News has emerged that Tesco have bought the lease on the former “Jesters” Comedy Club on Cheltenham Road. 
Dave Trew, of Metropolis, reports;
More bad news is that I can confirm that Tesco have signed a lease to take the commercial unit of old Jesters at 140 Cheltenham Road. This has nothing to do with me, it is a deal that the bank did after putting Jesters Comedy Club Limited into administration in May 2008. The irony is that had I signed Tesco up for that lease, Jesters as a limited co would have survived. Now it is simply money that Barclays will get, rather than one of the pioneers of Stokes Croft! (Me!!)
Presumably they will be seeking planning consent for a Tesco Express…
PRSC believes that a multiple retailer such as Tesco will have an adverse effect on the local traders in Montpelier and on the essential character of the area. However, we must find out what people think. We have started a poll on this page, and will be gathering opinions on the Croft and Cheltenham Road/Montpelier. No application has been placed with the Council as yet. It is vital that the local population have their say.
For those unfamiliar with the way Tesco operate, we recommend you watch the “Dispatches” documentary on Tesco’s methods.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1381639014893922585#]
Also, check out these websites: www.boycotttesco.com also, www.tescopoly.org
Please vote on this poll…
[polldaddy poll=2591015]
I can’t see how this really makes sense for them as there is one just off the roundabout farther down the road.
As an ex-BOGOFS person I’d certainly agree, though, that this would have an adverse effect on local traders. While things have started looking up in the PRSC recently, I imagine things are quite fragile for some of the traders & I think this would knock some business plans for a six.
If there is a majority who want to oppose it, I’ll be right there with you. Keep us posted.
what’s the latest with BOGOFS? Did Tesco appeal to the decision on the Ashley Down Road site?
Well if they do build a Tescos at least we can use it as a shiny new public latrine.
Stop the take over of the world by TESCO. The small Tescos don’t sell real food. It’s all sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks and magazines…..DER. They are just not pleasant places to shop.
Actually you’re absolutely right. I wouldn’t have thought about that on first sight of this story but you are definitely correct. It is practically impossible to get ‘real’ food from the the little Tescos. It would be much harder to contest this proposal if that wasn’t the case. I think realistically a general store / mini-supermarket would probably be quite useful to the the area, and though there is indeed a Tesco off Jamaica street, it’s worth bearing in mind that this would be a much closer amenity for those in the other direction up to the arches and in Montpelier.
However, Ruth makes a really valid point. They do just sell empty calories and filler foods.
This is dumb! So what if theres another Tesco. If they’re so crap no one will shop in there anyway… oh wait.. but everyone will shop there. Who’s fault is that??
So the local community will be killing its self by choosing to shop in Tesco surely?
We have everything we need on Picton Street and I love those local traders.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it was once the lovely wonderful loved Malaap bar, I hated it as Jesters and this would be just too much to bear.
Was loved that much, it sold out
I hate Tesco and everything they stand for. I do not want to see one on Cheltenham Road. I have boycotted the Tesco Express on Gloucester Road since it opened.
It does not matter to Tesco that they have a store just down the road. Just look at the city centre – Tesco Expresses on: St James Roundabout, Broadmead, Castle Park, Baldwin St, Park St…
These are all within 5 minutes walking distance of each other. Tesco are not interested in offering convenience, just in monopolising space until people have little choice to shop anywhere except Tesco.
Having a Tesco anywhere removes a bit of soul from it’s surroundings. Tesco has no colour, no character, and the same products in every store. Look at what we have in Montpelier: Licata (italian deli/supermarket), Galliford stores, Super Mashriq, Radford Mill farmshop…. These places offer an individual experience, each with it’s own character. I hope local people will boycott Tesco IF it opens, but naturally some will not – and once again Tesco will have the potential to strangle the life out of a thriving, vibrant community. Sickening!
The Broadmead branch is a Metro, not an Express :-p
Its got Colour, red and blue …
pedant. really helpful input
I have just done a ‘Store Locator’ search on the Tesco website, inputting my postcode to the search (I am on 9 Stokes Croft) and there are already 6 Tesco stores less than a mile from our street and therefore this site and there are a stunning 18 stores in a three mile radius. No way do we need another one!!!!!
