’t want to carry it unless they need it for cat litter.”
“Well, suppose we knock something off the bill for something they actually want to buy if they take a copy? Better still we won’t make them actually take the paper so long as it’s scanned and puts up our circulation.”
“Thats a wizard plan, Algy. Off to the Cheshire Cheese for large G&Ts to celebrate. We can sell millions of copies like that and save money on newsprint as each copy can be “sold” over and over again.”
We took an early bus from Norwich Bus Station to Kessingland. It is a two hour ride via Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. At 9.25 we stopped to take on two ladies. They argued that although they were too early (they are a class of passenger known as Twirlies by ticket inspectors) to use their bus passes they are accustomed to a five minute indulgence. The driver did not extend this courtesy and with ill-grace they paid. The bus had seating for 41 passengers and there were about six of us on board. The more cantankerous of the two surveyed us with a malevolent eye, which lit upon our backpacks occupying two seats. She cheered herself up by asking me to remove them so that she could sit there.
The sun shone down on us as we wended our way down to Kessingland and I shared my opinion with the ladies of the importance of strict adherence to the rules. This cheered me up, though in fact I needed little cheering on such a lovely morning with a two-day tramp down the coast in prospect.
Our first stop was in Southwold where a beach hut seems to cost £120,000 – but if you have take 100,000 copies of the Daily Telegraph……….