The man below is Tony Curtis:

The man below is Tony Curtis:

Which of these men is both a "poet" a University Professor and which of these men is the most obnoxious man alive? That's right, I tricked you. The answer to the above question is the same man. Which of these men is both a "poet" and a University Professor? Which of these men is the most obnoxious man alive? Yes, its the rather happy chap in the color photograph. 

Now lets give a little back story shall we?

One month ago I began work in Blackwell's, a fecking bookshop of all places. If there is one thing I cannot stand in life its books and/or poetry. Having to stack them, sell them and be nice to customers who enjoyed them seemed like a tall order. However in the last three weeks I have not only found a revolutionary way to log out of the till (I located the "log-off" button on the keyboard) I have also found myself to be rather cordial and polite to complete strangers as they give me their hard earned cash (or at least the massive corporation that gives me 0.000000006 of their profits every month as wages.)

Now, why do I think that Professor Curtis is the most obnoxious man alive? Well it all happened not twenty-four hours ago in the Trefforest University branch of Blackwell's bookshop. An elderly lady came into the shop and purchased a second hand edition of the Norton Anthology of English Poetry, we're talking a good six inch thick book here, so it quite possibly could be THE Norton Anthology of English Poetry, containing every poem ever written, conceived and vomited onto a page within the borders of England, part of Great Britain (C). Which for a while held the esteemed title of Biggest Empire in the world (past holders include Rome). The old lady then asked Mandy, who was born not thirty minutes out of Dublin if she had a book titled "Cider With Rosie" Mandy typed the book into the Blackwell's database and it returned one matching title, "Cider With Roadies", Mandy then politely asked the old woman if she would like to order Cider with Rosie, as the database only shows books stocked by our particular shop. One quick search on the Blackwell's website would show that we could order it within seven days. The woman didn't seem that bothered that she wouldn't be able to get the book and declined our offer to order the book. Mandy packed the old woman's bag and left.

As hard as it was we managed to pull through and get on with our day. Our failure to order a book for an old lady who didn't seem like she was really desperate for it in the first place was a tough cookie to swallow, but swallow we did, partly due to our superior swallowing techniques. Around thirty minutes later the smiling Professor above walked into our shop. He ignored the queue that had built and stood to the side by the till. Noticing a customer in need of assistance I approached Mr Curtis. As a man of literature it would bring great pleasure to Mr Curtis If I were to recall events in the standard literary form for dialogue. Luckily for Mr Curtis a man of my lowly stature could not handle such a quest, so I will write dialogue in the way I was taught. And as an added bonus, Mr Curtis has also dabbled in literary criticism, lucky for him I can also dabble in dialogue criticism:

Foamy: Hello, can I help?

Tony: Yes, I'd like to know if you can order a book for me?

Foamy: Well that depends, are you a lecturer or a student.

- (There are two methods to order a book, if a single student wishes to purchase a single book us lowly shop staff can deal with the request. If a lecturer requires books for a module/course they must see the manager)

Tony: Regardless of that how do you order a book?

- (Obviously Mr Curtis had missed something in the translation from Professor speak to lowly shop attendant speak.)

Foamy: Well if you are a student you can order it here, and if you are a lecturer you have to see the manager.

- (I spoke with a little more clarity, and more slowly than the previous exchange. After all Mr Curtis is a poet, and he may have been sidetracked by a passing comet, or he could be contemplating the meaning of human existence, or possibly our fantastic low price CD's.)

Foamy: If you come over to the helpdesk I'll take care of your query. What's the name of the book?

Tony: Cider With Rosie. My name is Professor Tony Curtis lecturer on the MA in Writing course.

- (Not THE professor Tony Curtis? Who actually teaches the Mphil in Writing course? The book title rang a bell, and I was about to mention it but...)

Tony: Because one of your staff searched for it earlier but couldn't find it, one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century.

- (Now, had Mr Curtis remained our my plane of existence and paid attention, he would've have noted that I was not the manager and that he was incorrect in referring to Mandy as a member of my staff, that is unless I was a hip-hop star and the manager and was merely referring to myself in the third person, dawg.)

Foamy: But. uh, but uh uh urgh.

- (I was confused. I later learnt that he was poorly attempting to use sarcasm to prove a point. Sadly in order for him to put his point across to me his poor attempt of sarcasm should have been more thought out. He was attempting to make me the butt of ridicule in front of these people, sadly he just came off as a man with little to do apart from contemplate the universe and get pissed off when a person doesn't know the title to every book ever written. A little tip Mr Curtis, contemplate your audience before attempting wit. Mandy noticed what we were engaged in discourse about and came over)

Foamy: This is the person you are looking for.

Mandy: Yes, what's the problem?

Tony: You served a student of mine earlier who asked if you had Cider with Rosie, one of the greatest literary works ever.

- (In hindsight a lot of books are given that label. In the spirit of not doing the proper research which Mr Curtis displayed I had a look on Amazon. Cider with Rosie was placed at a sale rank of 4,957. Cider with Roadies, the book about Cider we actually had in stock was placed 4,886. 'Roadies was authored by Stuart Marconi, who I've heard of and is placed seventy one places higher than Cider with Rosie, written by some bint called Laurie Lee.)

Mandy: Yes but we had a bit of trouble finding it, I typed in the two ways to spell Cider.

Tony: There are two ways to spell Cider?

Mandy: Yes, C-I-D-E-R and C-I-D-A-R.

Tony: Are you sure?

Mandy: Yes.

- (I have found no reference to Cider being spelled CidAr in any dictionary. I did type in cidar in google and it seems there are over seven thousand websites containing this spelling. Now I believe that in order for a word to be considered official it has to be in common use. Either enough people are wrong to be right, or its the American spelling of the word)

Tony: Obviously I don't expect you to have heard of it.

Mandy: Well of course.

- (THAT Mr Curtis, is sarcasm!)

The "debate" was then interrupted by the manager who took Mandy and the professor to the office for a chat. Had I known the whole story before Mr Curtis wrongly came storming into the shop I would have put up a spirited fight, as it stands I have to do with this hindsight account but hey Mr Curtis was wrong so why can't I be?

It turns out we didn't have one of the many greatest literary works in the history of modern society because Mr Curtis had not supplied Blackwell's with a course reading list. Without this list we cannot accurately predict, through the medium of clairvoyance what books people will need. Mr Curtis is entirely at fault here, he got totally worked up over his own mistake, possibly why he was so annoyed and he needs to learn people skills, I may invest in a free copy of his work in order to provide my own criticism of his work. Only if I can view them for free as I would not like to give him cash. His subjects apparently range from Wales to a collection of sonnets based on letters to his son, self absorbed? Certainly not!

Mr Curtis also appears to enjoy the title of Professor (exactly why he is referred to as Mr), I will soon be writing him a letter, but only after I have acquired the title or Lord Of Loch Borrolan from the internet...

Have A Foam Filled Day!

© Paul Hunt 2004