1. BRISTOL BLENHEIM COURT EXPRESS
0.20 miles from search
2. BRISTOL METRO
0.28 miles from search
3. BRISTOL WINE STREET EXPRESS
0.42 miles from search
4. BRISTOL CLARE STREET EXPRESS
0.62 miles from search
5. COLLEGE BRISTOL EXPRESS
0.75 miles from search
6. BISHOPSTON EXPRESS
0.91 miles from search
7. CLIFTON EXPRESS
1.29 miles from search
8. TOTTERDOWN EXPRESS
1.49 miles from search
9. CLIFTON REGENT STREET EXPRESS
1.53 miles from search
10. BEDMINSTER EXPRESS
1.61 miles from search
11.BRISTOL EAST EXTRA
1.70 miles from search
12. BEDMINSTER EXPRESS
1.72 miles from search
13. LIME TREES ROAD
1.78 miles from search
14. HENLEAZE EXPRESS
1.99 miles from search
15. REDFIELD METRO
2.05 miles from search
16. BRISTOL BRISLINGTON
2.78 miles from search
17. BRISTOL HOMEPLUS
3.02 miles from search
18. BRISTOL FILTON EXPRESS
3.08 miles from search
You have 49 local stores (within 20 miles)
NO TO TESCO IN STOKES CROFT!
If Rage Against the Machine can get to number one, we can stop our community being ruined by a giant retailer stealing our business and destroying the beautiful art space that is stokes croft.
If they build it, we ll destroy it
Ahahahahah!!!
Thought you might like this :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cOZN78H5jY
Oh, I did like that! Gave me a woody!
Take em down, take em out.
We dont like, we dont want, we dont need Tesco’s.
Anyway if they did open a new store up (hopefully) all the homeless people that inhabit stokes croft would totally rip the place off AND use it as a place to take a piss, i know i will be. I have never taken i piss on a supermarkets shelves before, but theirs a first time for everthing !! LoL
opps….that ‘hopefully’ is in the wrong place, it should be ‘hopefully all the inhabitants of stokes croft will steal from it and use the store as a toilet (i know i will)
Sorry !
Sad to see, I have many good memories from years behind the bar etc..
The problem with what Mr Trew has to say is that he is an awful businessman and a charlatan. Like he points out, he wasted the opportunity to lease the old Jesters (even if it may have been Tesco) and partly as a result Jesters went bust- soon to be followed by Metropolis.
So complain all you like about what happens to the old Jesters now, just don’t let Dave Trew convince you he’s a martyr. I anything he’s a crook (and that’s not libel because I know)
Dave Trew, the poor businessman, crook and charlatan here.
Just to say that if the local (food) traders would like any help in promoting their businesses, I’m offering free, full-colour, A3/A4 laser-printing for anyone that wants to send over artwork to e-mail address as above.
See you all in the fizzy drinks section… 😉 xx
That’d be – email hidden; JavaScript is required
I think I need to set a few records straight here…
I founded Jesters at 140-142 Cheltenham Road in 1995. It went amazingly well for eight years. Jongleurs arrived in town in 2003. Jongleurs was a brand of 16 comedy clubs over the UK, owned by a multi-million pound corporate called Regent Inns plc. Their modus operandi was to open up all over the UK, kind of like Tesco, but in the licensed trade arena. They were the same people that also owned the Walkabout Bars (55 of them) and The New Orleans restaurant chain.
From 2003 onwards, life was much more difficult at Jesters because of the increased competition, particularly with a heavy-brand identity like Jongleurs in town. We carried on regardless, finding new ways to attract business, reduce costs etc.
In late 2006, The Magic Box at 135-137 Cheltenham Road, one of London And Edinburgh Inns’ (not JD Wetherspoon, as is common mythology) sites, closed its doors, as did all of the other 671 L&EI sites across the UK. I tracked down the landlord of the freehold of that one site, and eventually did a lease deal with him to take on that building.
My main reason for doing so was simply to try to compete on a level playing field with Jongleurs. After borrowing against all of the equity within Jesters Comedy Club Limited at that time, as well as finding private investors, and increased bank funding, I spent nearly £1M restoring that building to house the new Jesters. Whilst we now had an amazzing new venue, we also had a shed load of new debt.
