Just back from London where Christmas is already in overdrive with
the major stores on Flashy Street falling over themselves to seduce customers
with their fabulous window displays and in store tricks, I mean, treats. The
shopping vibes are not especially nice. Last Friday, Black Friday,
appropriately named, the scenes were Halloween scary. In Asda, people literally
fell over themselves, and each other, as they fought over cut-price tellys and
more. At Tesco, in Greater Manchester, three men were
arrested and a woman was hit by a falling television. Had she died, the death
jokes would have followed her through the annals or should I say, anals of
history. The telly was on her. And then she was on it. Oh dear.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30241459
In the US, it's even worse. There is a Black Friday death count
website. Oh yes, here it is: http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/
I cannot verify the veracity of the deaths but it says something
about US society and ours. Speaking of US society, why are we buying into this
black Friday guff? Can't the British maintain some semblance of dignity?
At the other end of the spectrum, socially, but not politely
speaking, things are not pretty in a different way. I usually frequent supermarkets
that begin with 'A' and 'L' but I do like the occasional 'W' and not just for
their free coffees. Their stuff and their staff are great, but their clientele
are from hell. Okay obvs not all of them, I go there sometimes and so does John
Snow, apparently. On occasion, I frequent a certain ‘W’ shop in London (thanks
for the free coffees!) and marvel at the rudeness and arrogance of the
customers and their general sense of entitlement. Nobody smiles, if you have to
say 'excuse me' expect a glare. Looking down ones nose is a pose that grows,
like the queue - no one, apart from me, uses the new, DIY tills. And don't take
a buggy with a chirruping child. Children should be left with the help or at
least steered around, petrified in one of those buggies that looks like a
slingshot with privileged offspring as missile about to be launched in your
startled face. The kid is so high up and ‘out there,’ that the word 'status'
and 'symbol' vanish into thrusting orbit. The staff at ‘W’ however, are the
antithesis of their customers, they know how to Wait and they know how to waft:
Odeur De Rose. Hats off to Mr J.L. They really do know how to treat a punter.
As for the shoppers though, they're punts.
My
grandparents would never have bought anything they could not afford. And they
would have stood in line, and had a chat to get it. As a society, how did we
become so uncaring and generally gobbly and greedy, at the expense of others? I
think it's a cultural malaise. Enough, never seems to be enough. At the upper
end of the scale, there is entitlement in that there is an attitude of ‘we are
better than everyone else and we expect servitude from those around us.’ At the
other end of the scale there is this rapacious need to have everything that is
advertised (in, on and off the telly) despite the consequences: debt, death
even. Of course I am generalising, and I know that Britain has a wonderful
record (no, not that one) on charity giving, but on the streets of London,
shopping is a menace and it points to a deeper lack, and I would say that lack
is an emotional and a spiritual one.
