We had a customer in today looking for penguins..

The china shop next door had an unwelcome bovine visitor and came round asking if we had a picador.

How did that pan out?

Do we know who opened the first used book store, where and why.(?)

I think it's very likely that we'll never know, especially as they come and go with tremendous frequency.

Kinda precursors of the cupcake store-bubble..btw in local newspaper I saw this morning two more life long friends are opening a "light little cake" shop in our area...they are "very excited".

As well as being an architectural gem in its own right, the Livraria Lello in Porto attracts visitors from all over the world because there is story that JK Rowling was inspired by the interior of the bookstore for her description of Hogwarts library. Whether or not that's true, it is the only bookshop I've visited where I had to queue for half an hour to get in.

http://tinyurl.com/yafdqh8m

http://tinyurl.com/y96dn5sr

Wow, an even longer wait than the one for the Birkenstock shop in Covent Garden in the mid-1990s.

HW - I have tons of duplicates to bring up to you some time. Probably too many for one trip.

That'd be great, thanks.

Does your bookshop have odd little haunted corners, staircases that end in blank walls, bookshelves that shift to reveal more bookshelves, and mysterious black holes where customers get lost in time?

http://www.secondhandbooksplymouth.co.uk

This is the place to get lost in, wonderful place to roam.

Oh, yes, definitely, Snarly. I'd pack a couple sandwiches and spend the day!

This chappie from Portsmouth seems a bit of a character..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Portsmouth_Fo
otball_Club_Westwood

#24 - only if there's a toilet. I love books and bookshops but they send a signal directly to my bowels.

Blokes will use anything as an excuse for that sort of reaction.

Absolutely, Tom.

I think a law ought to be passed that all bookshops and record and dvd shops must have toilets on their premises available to customers.

I'd vote for that!

Is a customer someone who purchases something? As opposed to a browser...

As it happens we never prevent someone using the facilities in ourr shop if they are caught short (always surprised that certain pubs and restaurants make a big issue out of this). We find normally people will buy a card or a takeaway drink as appreciation, although we don't insist on a purchase.

I was including browsers, cos browsing is where the trouble starts. Don't know how many secondhand bookshops even have facilities.

There are browsers and then there are time-wasting racist browsers who wasteour time before they go to the pub. I missed one of them the other week, who verbally abused a Polish girl having a tea in our shop. I have a suspicion who the culprit is...