Thursday 16 August 2007

Gaun shopping

The trip through the Highlands confirmed one of my suspisions: it is impossible to find a spot in Scotland that is not absolutely breathtaking.
Look at this. Just look at this:



Although somebody told me Glasgow is really ugly?

I've been living here for the past 4 months, and I've started thinking how life has changed. Take shopping. All high streets in Britain are similar to the point of nausea. Boots, Tesco, Costa, Asda, Next, Monsoon...one has to travel further than Inverness to escape the manifestation. Not that I'm complaining, since I come from a country where the quality of your shopping experience deteriorates, or rather unravels, as you travel further from the main cities. At least here I know what to expect from a Boots and a Tesco, and to see my favourite range of 'Finest' pizzas brings a warm feeling to the stomach. There are more independent stores up here, or more low streets, with varying degrees and conditions of merchandise. There are also way more Asdas and Morrisons than Sainburys, a pity if one is a label-reader like me. Not for 'Dior' or 'Gucci', don't get the wrong idea, I'm not that type of snob. I analyse contents and Asda's products have more ingredients with shitcolourants, natural and unnatural additives and hydrogenated veggie oil than Sainburys, Tesco and Waitrose put together.

I'm THAT type of snob.

4 comments:

CORY VOIGT said...

>>>plak
a country where the quality of your shopping experience deteriorates, or rather unravels, as you travel further from the main cities.
>>>klaargeplak
au contraire. i think it gets better.in my beloved freestate is the biltong bar in ventersburg, lots of wonderful senwes co-ops,jimmy's diner in parys. Then there are places like shisa nyama in randfontein where you can grill your own chop while you quaff a quart of castle straight from the bottle.and mohammed's famous blue tackle shop in dullstroom.don't forget die winkel van die noorde opposite wat used to be universiteit van die noorde. tomorrow i'm going to see ramesh at allandale trading where i can get anything from baling twine to beer and whiskey.
don't be a woolworths kugel;they don't even have a beer and spirits licence,grand as they are
viva the country shop which will even open up after hours when you run out of things!

Anonymous said...

Cory, I do agree with you about the platteland, but then you must be able to travel to al those places ... Thanx for mentioning them, we will try to get there. But Woolies is may favourite, without the mentioned licenses!

Retha, jy lok my na daardie mooi land in 'n tyd wat ek soort-van vrede gemaak het om hier oud te word! Ai, die besluiteloosheid. Die Boeddhiste is reg: Cravings causes suffering ...!
Corrie

MacDuda said...

I'm willing to trade 2 lochs for a South African hardware store. Just to be able to buy "dangerous" things like raw steel, paraffin, and cut to length pieces of industrial pine in the same shop.
(I'll even take the illegal bribe to the dude cutting the wood so that he cuts straight and paying for the parking attendant before he rips out my radio).

See cutting wood to length in shops is against health and safety regulations, so instead the hardware stores are filled with petite ladies pushing 30kg carts with all the brakes and safety load regulations with a 6m lance, excuse me, curtain pole, protruding at eye level because they can't cut 40cm off for her to fix her broken clothes rail.

Long live the dirty floored coop and the unnamed unbranded hardware store strugling to turn a profit. Preferably with a Tesco next to it that somehow never seems to have dated stock or product shortages, even on Mrs. Balls.

Anonymous said...

I'm JEALOUS. Despite possessing the red hair and freckles (which ought to make it my right to live in Scotland/Ireland) I have never even been there! (Nor to anywhere else in Europe... *sob, sob*)

By the way... it's me. Your most recently added fellow Pro Arte scholar.

Isn't this InterWeb great?!?