Dickies

The place was deserted: A sea of empty tables; the slot machine flashing pointlessly to itself;. On the wall a massive screen played Sky sports to nobody at all.

So much for the grand plan.

All evening at the COP people had been talking about whether or not they were on the “100 Day Challenge”. This is the suggestion from Jimmy Chapman that from October 1st we should all give out 50 business cards a day - every day – for 100 days.

Now that includes weekends and Christmas. It’s a marathon and you don’t train for a marathon by running 26 miles. You start on five miles (or five or ten cards) – and I’m in training.

Today I had spoken to my six people on the Win-a-Mini stand but I still had 25 cards left. All evening at the COP I had been fiddling with my remaining stack of cards and telling people I was going to shift them at Dickies Restaurant on the way home.

Dickies is an enormous truck-stop café where lorry drivers bound for Felixstowe docks park up and wait for their delivery slot. It’s open 24 hours a day and it’s full of people with nothing to do.

But not at 11.oo p.m. on a Tuesday night, apparently. Just three blokes sitting at a table outside, smoking: “You lost?” said one.

“Well I was hoping to find lots of people to give these to?”

“What they all about then?”

So I told him - and his two mates listened.

He wasn’t interested – at least not unless he was going to get paid “cash in hand”.

He was very apologetic but banks, taxes, all that… no, I was welcome to it.

And then, with a flash of inspiration, he added: “Tell you what: I’ll give them out for your. We get lots of blokes in here during the day…”