That WAS Emtertainment part 4… no, really, it IS the end this time.

It is, with a heavy heart, that this time really was the last time I’d ever step foot in a That’s Entertainment. I know, I sort-of jumped to conclusions a few weeks ago when I wrote that initial post after I knew they were closing, and unfortunately, I sort-of pre-empted everything I wanted to write here.

Anyway, a week ago, after visiting the store on Bank Holiday Monday, I reported that I finally knew the closing day, and that would be this coming Sunday. Luckily, this also coincided with a week off work. No, nothing to do with my feet this time, no, just an actual week off. Legally booked and everything.

This would give me the opportunity to visit the store twice more. Saturday was one of the days.

As mentioned previously, the prices went down to 50% off earlier in the week. This would be an occasion for me to fill my boots with yet more cheap sleeveless CDs.

But first, the bus ride. One of those odd moments where I actually LIKED talking to a complete strange. It was weird. As before, I took the 36 bus, as it drops me off in Stockton town centre, pretty much outside the afore-mentioned shop. A guy got on at Billingham, and sat next to me. Nothing unusual about that. I’m on a bus. It happens. Normally, my earphones clearly wedged in my ears is enough to deter most people from talking to me. Or rather, they’re wedged so far in there that I can’t hear anything they say. This time, however, they either weren’t in right, or it was at a quiet part of the song, when I heard him speak..

“Going shopping then?”, he asked, in a jolly, Saturday morning manner.

“Sort of, I’m off to get some CDs.”. I explained that TE was closing, and he seemed genuinely surprised. Not in that “I don’t know what you’re talking about” way either. He seemed genuine. We got talking, and he explained he collected too, and used to come down to Hartlepool, to the Other Record Shop, but hadn’t been for years. I broke the sad news that the owner had died, and that it was pretty much a ticket store anyway. He asked if I go to many gigs. I replied in the negative, but the last one that I saw was Chris Rea.

“Oh yes, didn’t he do Stainsby Girls?” I could have hugged him at that point. It wasn’t one of his bigger hits, but it’s by far my favourite song of his. Certainly not the first song you’d expect to come up in a random bus journey conversation.

Before I knew it, my new friend got off the bus, and I felt slightly empty, knowing that there really was someone out there with similar interests to me, and that our paths will never, ever cross again. It was the first time, and probably the last in my entire life where my record collecting was genuinely interesting to someone, and not “The bald bloke with the glasses is talking at me, I must look at the wall”. Sigh.

Anyhoooo, back to record collecting, and before I knew it, I was alighting the 36, and making my way to the shops. Of course, my first stop was the “sleeveless” table.

This time, they had split the boxes. You could still buy some full boxes for £5, but they were also doing bags of them, rather like what they did at Hull that time, for £1.50. I picked three bags up, along with many other bits and pieces.

The reason why I picked the bags up, is that I decided that these would be more fun to “unbag” in a live Facebook video, and it would go on for less time than doing an entire box. After all, I could surely come back down on Monday and pick up a box or two, especially, as I was off this week.

Well. Monday didn’t happen, and neither did Tuesday. Memory escapes me why, but I’m going to hazard a guess at the weather. Out of all of the weeks I could have picked off, I picked the one with Arctic temperatures, more fog than a vaping convention, and an overall assumption that Winter would never end. Just like the weather, my heart was grey at the possibility of never stepping foot in another one of those stores again.

Judging by the elimination of the previous two days, I hope you’ve all reached the conclusion that something happened on Wednesday. I had to get up early, as Wednesday was the day of my weekly foot scraping (yes, that’s still going on), which had concluded by about 9:30. I returned home, and caught some of the athletics. After all, it’s the Commonwealth games.

After 9 minutes of heady excitement, watching Jamaica win their first medal in the women’s steeplechase, I decided that athletics was too exciting for a Wednesday morning, and I needed something to lower my adrenaline levels, and what could be better than a mind-numbing ride to Stockton, on the 36. And, mind numbing it was, as my headphones kept playing up.

