…but in the end , there it is …” So spoke a certain Winston of the Churchill variety, (no, not the irritating puppet that was voiced by Martin Clunes until he-rather inconveniently for the insurance company that was paying him-was banned from driving). I thought of the statesman on Saturday night as I watched the grand unveiling of the Strictly Come Prancing Celebrities and their dance partners. However fixed the grin (grimace) of delight, certain members of the prancing troupe just know that they will be leading the group dances as early as Week 3. I will offer my very own glitterball though if Kristina ‘The Siberian Tiger’ Rihanoff manages to avoid the first cull with DOD (that also stands for Dead on the Dance floor). I will of course be offering the penthouse at Cheshire Towers for her to recover from the experience…
Wilful ignorance is something that estate agents deal with on a daily basis. Having recently been instructed to sell a house via a large national builder under one of their assisted move schemes alongside, as is the norm, a second agent, we duly published the details. The latter were produced to our usual exacting standards to display the property to best effect. Our fellow agent merely copied and pasted a previous set of, (in my and the homeowner’s opinion, very poor) details created by the original agent who had unsuccessfully marketed the property. Two weeks into the whole process, the vendor informs me that he has decided not to buy a new home from the aforementioned national builder, but will instead simply sell his home on the open market. He chose to stick with Cheshire and Co due to the, “great service… the details really show off the house…you always answer any questions/keep in regular contact…” Within 48 hours, that had all gone the way of Kristina’s chance of getting her paws on this year’s glitterball. We were/are apparently, “small, aren’t you… not in the town centre…you’ve only been open four years.. you don’t have a branch network throughout Wales to advertise my property…” All of which, as factual statements are correct. I countered with:
- We are small and independent and very good at what we do. Which is why after just four years of trading, we consistently get work from three behemoths of the building trade who could choose any of the ten other agents in our locale, but choose not to.
- We are not in the town centre, where in order to get to, “We’ll sell your house and stripe you in the process” you have to park 500 yards away and walk to their office. We have a private car park right behind our office whereby even a three-legged tortoise would mange the trip before sundown.
- We do not advertise on a regular basis in the local paper with its very restricted distributive reach. This is because last month our properties appeared 350,000 times in Rightmove searches-THE national property portal that can be accessed from the moon-whereas the Argus only print 15,000 property papers a week.
- We are not part of a corporate network in Wales, although our properties can and frequently are viewed by people from across the British Isles (and beyond). Not being a part of the corporate beast means that we can concentrate on achieving the best possible result for our clients-the vendors-as opposed to having to adopt the corporate tactic of threatening them with the loss of their firstborn/car/cat/revealing their membership of Ashley Madison to their wife if they don’t reduce the price (that was originally inflated), in order for us to secure a sale and get Head Office off our case.
My truthful answers-that could be corroborated with hard evidence-were met with the reaction of the rest of ‘Europe’ to Great Britain’s annual Eurovision offering. What did make me chuckle was the home owner who, having been privy for some time as to how, as a company, we conduct our business, telling me, “Well, I thought that you would have worked harder to get my business”. O.K. It brought to mind the following tale that illustrates that you just can’t please some people:
On their way to getting married, a young Catholic couple is involved in a fatal car accident. The couple find themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven.
While waiting, they begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven? When St. Peter showed up, they asked him.
St. Peter said, ‘I don’t know. This is the first time anyone has asked. Let me go find out,’ and he leaves.
The couple sat and waited, and waited. 9 weeks passed and the couple are still waiting. While waiting, they began to wonder what would happen if it didn’t work out; could you get a divorce in heaven. After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled.
‘Yes,’ he informs the couple, ‘you can get married in Heaven.’
‘Great!’ said the couple, ‘But we were just wondering, what if things don’t work out? Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?’
St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slammed his clipboard onto the ground. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked the frightened couple.
‘OH, COME ON!’, St. Peter shouted, ‘It took me three months to find a priest up here! Do you have any idea how long it’ll take me to find a lawyer ?
