I thought that this was a strange item on the BBC earlier today.
“Large supermarkets are becoming a thing of the past – shoppers are increasingly using smaller shops, discount stores, and local retailers. What might those changes mean for our towns? We hear from retail consultant and broadcaster Mary Portas, and Matthew Price reports.”
The item sang the praises of the German discount chains, Lidl and Aldi. It also allowed Mary Portas to pontificate unchallenged – as if she were an expert. Is this the same Mary Portas…?
Retail guru Mary Portas has been branded as a ‘Queen of Flops’ by critics who say her plans to help struggling high streets are nothing more than ‘gimmicks’ that have failed. Traders in the seaside resort of Margate in Kent, which won a £100,000 government grant, claim the town’s high street is now in a worse state than when she arrived to help, as the Government-appointed ‘retail tzar’, six months ago. Her plans for the town have included displaying art in abandoned shop fronts.
I dont think most people are buying at small local shops as the BBC claim. I think rising food prices have instead forced them to shop around a bit splitting the shoppign between traditonal supermarkets such as tesco and cheape rgerman ones.
Most people havent got the option of small local shops. In my town there is only one greengrocer left, and the butchers and bakers dies off over the last twenty years. I really miss th elovely smell of the bakers.
I think you’ll find that people are generally increasing their ‘small-shop’ outings. It’s down to an overall realisation that doing a weekly BIG shop is not necessarily saving you money and actually leading to more wasted food.
Shopping in smaller quantities means you have more control over your day-to-day consumption, so it’s worth noticing that the German retailers Aldi and Lidl open their stores on the high street (or as close to residential areas as possible) rather than in places hard to get to (in my area anyway).
“Her plans for the town have included displaying art”
Well, er, actually, er, no.
Because what has been promoted, as Western art, music, literature, sculpture, philosophy, architecture, has, naturally, been the degenerate, quasi, pseudo, multi”cultural”, version.
The version beloved of the Marxists.
Their version is :-
The Beatles are as good as Mozart.
Epstein is as good as Canova.
The Gherkin is as good as Wells Cathedral.
Mad magazine is as good as The Mill on the Floss.
Russell Brand is as good as Fransico Suarez.
Banksiii, (I have made no attempt to spell the name of this organism correctly), is as good as Durer.
Sorry, my mistake. The claim of the Marxists is that the, current, outstanding exponents of “culture” are superior to the primitive beings who existed earlier and were unaware of the eternal truths of dialectical materialism.
Michaelangelo’s David can’t even begin to compete with the artistic tour de force that is Tracey Emin’s unmade bed.