Binge Drinking: Who Says It Ain’t Cool?
February 28, 2010
Dan Majestic writes: How come my friends, binge drinkers, get all the bad publicity? Some disgusting people even suggest raising prices for alcohol to punish the guys and girls who liked to get pissed once in a while. And who says that binge drinking is not a great way to spend your time? If it were not so, would there be so many binge drinkers around? If you think about it, binge drinkers are like members of one big happy family, who go out together every night to have a good time. Some families spend evenings at home, glued to the box for hours, stuffing themselves with junk food, but not binge drinkers, oh no! They’re an adventurous lot and go out in search of excitement practically every night. Yeah, sure, they fight with each other from time to time, but so what? It’s mostly...
Chinese Made Goods? No Thanks, Not For Me
January 12, 2010
R.F.Wilson writes: Have you been noticing lately that certain things are not as good as they used to be? Like those razor blades that you use every morning getting scratchy mighty quick? Or those clothes you buy that don’t last too long. Or those running shoes looking as if they were made out of a piece of some discarded chemical shit. That’s because, consumers, most of the stuff you buy nowadays is made in that overpopulated great land of equal opportunity, China, which is in reality one big labour camp where good quality stuff cannot be made by definition. You can’t really expect people, who are paid peanuts and are pushed around by their communist bosses, to produce anything decent. They work to survive, if you want it put bluntly. To feed themselves and their families....
The Mean Jungle Of Retail Trade. You’ve Got To Be On Your Guard To Survive
January 8, 2010
Anton Goryunov writes: So, when you look at a price tag of with, say of 4.99 on it, or 199, or even 999 how do you work out the cost? Do you automatically figure out that 4.99 is actually 5, or that 199 is much closer to 200, or that 999 is actually a grand? No you don’t, you see, because your mind registers the first digit and it sort of sinks in that it’s much lower than it really is. It’s called the mug’s effect in the retail trade and it’s one of the tricks of getting you interested in buying some Chinese made crap.The whole point of retail is to make you buy stuff, whether you need it or not. It’s all supposed to be about skilful marketing and promotion and price fixing. Did I say price fixing just now? Yep, that’s what I said and that’s...
When It Comes To The Economy Big Is Never Beautiful
November 26, 2009
R.F. Wilson writes: I will start from afar, and then get to my main point. You might think that it is not the best way to make a point, but sometimes it is.I would like to talk about the supermarket chain Waitrose first. The one that has been growing in the past several years and now boasts 214 supermarkets across Britain. The thing is that I am getting disappointed with it, having been shopping there for the last 20 years at least. Several years ago I started noticing that the quality of Waitrose’s groceries began to fall, while their prices were moving in exactly the opposite direction. I am not saying that it happened suddenly. No. The process took some time. I noticed, for example, at some point, that Waitrose’s ready meals were not that good anymore, having grown smaller in...
Browsing In Supermarkets. It Has Become A Huge Hit This Year
November 11, 2009
Dan Majestic writes: Didn’t we tell you, people, here, on this very website, that food will become a luxury as the recession continues to batter good old Britain that is struggling under Labour’s occupation? (I refer you to our brilliant piece called Hard Times Are Coming. Food Will Become A Luxury Soon. 04.07.2009. Consumer Watch). It is all very nice for Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his cronies, who are probably multi-billionaires by now, having given all that money to the banks – wink, wink, nod, nod, – to say that things are getting back to normal. But just you try living on your credit cards, having lost your job and not really expecting to find a new one soon. Anyway, in case you do not know this, it has been revealed that shoplifting generally has risen dramatically...
Cars Have All Sorts Of Bizarre And Fanciful Names. But Where Do They Come From?
November 1, 2009
R.F. Wilson writes: What do Volkswagen’s Eos Cabrio, fast company in the form of the Lotus Europa, and Renault’s miniscule Clio have in common? What links them to the rich and diverse world of ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends? The answer is that all are model derivations inspired by classical mythology. Eos, the goddess of daybreak famously turned into a nymphomaniac by Aphrodite, was the Mother of the Winds (of which more later); the divinely honoured Europa is commonly held to be the daughter of a Phoenician king and Clio, as all properly educated schoolboys used to know, was the muse of history. Ian Fleming, begetter of Bond and fancier of fine automobiles, suspected that ‘all motorists are vain about their cars.’ A glance at the latest models on the Internet...
Shopping Is An Addiction. You Have To Fight It Like One
October 10, 2009
So, in the midst of a recession some people are still shopping like mad, buying Chinese made goods that they do not really need. All in the name of supporting the British economy. More of propping up the retail trade, I would say, that has been peddling low quality fireign made junk for years and making a nice profit out of it. But maybe it’s just me. I am just an occasional, reluctant shopper. I am not really interested in buying items that I don’t really need. I’ll be honest with you: with a few exceptions I generally don’s like the retail trade. I think that it actually creates nothing, apart from traffic congestion, crowds, inflated prices and big returns for major shareholders. It doesn’t really create any jobs, in a proper sense of the word that is, and...
Helping Small Shops To Survive. Anyone Can Chip In
October 9, 2009
Thomas Mathew writes: Everyone agrees that helping small businesses to survive is a good thing, especially at a time of recession. If you ask people what they think about supermarkets wiping out small grocery shops they would tell you that it is wrong and that small shop owners should be protected from the big operators. But if you then ask these very same people what they think should be done about it, they would usually shrug their shoulders and say that there is not really much that can be done.In a sense they are right: governments always tend to support big businesses, for a whole variety of reasons, some of which are not as clear-cut as others. Last year a report on the role of supermarkets in Britain in the demise of the small shops had concluded that the big chains were not really...
Killing Off The Royal Mail. Quietly Does It
October 8, 2009
Do not underestimate the quiet man, one British politician once said, hinting that quiet people can cause a lot of hassle for everyone, if given the opportunity. He was right, you know. Just look at Vladimir Putin: throughout his whole life he had been so quiet that no one could remember anything about him. Even when he was elected as President of Russia the Kremlin aides could not find people who could recall what Putin was about. In fact, he was so unremarkable that his colleagues in the KGB nicknamed him the Moth. And yet, during his eight years as Russian President, Mr Putin has managed to create such a mess in the country that it would now take several outstanding and very loud leaders to sort it out. In Britain there is a quiet man at work at the moment. His name is Adam Crozier and he...
Test Sausages, Those Penis-Shaped Objects, Before You Eat Them
October 1, 2009
Have you been buying and, even more importantly, eating sausages lately? You know, those penis-shaped objects in plastic packs? The ones that are labelled as containing no less than 70 per cent meat? (What is then the other 30 per cent, I wonder?) Yes, there were times when these hot favourites of any family meal – collective meal, or individual, with each family member eating in his or her room – were really tasty. Yummy, as they say. You boiled a couple of those babies, put them on a plate, beside mash or peas, and felt good by just looking at them. They looked tasty and they even had a whiff of a smell of meat. But not anymore. Nope, the days of great tasting sausages sold in supermarkets are gone. Out of the window. No more. No sign of those great times anywhere. So what happened,...
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