A Spotters Guide.

A brief, and by no means complete, list of the types of people who shop in bookstores after the hours of darkness.

• Public Masturbators. The proud sort, not the furtive sort. The sort that believe a lifestyle magazine for public masturbators is just around the corner.


• The Mentally Unsound. It's as if someone drives a care in the community ambulance up to the front door, tips out the shrieking, urine-soaked contents, and drives off.


• The Savagely Foreign. Like the charming lady who tried to watch a DVD in one of our computers this evening.


• The Genuinely Lonely. For some reason, there are always two people who come in every evening, who are completely unconnected to one another. They sit, doing very little, until the time comes to leave. They do so, quietly and without a fuss. But I'm sure the thought must be nagging at the back of their minds: "Maybe I should just say hi. We could get a coffee."


• Thieves. Obvious really, but can't be ignored.


• Cottagers. One became a regular for a while, to the extent that he would always say hello if he saw one of our staff, even though we had to throw him out because he was going to be violently sodomised by a middle-aged man in our toilets.


• Normal People. Simply shopping for quality, intelligent books.

So, have I missed any really obvious ones?