Result!

Seriously, there are major issues here, and, for what it’s worth, I actually had an article half written not long after I started in ‘The Trade’ expressing my concern about some of these aspects of the trade. I never completed it because I sensed my own ‘complicity’ in the whole process. After all, I AM the guy who buys the sweets, who sells the poppy-out-eyes pens and groans at the proliferation of Bibles- but still populates the shelf with them. (By the way- is anyone else having serious problems getting black bonded leather Bibles- of most translations?- we are really struggling!!)

In fairness to ourselves, there is a path to tread between the ‘crass commercialisation’ and the genuine urge to be creative- and have a bit of fun! And it is difficult to get it right. In the same way that very few (in a previous conversation here) who had a desire to censor out ‘The Shack’, there are probably very few managers out there who would be supportive of a ‘Product Police’. Ultimately, it is the customer who will do that- and they are often more discerning than we realise.

That said, I do agree with your concern about many of these aspects, and really do take these buying issues pretty seriously. Now, I must go & find out who ordered the poppy-eyed pens……!