I arrived in Stockton to find a depressing sight. All of the sleeveless CDs were gone. Not a single one in the shop. A third of the shop was now empty, with the exception of children, running around in the vast open space, as if they’d never seen an empty shop before. Ugh. It was horrible.

I scoured the shelves, prowling, like the last weak buzzard, pecking at the final bits of decaying flesh left on the carcass of a once mighty buffalo. The last remnant of something tasteful through the shelf upon shelf chick flicks and Owen Wilson DVDs….

Did I do badly?

Assuming the time on the receipt was correct, I exited the store at 2PM. There was still time to get one of the many buses to Middlesbrough, and hope for miracles that they found an entire sack of sleeveless discs underneath the floorboards….

No. My word. I thought there were slim pickings at the Stockton one. Middlesbrough was even worse. The music had almost entirely dried up. There were multiples of almost every DVD. Blu-rays were pretty much sold out, and naturally, sleeveless stock was gone entirely here too. There were three things I purchased…

SENNA – Already have it on DVD, two-disc edition, but I really like it. Worth upgrading to blu-ray.

ALAN PARTRIDGE – ALPHA PAPA – I’ve already seen it. Wasn’t amazing, possibly worth a second watch though.

ROCK OF AGES – Never seen it. Might be something I’d like. Plus, the DVD case is all purple and glitttery. Ahem.

So, there we have it. At 14:52, on 11th April 2018, a chapter of my life really did end. As I said, in my earlier posts, I sort-of jumped the gun when I said there would be no more (I didn’t know when they were closing when I wrote that), but this time I mean it. It closes for good in less than two days.

I don’t know what I’m going to do for music now. HMV are soulless, as John mentioned in the comments. Charity shops don’t have the same appeal they once did. I’m genuinely sick of looking through 250 granny CDs to find one CD I’d consider, only to find I already have it in triplicate.

So, as a homage to That’s Entertainment, here is a spreadsheet including all of the CDs I’ve bought from both of the stores since they announced their closure. There’s no way to tell which ones I’ve bought outright, and which ones came as part of the sleeveless stock bundles. This chapter of my life will close with nobody, except me, knowing if I actually wanted those S Club 7 CDs…

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AFtpPiafbPpOM7btZmlKAT9vcxmJ4kxCAAgR85O8kRM

Please note, that whilst wholesome, the above spreadsheet does not live up to my usual level of care and attention, with many missing years and catalogue numbers, and possibly incorrect titles too. I won’t be updating the above spreadsheet any further, but my catalogur will eventually get the complete information entered into it.

The end. That’s Entertainment… August 2011 – April 2018.

That WAS Entertainment

It’s been a shitty few days.

Things haven’t been great for me recently. I WAS back at work, but I’m back on the sick again, because of my feet. Hopefully, it’s just for the week. and I’ll be back on Wednesday, but more on that later, possibly in a separate post. I’m still trying to get over the shock of the impending doom of “That’s Entertainment”

Well, it all started earlier in the week. As I mentioned, my feet are falling to bits again, so all plans I had for the weekend had gone out of the window. I planned on sitting in, not speaking to a single human being until I went back to work, and just generally feeling sorry for myself. Accomplice came to the rescue, however, and said “I’m driving to Middlesbrough to get my hair cut on Saturday, tag along and you can raid That’s Entertainment, I’ll be parking near it”, which loosely translates to “Get yourself out of the house, even if it’s for an hour, you miserable bastard”.

I agreed that a rummage through the 49p boxes at the afore-mentioned record store would possibly bring a small glint of happiness to an otherwise depressing week, so he drove round, I hobbled to his car, and off we popped to Middlesbrough.

