More from Glasgow



Here are some pix from the Glasgow opening sent from Dear Reader Hugh. Bottom photo is a shot from Friday night at 3 a.m. in Glasgow taken by Hugh who arrived at midnight and spent nine hours in line so he could be among the first allowed into the store. He reports that by the time the store opened at 9 a.m. the queue was 700 to 1,000 people strong. At 8 a.m. the staff ran out and got Starbucks for everyone in line. (That’s the black-and-white photo. It was taken by Fraser Spiers. Link to his flickr page here.) First day traffic estimate is said to be 16,400 people. Not bad. I’m just so glad that the “Troubles” there in Scotland have calmed down and the six counties have been given back to England and the Catholics and Protestants are living in peace with each other once again. Be proud, Glasgow!

I know people think we’re just being super duper generous by opening our own store in Glasgow and bestowing our glorious products on these poor unfortunate Celts, and it’s true, we are pretty much in line for the Nobel Peace Prize after this. But we also have a selfish reason for doing this. Because the real winners in all of this are the phone sales reps who work for Apple in California. Until now they been given the unlucky job of trying to take orders over the phone from Scotland. They’ve never been able to understand what the fuck these miserable Scots are asking for. Have you ever actually talked to a Scottish person? And not one that’s been living in America for a while and has learned to speak English, like Bono. I mean a real, authentic, totally raw Scot who’s still living in the wilds of the friggin Highlands or whatever. I’ll tell you this. I have no idea what language those people speak, but it’s not English.

At the same time the Scots have been equally unhappy dealing with our stoned out (it’s a requirement) Calfornia surfer-slacker-dude sales reps. So now everyone is happy. The grumpy Scots can deal with fellow grumpy Scots and our phone reps can just pass around the medical marijuana and not have to sit there scratching their heads and saying, “Huh? What? Huh?” to some screaming Scot who’s harshing the vibe on the other end of a phone line.

BTW, a great idea of why this works so well is the transaction depicted in the black-and-white photo above, where the guy on the right is saying, “Ta for the milk, I’m so psyched that this cool store is opening in Glasgow,” and the shaved head guy is saying, “Fuck off Jimmy or I’ll smash yer fucking teeth out for ye.” Also please note John Lydon Jr. in the background, sucking the life out of a cigarette. Talk about entertainment. All that plus incredibly hot Scottish girls in cute short plaid skirts. Yeah, we know retail, baby. No wonder we’re kicking ass around the world.