As you might expect, Sir Terry Leahy's remarks about supermarket shopping being 'progress', didn't go down too well in this household. 'Progress' is dodgy word. It's always used by politicians and businessmen to present some kind of change that will benefit them but not us, as both wonderful and inevitable.
Let's look at the experience of supermarket shopping: you go through the doors into a brightly lit non-place with no individuality and glide about with your trolley in what I call a 'shopping trance'. I suspect if brain scanning techniques could be applied to shoppers as they go round you'd find that areas of the cerebral cortex to do with personality, and rational thinking are subdued or inoperable. I notice that if you meet close friends in the virtual reality of the supermarket, you rarely have a meaningful human contact with them. Usually you exchange tepid 'Hi's', talk a bit about the awfulness of the weather or the virus you've just had and then drift off to check the prices on Whiskas or beef/horse/mystery animal burgers. It's not living; it's the afterlife. Has anybody been able to write anything interesting about - you can't really call it 'the experience'- the 'non experience' of the supermarket?
Two of my favourite poems are set on market days: 'Miss Thompson goes Shopping' by Martin Armstrong [ my favourite as a kid -Google it!] and Tam O'Shanter by Rabbie Burns. It's hard to imagine a visit to Tesco's prompting such delightful poetry.
Personally I find myself recalling my summer in Norfolk in 1977 when I 'did the gaffs' with my friend Michael Rockerfeller [sic]. We sold gemstone and silver jewellery on a weekly circuit of markets. The 'Crown Jewell' of this circuit was Swaffham Market on a Saturday. It was like a huge party. People bussed in from outlying villages and hamlets, the pubs were open all day long, a noisy auction would be taking place, local shops would be bustling. If you stopped and listened there was a tremendous hubbub of conversation, shouting and laughter. You could observe people exchanging greetings and banter, gathering in convivial knots and then moving on. The stalls were very diverse, and this I think is crucial, you could not predict what you would find next as you walked round. At that time there were all sorts of people from different backgrounds, such as myself and Mike, having a go at running a market stall. There was a sense of optimism and adventure in the air that is hard to imagine now. I think that is an objective fact, I don't think I'm looking back with rose tinted specs. The experience of that Saturday market was rich and juicy and life enhancing. It made you feel ALIVE.
Now consider this. In your life you have visited a supermarket on thousands of occasions. Can you recall on of those? Do you draw a blank? I know I do! So is supermarket shopping, from a human perspective, the perspective of the quality of personal experience, progress?
By the way markets, the ones that have not been destroyed by 'progress', are still cheaper for most goods than, supermarkets. Every Thursday I spend about a tenner on fruit and veg on Loughborough Market and struggle to carry all the bags I end up with. My fruit and veg bill is probably a third or a quarter of what it would be if I shopped for the same produce in Tesco's.
One of the problems for markets is parking. Often car parks are too far away from stalls, or just too expensive. More on that issue another day.
Phil.
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