We arrived at the store. Accomplice disappeared up the road to get (what’s left of) his hair trimmed, and I entered the store. My eyes lit up! The 49p CDs were now 10p each! I hadn’t been this excited since the Washington Branch closed last year Now, for the ininitiated, these 10p discs are CDs that have lost their cases, and are provided in just a plastic wallet. Some may have the odd scratch, and some may only be single discs from a multi-disc compilation. I don’t care about the cases, I don’t care about scratches. I don’t even care if I know what’s on the CD. 90% of the fun is getting it home, adding it to the database, and finding I’ve found something I’ve been after for years.

Now, these are right next to the counter. I think they’re intended for customers to just have a quick rummage through while waiting for their turn at the till, and not like I do – inspect every single box, picking out many discs at a time. I usually get quite a few at 49p, but then they’re 10p I do, quite literally, fill my boots.

However, seeing these CDs at 10p is usually a double-edged sword. It usually means the store is closing. As these were right next to the counter, it took seconds for me to realise something was indeed up. the staff were talking about dismantling shelves and moving stuff into a van. This very much sounded like the store was closing. I asked the guy behind the counter if this was the case. He confirmed this was the case, and as the conversation spread between the staff, I found that the entire chain are going “online only”.

Time stopped. Voices around me stopped making sense. This was possibly the most devastating news that a music hoarder could ever hear, especially with That’s Entertainment’s USP of selling cheap sleeveless CDs. I reached for my phone. I just had to tell someone. A text to Accomplice was in order.

I texted him, because I knew it’d make his day. Over the years, since my first discovery of the (now closed) store in the Metro Centre, I’ve dragged him round many other locations, as near as Stockton, and as far afield as Manchester. I’ve planned days out around going to these stores. In total, I’ve visited 17 different branches, each of them with their own unique charm, and, of course, row upon row of cheap CDs.

So, for one final time, the PA system played “Ring The Bells” by James. I plonk my (109) CDs on the counter for one last time, a lump in my throat, but with a slight wry smile on my face, as the guy behind the counter has to scan his “Sleeveless CDs” barcode 109 times, and altering the price to 10p for every single one. I pay my money and step away from the counter, just as The line “I don’t feel like God is watching over me” plays.

The song draws to a cold ending, with a chorus of “Ooohs” and “Aaahs”, as I walk out of the shop for one last time. knowing that the likelihood of me ever gracing these steps again would be very small indeed.

On the plus side, I have all of these to add to the catalogue, and also a nice “That’s Entertainment” retail box to keep them all in, and all of this only came to a tenner.

Goodbye Maplin (Teesside Park)… I hardly knew ye.

One of my favourite haunts for “tech stuff” is closing its doors very soon. In fact, assuming I finish and publish this post on 21st May, it’ll be “today”.

I’m not sure where to start with this post I’m sorry to see it go. I’ve bought so much stuff here over the years. My desk drawer is full of those little screwdrivers they sell at the counter, because they’re so cheap, and I’m always losing the little bits out of them, and whenever any work needs doing on my PC, I’m searching all over for *that* Philips bit that’ll undo that weird screw holding something in place.

My condolences go out to the staff, and the poor bugger who had to put this up in the window, sealing his fate. Rather like what happened to me back in 2012 when I (and my colleagues at the time) saw other people doing our work.

On a side note, there are absolutely no bargains to be had. There a re a couple of “50% Off” bins near the counter, containing weird shaped fluorescent tubes and ink cartridges, but nothing of any relevance.

I did intend to type a whole long rambling post about what I’ve bought in there over the years, but, quite frankly, I can’t be bothered. Any chain of stores that thinks it’s reasonable to charge £25 for a CD wallet doesn’t deserve my custom. There, I said it.

EDIT: As promised, and seeing as I’m at Teesside Park right now, snaffling free Wi-Fi, here it is. All closed down

EDIT: MARCH 2018 – It’s sad news that the entire chain are closing all of their stores, and will disappear off “the high street” altogether. As a commentor mentioned below, the nail was in the coffin when it turned into a glorified toy store.