Under The Counter was shocked to discover that local retailers failed to make a list of the UK’s top 40 unsung heroes.
How times have changed since the pandemic. UTC remembers retailers and their staff hailed as “the fourth emergency service” – which must have got right up the noses of His Majesty’s Coastguard.
Now they’ve been forsaken for pets, vets and even Amazon’s smart speaker, Alexa.
That a glorified speaking clock made the list was bad enough for the Auld Boy, but he was further dismayed to see mechanics and plumbers there too. It’s his firm belief that the only heroic thing about spanner monkeys is the size of their invoices. Although anyone prepared to stick their hand round UTC’s u-bend surely deserves a medal.
Under The Counter was but a middle-aged man when the Stranglers released ‘No More Heroes’ in 1977. He can only wonder what the punk rockers would make of a list that includes ‘people who tell you if you’ve got loo roll on your shoe’, and ‘drunk girls in nightclub toilets’ – both noble, but hardly frontline.
The list was compiled by greetings card marketplace, thortful. UTC has no idea what a greetings card marketplace is, but he was pleased to learn that thortful’s card production process sets “the gold standard for eco-consciousness” by using vegan inks.
It warmed the cockles of his sclerotic heart to know that any avocado fundamentalists who hadn’t been given a birthday cake could always eat their cards instead.
