Who remembers Leonard Rossiter's part in the film '2001' ?
I do. Thought I was seeing things for a couple of seconds. He was lucky the space chair didn't make a vulgar noise when he stood up.
Any road: Maplins...
I can only ever recall using the branch in Camden a few times when I worked just down the road and it did have a particular atmosphere, like a Halfords for geeks in that the staff would either accost you straight away in the hope they could 'help you with anything for yourself today', or ignore you completely (it's surely almost impossible for someone in the position of serving a Maplin's customer to gauge the exact level of attentiveness they might prefer - they're salesmen not butlers). At least some of them knew what they were on about and only once did an assistant try to sell me something I didn't need or want. I think he was new.
For comparison's sake, and as PC World has been mentioned and as I once spent a slightly surreal hour and a half in one, here is my very interesting story:
My friend, who knows toss all about computers, asked me to go with him to PC World as he wanted to buy a laptop and needed advice.
Having established what he wanted to do with it and how much he wanted to spend I eliminated most of the machines on show (they were all overpriced). As we were taking our time an assistant hove into view and started talking up various models, his language peppered with "well, this bad boy's rocking a such-and-such gfx chipset" TopGear-type talk, which embellishments matey didn't really need for updating his CV and emailing his mum.
I narrowed it down to a couple and we told the assistant that we'd take the better of the two (both were similarly priced) and off he went to the warehousey bit to fetch one - job done! And yet not: "I'm sorry", says he, returning twenty minutes later, "there's none left in stock and I can't sell you that one as it's a display model. We have plenty more to choose from if you'd like to have a look around."
"I've come all this way...I'm not leaving without a fucking laptop", confided my mate. Never mind - I fetched the assistant back and told him that was fine - we'd have the other lower-spec machine. Off he went again...
It turned out this was also the last of its kind and therefore another display model, yet for some reason he
could sell this one. Unfortunately it had no battery. "I'll just get you the box and a battery for it", he said vanishing into the back again for what seemed like a very, very long time. The crestfallen look he wore on his return didn't bode well: "Sorry", he sighed "The battery's missing". "Oh, er, oh dear...what do you think's happened to it?", I asked.
"Dunno", he replied, looking forlorn, "I expect someone's nicked it". And that was the end of the explanation. I found this all quite amusing even if my friend didn't.
So my friend bought a more expensive and over-specified Toshiba which is still going strong as he's never used it.
I told you it would be an interesting story.