Day 345. I know it's over. (11/12/13)

So it finally happened.

You're aware by now that I am far from averse to revisiting old themes, subjects that I first covered earlier in the year and feel like taking a glance back at now we've moved on in time; tonight I'll make no apology for the fact that I'm clearly repeating myself to an extent.

It's actually happening. My store closes on 26th of January next year. Five days later we will hand the keys to an empty shell back to the landlords; the store that I took from emptiness in October 2002 will return to the same state, an eleven year cycle ended and a twenty seven year slice of my life closed.

It's not the entire chain, the chain continues. Which I'm happy about, I've got a lot of friends still there and I wish them the very best going forward. And we're not alone, there are others in the same position and I wish them exactly the same luck.

It's not as emotional a moment as it was first time round, we'd all kind of grown used to the idea that it might happen again, come to terms with the outcome before it actually came (although it could have just as easily not happened, slim margins); it's cool, we move on, whatever comes next will be the best thing that we've ever done.

I stand by everything that I've ever said/written about this; every step of the way has been made (mostly) endlessly fantastic by the people that we've worked with and the 'product' that we've dealt with. I thank every single person that made the journey so much fun; you don't spend a quarter of a century of your life doing something just because the pay's decent, it's genuinely been a pleasure.

So I thank the staff of Revolver/HMV in Lord Street 1986-1989, Whitefriargate in Hull 89-90, Trinity Street (and i's big sister the Schofields Centre) in Leeds 90-94, Church Street 94-2002, Speke 02-04, Birko 04-06 and Speke again all the way up to the first day of Feb 14. Everybody that I worked for, worked with or managed; you are all genuinely the story of my life (maudlin as that sounds, I'm on the last of last night's Chablis) Every fellow manager in every region and everybody that I ever drank with at conference or on training courses. There was a fair bit of drinking.

There were a lot of bands as well, a lot of artists and the occasional one hit wonder that time has forgotten. I stood three feet from the front of the Hammersmith Apollo as a band introduced itself with "Hello, we're The Manic Street Preachers, this is Motorcycle Emptiness" and the room erupted and a different room erupted with an introduction of "Hey You, don't watch that, watch this; this is the heavy, heavy monster sound, the nuttiest sound around...." That kicked off 'One step Beyond'. There were The Cribs with Johnny Marr on guitar, Hothouse Flowers, Bill Bailey performing the Hokey Cokey in the style of Kraftwerk, John Bishop abandoning his act in order to just have a laugh with the audience, Alan Carr on a night when he apparently complained that we were a terrible audience.

Served some interesting people; Christopher Eccleston in his Cracker days, Captain Sensible (obv), Alan Bleasdale (bought The Monocled Mutineer as he didn't have a copy himself despite writing it) Elvis Costello's mum, the mum of the girl that writes 'Call the Midwife'.

Met in varying degrees a fair few pop stars; Apache Indian, Martin Stephenson, Wendy James, KWS, Altern 8, the guy from Danny Wilson, Sam Brown and you know what? They were all perfectly normal, pleasant people. Except KWS - they thought they were proper pop stars.

Met some actual heroes; Ian McCulloch (I will tell you about The Bunnymen before we get out of this) who was clearly blind as a bat. I was totally overawed. Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, I adore The Wild Swans, I got a bit fan boy, gushed quite a bit. Julian Cope was a worry - what if he wasn't as 'out there' as we expected and was actually a trifle dull? What if he was further out there and was actually a knobhead? He was neither, he was just damned cool. Ian McNabb, served him when sober, refused to join in a sing song in Parr Street Studios when it was hard to tell who was drunker, us or him. Ian Brown, effortlessly cool and shorter than I'd expected. Pete Wylie was everything that I wanted him to be, effusive, garrulous, a font of anecdotes, a perfect entertainer, always 'on'. That was one hell of a day.

Oh. And. McCartney. That may be the highlight. There were so many highlights though.

It's been a pleasure.