Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos

Matthew Steeples

4 years ago

Hero of the Hour – Andy from Argos – Argos sign on Grimsby house – Grimsby resident takes with good humour someone attaching an Argos sign to his house whilst journalist reporting story of it goes all Miss Marple. Facebook group Angry People in Local Newspapers, GrimsbyLive.

Grimsby resident takes with good humour someone attaching an Argos sign to his house on New Year’s Day whilst journalist reporting story of it goes all Miss Marple

“I think if people were all a bit more like Andy, there would be no wars” remarked one Nick Kay on the Facebook group ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ of a story about an Argos sign “taking a tour of Grimsby before ending up attached” to the house of someone named Andy.

Featured in GrimsbyLive on Saturday, the aforementioned sign was taken from the closed down Argos store in Osborne Street in the coastal town – a place where a UKIP candidate dopily named Victoria Ayling asked a council meeting: “What happens when renewable energy runs out?” in 2015 – on New Year’s Day.

According to the paper’s Gregory Ford, a journalist with plainly a hell of a lot of other subject matter to sift through as he moves into 2021, “[the sign] first took a stop at the town hall a few yards away” and appeared the next day “at an address in West Marsh where it appeared to have been attached to the side of a house.”

Ford – a man who makes Miss Marple looks like an amateur – continued:

“GrimsbyLive finally caught up with the wandering logo at around 1pm where it was found still attached to the side of a property on Haycroft Street near the junction with Lord Street.”

Speaking to the “resident at the property,” a man whose surname he neglected to include named ‘Andy’ subsequently, Ford gained the following surprisingly witty comment:

“I think someone has put it here as a bit of a joke, we have some banter with the neighbours, one of my friends sent me a video of someone attaching it to the house last night.”

“I’ve got no idea how they got it down or if they were even the ones that took it off the wall in the first place to be honest.”

“I’m keeping it up though I think, it is a bit funny isn’t it? I might just treat it as a bit of a late Christmas present, I’ll have to set up my own click and collect.”

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***Predictably members of the Facebook ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ had fun with the story with one declaring: “Bet Visit Grimsby are pissing themselves over this free advertising.”***

***Another added: “They’ll put a pick-up point anywhere these days” whilst another mocked: “I saw Argos tour in the 80s, before they sold out.”***

Andy from Argos’ sign is about its only highlight – Grimsby (a grim town whose residents are nicknamed ‘Grimbarians’) is the place Theresa May chose to give her final speech prior to the final vote on her ultimately rejected Brexit deal in 2019 in a hangar for housing life vests (rather appropriately); ditch loving murderess Jane Andrews (pictured with her former boss Sarah Ferguson) grew up in Grimsby and as of November was a Morrisons shelf-stacker in the town; chancellor “best known for singing in the bathtub as the economy collapsed” Norman Lamont was brought up there too and in 1974, Sir Elton even decided to sing about the accursed place. Now, in 2021, it doesn’t even have an Argos.

Whilst Elton John waxed lyrical about Grimsby in his song – with lines including “there’s nothing to compare with my Grimsby,” “Grimsby, oh, a thousand delights” and “I miss your magic charm” – one visitor remarked of it: “The place just stinks of fish.”

In August 2020, Argos announced it would no longer be printing paper copies of its catalogue. ITV1’s ‘This Morning’ responded by interviewing a retail studies expert named Professor Leigh Sparks who’d collected every single copy since 1973. He remarked: “It was a book of dreams in many ways. What a record of consumer tastes they were” whilst Eamonn Holmes intelligently chirped: “They can show you every stage of your life.”

“It’s So Easy” was Argos’ strapline in advertising campaigns in the 1980s. No doubt, ‘Andy’ won’t share such sentiments when he’s bashed his head against the sign after a night out on the razzle dazzle.