The counter shop lives on, seemingly now mainly run in Britain by enterprising Indians and Pakistanis who have found a gap in the market and are every bit as polite as the assistants who used to be behind Sainsbury's marble counters.

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So a year ago a small shop was refurbished, a counter installed and a credit union was opened by local people for the Donegall Road and Village community.

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As I understand it, there was a counter effort called the Shop in Waukegan Day.

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From behind the counter of his jewelry shop, Mithad Hamas advises a mother and daughter on a pair of gold earrings.

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Trudie Ward has put a bottle for cash contributions on the counter of her local vintage shop and has already collected hundreds of pounds.

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Matisse would surely have appreciated the palette displayed under the glass counter of the Fenocchio ice-cream shop in the old town.

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For example, 7-Eleven and Lawson cannot sell vitamins (which account for 45% of sales of drugs over the counter) unless there is a doctor in the shop.

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It was also at this embroidery shop that one of her customers saw something more than the girl behind the counter.

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To demarcate his shop, he recycled an old street banner for shade and he uses the patio wall as a service counter.

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But Tudor Morgan, the heir to the dynasty, is back behind a counter once again - 10, 000 miles away in one of the world's most southerly shop at Port Lockroy on Antarctica.

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