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| Gurning Jim |
Brico Depot is fronted by a nameless character
who gurns from every poster site, flyer and most aisles in the shop. It is easy
to imagine that he is Mr Bricolage,
but that is the name or another DIY retailer.
He may have a name known to the cognoscenti (Brico Jim or Ronald Mc Brico?) but to us humble punters he remains nameless.
He may have a name known to the cognoscenti (Brico Jim or Ronald Mc Brico?) but to us humble punters he remains nameless.
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| Welcome |
Brico Depot has a load of cheap basics, they also have some pretty expensive stuff
which would still be costly at half the price and a delightful feature called Arrivages which are limited stocks of
bargains.
Being France it is illegal to have sales out of the sale
season. But it seems that there are special arrangements for one-off bargain
offers. We get flyers the size of newspapers from Brico Depot promoting their Arrivages quite regularly. The flyers
will tell you how many of each item is available at your local store. 87 drills,
41 generators, 237,000 nails etc. I have taken advantage of the incroyable prices on a number of occasions.
The Montauban branch comprises three departments gathered around a small
car park which is always full. One department sells windows, doors and stainless
steel chimney components, next door is the builders merchant yard and on the
other side of the car park is the main store which feels like a warehouse and sells everything else.
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| Three shops around a car park |
The builders merchant yard used to have a reception hut displaying a sample of everything they sell with a big number next to it. You would have
to fill in a form with the item number, colour size and quantity as
appropriate. They would enter it on the till and take the payment. Then you
would be allowed to enter the hallowed yard and select the items you had paid
for. Of course sometimes the item you wanted was not in stock, so you would
have to go back to the cashier and get a refund. It was slow, labourious and a
real waste of time.
Recently they decided to run it more like a supermarket. You
drive in, overload your car with breeze blocks…
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| Preparing to overload the trailer |
...and cement...
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| More cement than is good for anyone |
...and limp to the exit.
Anyone who has been to a festival in UK recently may have
seen Cube Henge (or one of its derivatives). It is a dance space decorated with
1000 litre liquid storage tanks all lit up with flashing coloured lights.
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| Cube Henge variant 'Starburst' |
Brico Depot has its own version. They only come in white, use natural sunlight and
the music is crap, (but you get used to that in these parts).
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| Brico Henge |
Brico Depot not only sells wheel barrows, you can also buy the bits separately, so if you bend the frame you can
buy a new one and transfer the bucket and wheel from the old one.
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| Barrow bits |
Brilliant, but slightly limited in the great plan of things.
Getting a betoniere (concrete mixer) is a rite of passage for anyone moving to France (unless you live in a flat in
the city centre when you may be excused). Everyone can get a
reasonably priced mixer at Brico Depot, it used to be “any colour as
long as it’s orange” but now they have added yellow (not shown) and dark grey…
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| Mixing it |
Most major retailers in France assume their customers are low life
thieving scum. I was in a supermarket the other day and a very nice middle aged
Hyacinth Bouquet lookalike, shuffled through the checkout in front of me. Having unloaded her cart she made a point of holding up her shopping bag to show
the cashier that she was not stealing a pack of dusters or a piece of haddock. On
the rare occasion that I remember to take a bag into a supermarket I make a
point of looking as shady as possible and not showing that it is empty.
Brico Depot is no exception. The exit is like crossing a Warsaw pact
border during the cold war.
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| Anything to declare? |
There are barriers, little huts and guards. I
suspect they have rifles hidden somewhere. They are friendly enough, but cannot
resist the temptation to inspect the darkest crevasses of your car, sometimes with a torch bright enough to fry a frog at a thousand paces, looking for
contraband.
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| En guard |
My trailer load of blocks confused the cashier who was
having a problem counting the blocks on the bottom layer. I did tell her how
many I had but my language skills did not extend to explaining that it was
impossible to get any more bricks on the bottom than on the top layer so all
she had to do was double the number on the top… but she was having none of it and had to consult the guard for a second opinion.
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| How many blocks make 38? |
But at least Gurning Jim had the manners to say ‘thanks for
coming’
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| Cheers, Jim. |
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