dannable:
After about 30 minutes of this back and forth, he eventually found some.
Consider yourself lucky - my nearest Maplins doesn't do discrete components. PA systems, fog machines, yes. Resistors in packs, yes. 7805? No way!
Are you certain? There's usually a counter at the back of the shop with the individual components hidden away behind it. I now usually look up their product number on-line before I go there. It doesn't always help though! I wanted 2 Mtrs of 6 core cable. They knew what I wanted, and they knew they had it in stock, but they had to look through several dozen reels of cable before they found it. :0 :0