There aren’t exactly dozens of people running to the shop as I approach it on Saturday. It’s quiet when I enter and it takes a few minutes before I can attract the shop girl’s attention from round the back.

‘Hi’, I say, trying to be cheerful. ‘I work for the Uni paper and was wondering if I could take some photos for a quick article I’m doing for Queen’s Day.’

‘What kind of photos?’ she asks with a frozen smile. ‘Nothing major, just me wearing one or two things and maybe one of both of us.’ ‘Erm, not without clearing it with my boss, sorry… But he’s in on Monday’, she adds helpfully.

‘Oh, okay’, I say maintaining a weak smile.

I leave. Later, I return.

‘Could you call your boss and clear it with him? Might be some good publicity’, I say trying a usual sure-fire way of getting photos. ‘Okay’, she says, disappearing round the back and leaving me to have a quick look around the store. I didn’t notice at first, but there are no signs of the shop advertising a discount, in Dutch or English. Still, I hang around until she appears a minute later. ‘He’s not here at the moment. Can you come back in about an hour?’

I leave. Later, I return.

‘He called back and yes, you can’, she says with a bright smile. ‘Great’, I think as I get my camera out. I put on a coronation shirt and she does, too. We take some photos and I get down to asking about the discount. ‘Had many people buying orange with the discount?’ ‘What discount?’ ‘The discount on orange clothes’, I say, starting to feel uncertain. ‘Erm, there isn’t one.’ ‘Oh’, I reply and realize that explains the lack of in-store adverts.

I thank her and leave without buying my special orange coronation outfit. I try a phone call on Monday. ‘Why put the discount on Facebook when there isn’t one’, I ask the manager. ‘Oh… YES! It’s on until 30 April’, he says. ‘I must have forgotten to mention it to the shop girl’, he says apologetically.

– 23 april 2013 –