We opened the new venue in February 2008 after nearly a year fitting it out. It was overschedule and over-budget, but we were finally up and running. The huge new debt pile meant huge new increases in debt servicing requirements, which for the rest of 2008 was fine, as we filled the place regularly and, by all accounts, at Jongleurs’ (Bristol) expense. During 2008/9, reports of financial problems with Jongleurs and their parent company, Regent Inns, were rife.
January 2009 came around, and the recession that everyone had been talking about, but not really witnessed, hit hard. One of the industries hit the hardest was the licensed trade. Jesters saw drops of 50% in its trading revenue at this time, and as as the year progressed, it didn’t get any better.
Meanwhile, our old venue remained empty. We still owned that property and the one next door (138 Cheltenham Road – our booking office and a 7 bedroom domestic residence). Clearly, at this time, it was in the interests of the company to get rental income for the vacant ‘old’ Jesters.
We were approached by an agent for Tesco in mid-2008 who told us that if Tesco were to take on the site, we would get approximately £10 per sq ft per year in rental. This equated to around £36K a year. This was of course an interesting proposition. Tesco decided at that time however, not to progress their interest, on the basis that they were only interested in sites with parking. (That’s what I was told…) From that time onwards, there was no more dialogue between me or anyone to do with Tesco.
By April 2009, Jesters the limited company had got to the stage where it was no longer able to keep up repayments on its various loans – the loans that had been taken on to set up the new venue. Long story here, but for the sake of brevity, the bank forced the company into administration. During this time, using our own funds, we managed to form a new company, (Cheltenham Road Entertainment Limited) and conduct what the media usually refers to as a ‘mangement buy out’ (MBO). (Technically, that’s not correct, but this isn’t the time or place for minutiae). That MBO involved buying back the big new venue, but leaving the old venue and property next door with the bank, who to this day, still own both, and have done the deal with Tesco.
We bought the rights to the Jesters Comedy Club brand, and continue to trade as such at the weekends in the new venue. The building however, is branded as Metropolis, to allow us to be multi-functional; principally, we want to do live music as well as comedy, and have had no small measure of success in doing so thus far (even though I say so myself!). A pure comedy club brand doesn’t allow for this.
Meanwhile, back in town, on 21 October 2009, Jongleurs went bust… well actually Regent Inns went into administration. They did the same thing that we did, forming a new company and buying back the bits they wanted. Their Jongs Bristol site wasn’t one of these, and has now gone forever. After nearly seven years of struggling against corporate might, you might imagine how sad for Jongleurs all of us at Metropolis HQ were!
So, the big question is really, would I have taken Tesco on at old Jesters had they wished to take the site on during my tenure? Well, you know, yes, I would, and for that I can’t really apologise. It caused me a huge dilemma at the time, but after much thought and conversation with my fellow directors, to protect our business, we would have had no other choice, given how financially difficult things were. At that time, we really didn’t have the luxury to be able to refuse such an offer, simply on the basis that some locals may object to Tesco’s business practices. Would that deal have saved Jesters the company? I honestly don’t know. It might have, depending on what the terms of the deal would have been, though rescuing Jesters the company at that stage would have been a huge task.
Please don’t take any of this as me trying to gain anyone’s empathy by the way – I already realise that I’m not well spoken of, have disgruntled ex-employees aplenty who are just loving this opportunity to kick me as hard as they can, and as someone that is perceived to have taken away the precious Malaap club from the locals, I was always going to get off to a bad start. (For the record, The Malaap went bust – I was just the bloke that bought the building from their bank. It may well have been a Tesco from 1995 had I not set up Jesters. Who knows?) I’m here to at least have the opportunity to say my bit. I get sick to death of reading bullshit and outright lies.
So, Darren Douglas and your ilk, at least get your facts straight before you criticise. Your opinion is of course your right, and it’s your prerogative to express it. As someone still in business after 15 years, despite the rollercoaster ride cliche, that puts me in a very small percentile of business people that have survived that long in the same industry. If that makes me an ‘awful’ businessman, then so be it.
I’ll take your ‘charlatan’ and ‘crook’ comments under advisement… (like the opinion of a fat, lazy stoner with personal hygiene issues should bother me!)
