This week, all things considered, has been pretty unlucky for me – a car crash on Sunday (not my fault and the third party has already accepted liability), a poor Ebay purchase on Monday (an item that failed to live up to its billing), and then the flooring disaster on Tuesday (see the post). The flooring was by far the worst piece of bad luck because that cost me in emotional terms and will undoubtedly have a significant financial impact as well. 

So I have spent some time this week feeling a bit sorry for myself. 

Today though, I have decided to pull myself together, accept that shit happens and move on. What has prompted this change of heart, well it is Friday, I got paid yesterday and most importantly I have reflected upon some news articles I read about some other poor souls whose misfortune definitely classifies as bloody unlucky.

Take a few minutes to read these articles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-18979930

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-18978561

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-18974141

There’s me bemoaning my bad luck with the floor when Charlotte Blackman was walking under a cliff at the very moment it collapsed! You couldn’t possibly get any more unlucky than Charlotte or indeed Rosemary Snell and Michael Rolfe who also got buried in a freak Dorset landslide. 
 
My point is not to be crass but rather to recognise that in the scheme of things, a damaged floor, some wasted money and a dented motor are pretty minor and that I should be grateful that I haven’t been bloody unlucky instead! 

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As I write, I am as depressed as the UK economy - here’s why. On Tuesday night I got home from work to find the new vinyl flooring laid in our recently re-fitted kitchen. The flooring fitters B.W. Male & Sons of Daventry had laid one piece of continuous vinyl through the kitchen, utility room, downstairs toilet and airing cupboard.

My tasks for Tuesday evening included bringing the tumble drier, full height fridge and washing machine back in from the garage (and conservatory) and installing them into their temporarily vacated utility room slots.

The tumble drier went first and was successfully installed. The fridge was next and help was recruited in the form of my next door neighbour to carry it in and position it. All went well! The washing machine came in last and once again I had help lifting and manoeuvring it.

With the pipes located all that was required was for Graham (my neighbour) and I to move the machine into place and this is when it all went horribly wrong. The washing machine feet tore two holes into the newly laid vinyl. Frankly disastrous - the floor had been down for a matter of hours and was already ruined! You can see the pictures. I could have got cross but the actual feeling that washed over me (pun intended!) was more like despair - it felt like my whole body was deflating.

In all my years of moving houses and moving appliances, I have never damaged a floor covering be it vinyl, Flotex, carpet, laminate or tiles and I didn’t expect last night’s tragedy either. A floor covering with a ten-year warranty was ruined on day one by an appliance being moved, how can that happen? Surely that means the flooring is not fit for purpose! Or of course it was laid badly, or rather not glued down properly and therefore at greater risk of damage? But what on earth can I prove?

For reference, the Flotex that was down previously, and was 15 years old, was unmarked when the washing machine was removed. 
 
In all of the process of selecting a vinyl, having the space measured, agreeing quotations and getting the job done was there any advice given about the vulnerability of the floor to tearing. Should I have absorbed this insight by osmosis, is this knowledge common and I have been ignorant of it? Should I feel worse than I already do? 

A call with Males, perhaps expectedly, had the salesman shrugging his shoulders, saying tough and recommending an insurance claim. We had already paid so I don’t know why I even hoped for a better result. The company begrudgingly agreed to come back to the house on Friday to have a look but said ‘don’t expect a more positive outcome’ – who knows perhaps another repair/restoration solution will present itself – fingers crossed.  
 
The salesman was obviously keen not to accept any kind of responsibility which I can kind of understand but what annoys me immensely is that it’s all smiles and nicety when all is going well and then shutters down when something goes wrong. Decent customer service is of course defined by what happens when there are problems. 
 
The salesman has backtracked and claimed that we never discussed moving appliances across the flooring and that he would have given some advice if he had known (it’s a kitchen for crying out loud) and perhaps recommended something different. At the time of course it was all ‘good choice’ and ‘that’s a popular one’. All bollocks and nonsense and all the more depressing for it.

An insurance claim may well prove necessary.
 
This is the product we purchased and the text below is the copy from another site. 

Ultragrip Studio XL (Sacramento 909E)

An exciting new range for 2012...Studio XL is a collection of popular wood, stone and tile designs. This super 3mm thick cushion floor is hard wearing, slip resistant and has added anti-bacterial properties.

Available in 2, 3 & 4m widths with an impressive 10 year guarantee.

Hard wearing – well I’d have to challenge that!

The guarantee – the flooring is apparently not guaranteed not to tear so not sure I’d view the guarantee as impressive at all.
 
My recommendation to any reader is buy something else.

What this space for further updates on this flooring saga.

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I have listened to the Government’s announcements about making it easier and quicker for budding shopkeepers to take advantage of the increasing numbers of vacant premises on the UK’s high streets (which, let’s face it, in our recessionary times are likely to stay empty without some kind of alternative thinking).

I quite like the idea of having my own pop-up shop so it’s as good a subject as any for my latest blog post.

“Baldwin’s 70’s Emporium” is my working name for my shop - Mrs B. thinks “Ade’s Tat Shop” or worse “Ade’s Shit Shop” would be better and of course she is completely entitled to her opinions.

