Apple Store Opens In London.


For Apple’s Regent Street opening, we sent our UK correspondent, Thomas Henry McCardle, a 19th-century Dickensian child laborer with tuberculosis, to have a first look. Here’s his report.

My fine benefactors at Crazy Apple Rumors have given me a tuppence and a swab of bacon grease on an old newspaper to have a gander at the new Apple Store Regent Street opening up in London! I must say, I’m quite beside meself!

Oh, no. That’s not me. That’s me twin brother, Ronald, beside meself. Sadly, Ronald appears to have expired from influenza. Me mum would be so saddened if she hadn’t already been taken insane by the syphilis.

To make sure I would be admitted to Apple’s remarkable new store, I slept in the line outside in the freezing cold for a fortnight, in naught but me wool knickers and a burlap sack. I didn’t mind, however, as this was far preferable to the treatment I receive at Lord Swithersmith’s Home for the Indigent, where I am roundly beaten about the head by the older boys before being given a stale old piece of Keith Richards for me suppah.

In the rush to get in when the doors finally did open, I was trod upon by a large, angry Scotsman who said “Git outta tha way, ya 19th-century Dickensian child laborer with tuberculosis!”

I could only tip me dirty hat to ‘im and let out a cough that looked like the exhaust from the 8:13 train from Gillingham. That nice Yank Ron Johnson did help me up off the floor and even gave me an Apple shirt! Unfortunately, it’s already become black with the coal soot that seems to form a permanent cloud about me, even after me mandatory bi-monthly dousing in a vat of castor oil at Lord Swithersmith’s.

Once inside, I found meself wondering if this is not exactly what heaven must look like! If only poor Ronald could come down an’ tell us! He did so love to laugh, Ronald. Even when his left hand was eaten by a brace of wicked stoats, he took it all in stride. “Perhaps one day I’ll get a shiny new hand made out of a biscuit tin!” Ronald said. “Then I shall treat all my friends to biscuits from my beautiful tin hand! Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

Then he fell into a fit of coughing and hurled up somethin’ the doctor later said would have better been left in his body.

As I wandered about, amazed by the delights before me, I decided that I would cease my daily labors at the factory that makes ladies trusses and seek employment at Apple!

My dreams were dashed, however, when a blind Cockney flower girl dropped a Power Mac G5 on me hands, crushing them but good. Also, I don’t know one whit about Macs!

‘Tis no matter to me, as I’ve fallen for the blind Cockney flower girl. I’ve a mind now to sell me watch to buy her a barrette for her beautiful hair for Christmas. I wonder what she’s going to get me?

I hope it’s an iPod!

Well, I must be off as the bobbies have said I can’t panhandle on Regent Street. It’s back to the poor house for me! Cheerio!

43 thoughts on “Apple Store Opens In London.”

  6. And young Thomas Henry McCardle will be in for a beating when he get’s home, let me tell you

    [insert maniacal laughter here]

  7. Whit.

    ItÂ’s “don’t know one WHIT about Macs.” Lord Swithersmith! An extra five of the best for such slipshod spelling when young Thomas Henry gets home if you please!

  8. Say what you will, but to me it looks like Ringo Starr has really let himself go.

    Thomas Henry McCardle, indeed. We know you’ll do anything to get back into the limelight.

  9. Oh man, I hate to think how stale that piece of Keith Richards must have been. Probably gave him some damn good hallucinations though. Flower girls and G5s indeed!

  10. OK, let’s get this one out of the way, because you know it’s coming:

    “Please sir, may I have an iPod?”

    Mmmmm…Shepherd’s Pie…

  14. Um… barrette, not beret. A beret is a hat. And it’s just not funny if it’s a hat.

    And the name is Pedant, not Pedophile. So get your dirty minds out of the gutters.

    Um, yeah, and Lesbian Ninjas!

  15. >>he he… syphilis…

    You must be psychic or something, cause that’s exactly the same thing that I was going to type in here.

    or maybe I’m not having migraine headaches, but they are really my psychic powers developing! cause I really hope it’s superhuman abilities and not cancer.

  16. Awesome stuff!!! very funny. 🙂

    as for the tshirt turning black, aren’t they black already? with or without soot?

  17. I think that’s the point, doofoid.

    Excellent episode. Although on a point of information, it’s not actually TB but mumps that’s going round here atm – especially in Bristol where the damn health authority didn’t give out mumps vaccine as a matter of course until a few years ago. Idiots.

  19. That was about as funny as syphilis! Ha ha! See what I did there? No? Anyone? Hello? Is this thing on? What? Mother? No mother! I don’t want to! What? iPod.

  22. If this was O Henry, then Thomas would have gotten the blind, Cockney flower girl, but it would have turned out that she thought she was buying an AMD Opteron system instead of a G5, and she would have been hit and killed by a lorrie on her way to the get life insurance, and Thomas would then realize just what a truly wonderful life he has.

    Oh, wait– how did Frank Capra sneak into this?

  24. “left hand was eaten by a brace of wicked stoats”

    That’s much funnier than syphilis, well it at least has less pus.

  30. Lummie governor. Methinks Crazy John is a closet Anglophile.

    Or mayhap he was just brought up in a poor-house.

    Do tell, Mister?

    PS: Gillingham? That’s just down the road from where I live (Gravesend). Ahhh, Dickens country. Not a shithole at all.

  32. Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and read CARS off the bottom of a rain soaked cardboard box, if we were LUCKY!

  33. Hot gravel? HOT GRAVEL?? When I were a lad we’d have killed for a taste of hot gravel – we only had cold gravel, and that only every second Sunday. The rest of the time we had to make do for nutrition with small shards of glass kindly strangers would throw to us as they passed, and if we were very lucky a small helping of mixed fly-droppings and sand. And we didn’t work at the mill – our job was to lie in the potholes every day so the wagons wouldn’t break their axles. Everyone would try to lie in the most uncomfortable position so you could break a rib, because if you got 6 broken ribs you could have a 10-minute rest. Ah, happy days.

    And as for CARS, we couldn’t read, but I remember one day when I was about eight a kindly old woman came along and vomited on my face, which made my mates laugh so much that it was almost as good for them as reading CARS must have been.

    You know, it’s only when I look back on it now that I realise how truly blessed we were.

  34. Why doesn’t the CARS staff secretary and mail room employees have their picture and information up on the CARS staff page?

  39. A vivid depiction of Dickensian times tragically shattered by the term “panhandle” in the last paragraph which is American English and as a verb for begging is 20th century useage.

    And the presence of an Apple Store, I guess.

    And a G5

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