By the by…
My final comment is to say that the arrival of Tesco at old Jesters doesn’t have to be the cataclysmic event most people think it will be. The shops in Montpelier (that I use myself on a regular basis and will continue to do so) have some fantastic individuality and WILL continue to thrive. I keep banging on about it, but only because I believe it’s true and useful. Get together and co-ordinate a ‘keep your local trader’ ad campaign. I’m happy to print anything up to A3 in size for free, in full laser colour to help with that. It’s a way better use of anyone’s time, than some of the nonsense I read here like pissing on their shelves. (I’m sure a Mother would be really grateful to you if her kid caught dysentry as a result, you goldplated twat).
I’ll leave it there people. Good luck to Chris at his trial. If you’re there, I’ll be the one in a suit giving a witness statement in his favour. Save your rotten tomatoes for me then.
Best,
Dave Trew.
Here, here for the above comment
Although it’s now gone and made me look stupid?!
The Dave Trew is a crook stuff…
tesco’s modus operandi is to expand into an area and undercut the local stores’ prices with inferior, homogenus shite, made by companies with very few ethics themselves
montpelier is one of very few places in the UK where you can go into the corner shop and buy tofu, patties or organic food…!
if they retain permission to do this, they WILL succeed. even if the locals vote with their feet and continue spending their hard earned dosh elsewhere, the transient nature of the place and the location on cheltenham road will cause a lot of people who would’ve gone to discover the independent shops to choose convenience and familiarity instead
i love spending my money in herberts, licata, saj’s, stokes croft PO, the best, radford mill, if these places disappeared the soul of the area would be sorely affected
i hate tesco but i still go there. they should be better regulated. they must own more land than the church
fight this bullshit – if enough people in the area make their voice heard – and it doesn’t have to be loads, it’s a small area – we have a chance. if bath can virtually keep tesco out, montpelier can
speak to the council – this page could be a good place to start
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Environment-Planning/Planning/planning-enforcement-complaints-form.en
If you hate Tesco so much, why do you still go there? You are just enabling them to carry on building more shops – you are the one encouraging it! There’s no need to regulate them if you just stop buying from them.
I haven’t shopped in supermarkets for four years, and I don’t intend to ever again. Three of us have lived on very low household incomes (£12k and under total) for the last few years, and we only eat organic food from local co-ops/small businesses, so it’s not that you can’t afford it. You need to get your priorities straight!
Join the Facebook group, stay in touch, together we can beat these demons!
Dave Trew IS a crook
we dont need tesco. we must fight this, there are so few places left with such a lovely and unique character. it is vitally important we preserve what few wholly community areas we have. absolutely PISS ON TESCO!
No No NO!!
Not sure if any of you noticed, but we have abit of experience at this lark down in Bedminster. Check out our website for some stuff you might find useful. Its not all location specific.
http://www.berate.co.uk
Simon does have a point. I couldn’t believe it when a Tesco opened on Gloucester Rd and swore I would never go there. Then whaddya know…I did.
It’s been built into our consumer brains to go for what is the easiest, cheapest, simplest form of shopping.
But we’ve also been conditioned to think that there is nothing we can do to stop the rise of the corporate tide, when we bloody well can! We’re the ones with the wallets!
Check out http://realengland.blogspot.com/
the blog of the author of Real England. This book will get your activist juices flowing.
I think this is brilliant. It is about time there was a decent convience shop between the bear pit and Zetland road that doesn’t charge over the odds for a bar of chocolate or a pint of milk.
Yes Tesco’s are everywhere and those who want to use the Picton St shops can continue to use them and support these thriving businesses. This new Tesco is located to pick up the great number of pedestrians who walk to work ever day, myself included. These people will no doubt welcome the oppurtunity to pick up a pint of milk, ready meal or bottle of wine on there way home and I doubt many of them even know where Picton St is.
Look, if they didn’t take this lease they would have moved into one of the retail units in the Linden homes development.
Planning consent was given last year, so stop moaning and do something less boring instead.
Can’t wait for Starbucks to open.
“montpelier is one of very few places in the UK where you can go into the corner shop and buy tofu, patties or organic food…!”
This is not true. There are many places where you can buy these things.
“I think this is brilliant. It is about time there was a decent convience shop between the bear pit and Zetland road that doesn’t charge over the odds for a bar of chocolate or a pint of milk.
