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9:29am on Wednesday, 9th July, 2025:
Weird
Timpson is a chain of shops that does all kinds of small walk-in jobs for you: key-cutting, shoe heel repairs, watch repairs, dry cleaning and engraving. It's one of the most progressive companies in the UK (employees have free rein to do whatever they think will deliver good service, employees get their birthdays off work, 10% of its employees are ex-convicts, ...). In general, it's one of the most admirable companies in the UK, despite its rather humble service offerings.
One of the shops in Colchester is in an old building, which has this plaque attached to it:
To save you from straining your eyes, here's what the text says:
"This Doorway Has Been Retained In The Interest Of Preserving The History Of Colchester. It Is Thought To Date From 1500 AD. And It Seems Likely That Even At That Time The Building Was Being Used As A Shop. Which Was Probably Of A Similar Size And Shape To Our Present Shop
TIMPSON
Great Service by Great People"
That use of a capital letter at the start of every word is somewhat ... unconventional. Only in the last line, which is probably corporate in origin, is it more like what would be expected in English. Also, the second and third phrases following the full stops aren't sentences. The final sentence doesn't end in a full stop, either.
Timpson may be good at engraving, but I'd want to see what the output was going to look like before I asked them to engrave me anything.
I do have a jacket with them for dry cleaning at the moment, though. They really do offer a Great Service.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).