My shop would buy and sell things from the 1970s. It would be a haven for those with a preference for heavy pattern fabrics and ceramics, bungee cord light fittings, orange and brown plastic, coloured glass, flared trousers, lava lamps and twist dial telephones! I’d be in my own 70’s heaven every day and able to interact with other similarly minded retro enthusiasts.  

Surely I’d make my fortune!

Well, actually I am not so sure, because being an enthusiast and running a business are two distinctly different things and would selling seventies stuff be the ruination of me? In all honesty, probably and here’s why:

1) Are the banks actually willing to lend to new start-up businesses at the moment?
2) Is setting up a new business in a recession a sensible decision anyway?
3) Regardless of my preferences, kitsch stuff has a limited appeal. How many of those buyers would walk past my shop front (in Daventry for arguments sake)?
4) The internet, which is what is killing the high street, is a better environment to advertise and trade niche products to niche audiences.
5) A website and a secure lock-up would surely be cheaper than high street rent and rates.
6) If I had to pay high street rent/rates, what would I have to add to my prices to cover those costs and would my limited numbers of buyers pay the inflated prices?
7) Ebay is the best site on the internet to buy and sell anything and, on that basis, why would I not just have an Ebay shop front instead? In supply and demand terms, Ebay is also the perfect tool for finding the right price for any item!
8) Being a collector of stuff, would I just be at risk of buying more stuff than I actually sold through my shop?
9) How long before kitsch is considered naff all over again and nobody wants to be seen dead with anything worthy of that label?

As a marketing manager, I have some answers for some of the questions above but I also have this firm belief that the only way a business has any long-term success potential is have a decent business plan based upon decent research -  neither of which I have created nor carried out.

So, it is with regret that Baldwin’s 70’s Emporium will remain a flight of fancy for the moment. I bought the website address though just in case. Ade’s Shit Shop may still be available for purchase if you are interested.

How successful will the initiative be to re-open empty shops? I have no idea although I have my doubts it will make a positive difference. I could foresee a scenario where shops are rented by the day to market traders or ‘car boot’ type sellers that will be there one day and gone the next – this would probably work but it wouldn’t look beautiful.    
 
Me, I could always set up some kind of garden shed based museum instead and showcase my existing collection of tat to like-minded enthusiasts for a limited entrance fee. There could be mileage in this idea so I’ll stop writing now and ponder on it for a while.

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I have always thought that grey is an ultra-conservative, largely depressing and a frankly characterless colour that makes me think of battleships and getting old. It’s a fact that my hair is going grey, and very light grey in places, and that when I look in the mirror these days, I see an ageing chap sympathetically gazing back at me. Is grey therefore a colour worthy of dismissal and avoidance at all costs?

But, and I reflected upon this weighty matter on my way to work this morning (in the rain and the traffic); grey isn’t as bad as I have portrayed above.  Grey is actually something that you can associate with experience and maturity, and these are good things! Here is some evidence of my latest, if slightly bizarre, thinking.

When I was a teenager, I saw everything in black and white (or right and wrong or good or bad, if you prefer). I had an opinion on most things and was prepared to share it. As I got older, I began to appreciate that black or white rather depended upon perspective and that when you were prepared to consider anything from an alternative perspective, shades of grey (or more encompassing thought) replaced black or white. 
 
Having a very strong opinion on something is okay, don’t get me wrong, but before you share those opinions, it is worth being completely sure of your facts and it is worth considering how others might think because otherwise you run the risk of looking, and sounding like an idiot! In this context, grey is arguably a safe colour, the colour of balance.
 
This maturing of thought was important when I became a manager of people in the workplace. “My way or the highway”, which is black and white management thinking, is bad for morale and for developing your colleagues, and a more inclusive approach is necessary to get the best out of a team or achieve the best result for the business. In a spectrum of black to white, grey is therefore the colour of engagement.

This week has seen racism popping up in the news again (thanks to football) and this is another space where ‘grey’ is so much better than ‘black or white’ thinking! In this context grey is the colour of multicultural Britain.  
 
And finally, this weekend Simon Hoggart wrote in the Guardian (14/07/12) about “Fifty Shades of Grey” the erotic trilogy of books by E. L.  James. His comment, ‘porn for real people’, makes grey sound so very much more exciting. Mrs Baldwin has her copies and I’ll be looking forward to finding out how she gets on with them.  

Grey can represent experience, maturity, perspective, engagement, multiculturalism, safety, excitement and balance. And that doesn’t feel dull at all.   
 
I’ll admit that this piece is a bit whimsical, a random thought just popped into my head and I started writing as a result – just indulgent nonsense perhaps? Have you been engaged though? Would your answer be‘yes’ or  ‘no’ (think black or white) or would it be ‘grey’?  

My favourite colours are orange (God knows what I’d write about that), brown and then red, in that order, but from now onwards I’ll be more positively disposed towards grey! The hair, well it can go grey without the interference from ‘Just For Men’. From now on, it’s not so much about getting old; surely it’s more Zen like, and about achieving  self-enlightenment?  Or am I just kidding myself?

Grey is great – and you read it here first!

And for readers of the Fifty Shades series; please let me know if you agree.

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