Yes Tesco’s are everywhere and those who want to use the Picton St shops can continue to use them and support these thriving businesses. This new Tesco is located to pick up the great number of pedestrians who walk to work ever day, myself included. These people will no doubt welcome the oppurtunity to pick up a pint of milk, ready meal or bottle of wine on there way home and I doubt many of them even know where Picton St is.
Look, if they didn’t take this lease they would have moved into one of the retail units in the Linden homes development.
Planning consent was given last year, so stop moaning and do something less boring instead.
Can’t wait for Starbucks to open.”
Well said. I agree 100% with this.
I know for a fact that Dave Trew was laughing to another club owner about how he was selling out to Tesco – and he alluded to the fact that “people around here are going to hate me for it!” Think twice people about this guy… Not for me Metropolis.
No need to think twice about me Mirek – you’re quite right, I would have sold the lease to Tesco had I still owned the building and I would have done it with a clear conscience; it would have saved jobs for the people that worked for me, and would have secured the future of the company at that time, instead having to go into administration.
If, when running your own company you’re faced with stark decisions about its future, then perhaps you’d be more sympathetic towards those that actually are, rather than casting your ‘Judas’ assertions, anonymously, on a blog where your pathetic friends will do nothing but agree with you.
Once the PRSC realises that it doesn’t own Stokes Croft’, that it doesn’t serve the community (only its own very warped view of what the community is), that it doesn’t have the authority to dictate terms of approval, and that (who’d have guessed?), it won’t save the soul of Stokes Croft by pinning murals to derelict buildings, then we’d all be better off. ‘All’ meaning ‘everyone’, not just those whose narrow-minded views don’t stand up to debate, and who have little better to do with their lives than protest about a supermarket opening.
Meanwhile, keep drinking in Canteen (your local ethical capitalist establishment) – at least that way we get to keep all the would-be dictators of worthiness in one room, and out of the way of those running successful businesses – ones that don’t need your help, or custom, thanks.
Well said, Dave Trew. A message from the real world. Rest assured that at least some members of this community agree with you 100%.
This afternoon, I was about to return home via the Gloucester Road, when I noticed several dozen police. I realized that the developers were finally implementing the court order and evicting the squatters. Whilst I was watching the procedure, I got into an argument with a fellow bystander. My views, as anyone who has followed this thread will know, are that:-
1. The building of the Linden Homes flats is on balance a good thing. It goes a little of the way towards meeting the demand for housing in these times of rising population and family break-up. If the flats had not been built, then in the longterm and as a result the cost of housing would have increased. This is, presumably, the opposite of what most anti-Tesco protestors want.
2. The prospective inhabitants of Linden Homes will need somewhere to buy food. Tesco have anticipated this need. It is often argued that Tesco’s arrival heralds the demise of the small independent food retailers with whom it is competition. No doubt some of the shops in Stokes Croft will come under pressure from Tesco. But these will mostly be shops of very low quality. Lets face it, Stokes Croft boasts several of these, and I for one won’t be sorry to see them go. I suspect that the better and more efficiently-run shops will flourish, much as they tend to further up the road, where there is, as the anti-Tesco lobby frequently remind us, already both a Tesco and a Somerfield, apparently coexisting quite happily cheek-by-jowl with several dozen independents.
I tried to explain my views to my fellow bystander. He seemed to think that, since – according to him at least – everyone in the Linden Homes flats will have cars, the local children will all catch asthma, and suggested that ‘we go out into the countryside and take the land from the ruling classes, and build on the green fields’. I pointed out that, ignoring the already palpable insanity of his suggestion, it would mean people driving further to work; not, surely, what you want if your priority is decreasing rates of childhood asthma. At this point, he became irritated not to say abusive, and threatened to ‘knock [my] fucking head off’.’
How pathetic. When your interlocutors feel compelled to resort to threats of violence, you know you’ve won the argument, and your views are reinforced as a result.
People really need to get over it. I am a resident of Montpelier and I do appreciate the local culture and the unique feel of the Stokes Croft area… but why are people so persitent of keeping Stokes Croft as trampy as they can?!
The shops like 24 hr Best over-price all their goods and sell mouldy fruit and veg… I’d love to be able to buy some decent food locally. Everyone shops at tesco and wears clothes from multi-national companies – it’s just LIFE…
It’s like people will find anything to moan about…
I say if people don’t agree with it then they DON’T HAVE TO SHOP THERE.
