Confederacy of a Dunce - My current local news

Monday, November 13, 2006

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Lest you think my sneering at the quality of local news is limited to my old hometown newspaper, let me share with you a story from my current local weekly.

Sex shop hoax by builders

CROUCH End was bracing itself for its first sex shop shop - but it all turned out to be a hoax.

A shopfitter working on the conversion of a shop in Topsfield Parade scrawled an announcement that a sex shop was opening there as a joke.

Eyebrows were raised by shoppers and local business owners when the note appeared last Monday morning in the window of the former HAM Estates office on Topsfield Parade, Crouch End, brazenly declaring: "This is new Crouch Hill sex shop".

It wasn't long before nearby workers and passers-by started asking questions, but things started sounding fishy when a Journal reporter made some inquiries.

Sniggering builders admitted that the sex shop sign had been a joke.

The note was removed by Wednesday lunchtime. When the truth - that the shop was going to be a rather less racy estate agents - was revealed, some local shopkeepers seemed a little disappointed.

One said: "It would have been more exciting than another estate agents." Another said: "My reaction was 'brilliant!' and At least it's not another clothes shop."

But not everyone was fooled. "I knew it was a fake," said Pizza Hut manager Jason Ireton. "The note was on the outside. Obviously you are not going to get a sex shop in this area.

This story has it all: sex, comedy, quotes from local notables, even a very-badly written sentence that jumps out and smacks you in the face with its badness (I refer of course to the phrase "as a joke" which really wants to modify the nearby verb phrase "was opening" rather than the intended verb "scrawled").

(link to story, but who knows how long the link will remain active).

language

Monday, November 13, 2006 12:15:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)