Basically, Stokes Croft will always be what it is Tesco or no Tesco if people keep all the beautiful artwork coming… But it needs to get with the times and start cleaning up the white lightning bottles and dirty needles lying about… Let’s just start making it a nicer place for everybody…. and to add, people can still buy tofu, muesli and lentils…
Very well said, Jamie. You put many adults to shame with your articulacy and your measured tone.
… and I agree with you, of course.
“Meanwhile, keep drinking in Canteen (your local ethical capitalist establishment) – at least that way we get to keep all the would-be dictators of worthiness in one room, and out of the way of those running successful businesses – ones that don’t need your help, or custom, thanks.”
Actually, I really like the Canteen. The only trouble is that I have to keep my views to myself. I do increasingly find that those who pride themselves on their countercultural lifestyles brook no dissent from their views, as this afternoon’s incident well illustrated.
But that’s beside the point. What I wanted to say is that a friend of mine, who I think is almost certainly highly sympathetic to the anti-Linden and anti-Tesco lobby, told me that all the staff in the Canteen, including the manager, are on the minimum wage. Since Tesco’s alleged propensity to pay minimum wage salaries is the source of much of the animus against it, I ask two things:- firstly, is it true that everyone in the Canteen is on the minimum wage? Secondly, if it is true, why is it ok for the Canteen but not Tesco to pay minimum wage?
I like Canteen too. And I’m quite an admirer of George Ferguson. If it weren’t for the smell of self-righteousness and dissent, I might drink there more often.
The reason why it’s ok for good old George to pay minimum wage and not Tesco, is because it’s George and not Tesco. Duh!
Like any good businessman aiming at his target market, he speaks in tones that soothe the furrowed brow of the PRSC. He uses expressions like ‘urban regeneration’, which any good architect selling his wares to any planning committee in the UK would use. The PRSC interpret that as ‘letting Stokes Croft develop’, and its followers bow their heads in reverence. The fact that clever old George is mugging them with their own ideology is completely lost on them; it must be those red trousers!
Another of George’s ‘urban development’ schemes, is (as I am sure you all know), The Tobacoo Factory in Southville. I don’t recall him needing to make any such smooth platitudes in that part of the world during his ‘regeneration’ of the old fag making plant, yet by all accounts he has done very nicely out of it, thank you. Goes to show what good PR does for those that can afford it eh? Why not write a column for the Evening Post George? Oh, sorry, yes, you do don’t you? How exactly do you reconcile writing in “one of Murdoch’s gutter press rags” with your PRSC-taming ideology then? That’s a fantastically neat trick. Hot damn you’re good at this PR stuff!
And whilst I’m on a roll, and just to score some worthy points here over lovely George; at Metropolis, our club manager is paid £10 an hour, our kitchen staff £7 an hour, our head chef (get this!) £15 an hour, and the three of us that ‘direct’ the joint are salaried. Hurray! Our bar staff, sadly, are all on the appallingly low £5.80 an hour minimum wage. Boo! But don’t worry kids, it goes up every October at the behest of the goverment, whether your capitalist pig employer likes it (or can afford it) or not!
And I love Richard’s account of the argument with the Tesco protestor/bystander. Want to construct a workable argument to counter an invasion of the corporates to your beloved Stokes Croft, PRSC? Then look no further than your average protester who would steal land, and “kick someone’s f**king head in” who questioned this brilliant piece of subversive strategy. Richard, our work here is done!
Just before I go however, may I be the first to say to the middle classes. ‘Welcome to Stokes Croft’? It’s getting better slowly, and you never know, one day, could be renamed ‘Chalkley Circus’. “Roll up, roll up. Watch the caged monkey whine as the heavy-handed bailiff ejects him from his squat. Fun for all the kids!”
Shall we start a petition and a Facebook group?
I really must apologise for Davids persistence in trolling chat sites and personally attacking anyone he can get his nasty teeth into. He was the same as a child but unfortunately he needs to do regular character assassinations on others to help bolster his self importance and counteract his low self esteem. No Birthday present for you again this year David! Not until you learn some respect for others.
Mum
My real mother died 6 years before the date of this post. So, nice try, but you need better research.
Dave Trew: Thats not the way I remember things when it comes to getting paid by you. When we were building Metropolis, wages weren’t paid on time more often than not. stop making stuff up.