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The Worship Of Retail Shrines


penbat1

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HOLA441

There has been a special event today with celebs in Oxford Street in London to try to drum up business. Oxford Street is the UK's most prestigious retail shrine.

One interesting thing Stephanie Flanders said in last weeks Panorama was that the New Bullring indoor shopping centre in Birmingham had a huge number of people visit when it was first open and it was a sort of retail shrine - a shopping temple to be worshipped.

Now we have the run up to Christmas and stores like Woolworth's get most of their profit running up to Xmas. Xmas is just a crass commercial exercise these days. Shopping has become the new religion and a lot of shopping just satisfies deep psychological unfullfilled cravings of the shopper rather than actually being necessary. What about real human values and things that really matter like solving poverty and homelessness etc?

Well I am quitting the UK for a semi-hippy self-sufficient existance in Bulgaria as soon as i can and all this obssesion with materialism can get stuffed.

Edited by penbat1
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HOLA442
There has been a special event today with celebs in Oxford Street in London to try to drum up business. Oxford Street is the UK's most prestigious retail shrine.

One interesting thing Stephanie Flanders said in last weeks Panorama was that the New Bullring indoor shopping centre in Birmingham had a huge number of people visit when it was first open and it was a sort of retail shrine - a shopping temple to be worshipped.

Now we have the run up to Christmas and stores like Woolworth's get most of their profit running up to Xmas. Xmas is just a crass commercial exercise these days.

Well I am quitting the UK for a semi-hippy self-sufficient existance in Bulgaria as soon as i can and all this obssesion with materialism can get stuffed.

Oops, sorry , fingers not connected to brain..

What I was going to say was: Re RUTC: I noticed today that Caburys' Advent Calendars are now labelled "Countdown Calendars"......

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HOLA443
Well I am quitting the UK for a semi-hippy self-sufficient existance in Bulgaria as soon as i can and all this obssesion with materialism can get stuffed.

They're even more materialistic out there, the lack of abundant wealth has made their young people monumentally vain, you have the worst of the old system combined with the worst of the new system, it makes for mind blowing corruption on the moral and social level.

Hrm, maybe Slovenia or something? <_<

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HOLA444

Think our obsession with shopping comes from a severe shortage in imagination. What consumer drones we are becoming. Nothing better to do on Saturday (and Sunday) than trawl round consumer temples.

I think a lot of people are ready for a change. There has to be more to life than matching scatter cushions and beige interiors! Please, tell me there is.

:unsure:

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HOLA445
Think our obsession with shopping comes from a severe shortage in imagination. What consumer drones we are becoming. Nothing better to do on Saturday (and Sunday) than trawl round consumer temples.

I think a lot of people are ready for a change. There has to be more to life than matching scatter cushions and beige interiors! Please, tell me there is.

After that you really need to move onto IKEA shelving for the next level of spiritual fulfilment.

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HOLA446

i cant see we cant all live a pastoral existance.

its not uk life that changing - its you getting old and tired of the chase ?

im begining to wonder if there will always be hoops to jump in life. as soon as you get comfortable enough to ease back, they ramp up a life basic to keep you shovelling coal into a bucket.

once we get housing sorted there will be a run on fuel or food. they will always provide obstacles that can divide us by manipulating a natural need for status to reproduce. in fact, most red tt sports cars are not for the driving benefit. they are simply a way to attract a breeder. almost everything we do is geared to breeding or eating. we pass it off as being cool - but cool is what for and for who ?

every time you switch on your tv you buy into it.

i often wrap my head in a tin foil radar screen when i think about thoughts like this.

it keeps them from knowing what im thinking about.

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HOLA447

I was trailing round Bluewater last week wondering the same thing.

What will happen to this place when the chavs can't suckle from the MEW teat any longer? No more 'designer' clothes and tat for them and I could imagine the tumbleweed and wind whistle past the boarded up Hugo Boss, Space.NK etc, emporiums of consumption.

I was going to buy an Ipod Nano, until I came to my senses and realised it wouldn't make me happier in any way.

Edited by tonification
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HOLA448
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HOLA449
i often wrap my head in a tin foil radar screen when i think about thoughts like this.

it keeps them from knowing what im thinking about.

Aren't you buying a house? Seems to explain it all :lol:

I was going to buy an Ipod Nano, until I came to my senses and realised it wouldn't make me happier in any way.

Indeed, and you'd be sitting here pissed at all the scratches on the screen :blink:

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HOLA4410

The problem is, the economy would collapse overnight if everyone suddenly stopped buying pointless crap; 70% of UK GDP comes from private consumption of goods and services (ie McJobs, hairdressers, etc).

im begining to wonder if there will always be hoops to jump in life. as soon as you get comfortable enough to ease back, they ramp up a life basic to keep you shovelling coal into a bucket.

Well done-you have recognised the "rat race", the hamster wheel of modern economic slavery. We don't want you to wake up and realise you don't WANT to spend the rest of your life working 9-5 to pay the mortgage on a hideously overpriced shoebox.

In a way the 70's sitcom "The Good Life" was a precursor of this; it followed a couple who rejected consumerist society, with their neighbours the Leadbetters who personified everything they were rejecting (climbing the social ladder, keeping up with the Jones', etc) but oddly they became firm friends, and succeeded in leading a self-sufficient, back-to-the-land type of lifestyle, without the need for a 9-5 and the drudgery of the modern workplace.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles...e_7772855.shtml

Sitcom stalwart Richard Briers was cast as Tom Good, an irrepressibly chirpy man who, on his fortieth birthday, quits 'the rat race' to start afresh and invest in his back garden.

The key to this kind of self-sufficient lifestyle, as Penbat has pointed out, is to own your own bit of land, without the need for a mortgage. Debt is the way the modern economic system keeps you on the treadmill. Without debt you find that you can actually live quite comfortably with most mod-cons of modern life without much in the way of earned income.

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HOLA4411
http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Bgr-summary-eng

If I was a hippie I would not live in Bulgaria of all places. At least UK and london especially is tolerant of many ways of living compared to many places in the world.

Does Bulgaria not have a lot of organised crime?

I'm all in favour of hippy lifestyles, but I don't think I'd go to Bulgaria...

Maybe somewhere cheap in a very rural part of Spain...

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HOLA4412
Does Bulgaria not have a lot of organised crime?

I'm all in favour of hippy lifestyles, but I don't think I'd go to Bulgaria...

Maybe somewhere cheap in a very rural part of Spain...

I have discussed Bulgaria at length with Brits who actually live there (ref http://www.mybulgaria.info/bulgaria-property-forums.html ). Bulgaria is due to join the EU on 1/1/2007 and the guys say that any corruption is generally nothing like Russian levels.

Bulgaria is incredibly cheap, much cheaper than Spain. To the guy who suggested I ought to live in London I couldnt afford it and squatting doesnt seem much of an option these days.

Regarding materialism in general I just forgot to mention a small detail - it is screwing up the world's environment and natural resources completely !!

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HOLA4414
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HOLA4415

Just saw this on the news, its been organised by Philip Green & co the retail tycoon who wanted to buy M&S, its looking abit sad and desparate.

Some retail expert reckons everyones avoiding central London and shopping around it, she refered to it as the doughnut effect, more like the sh** sandwich effect.

Times really is hard out there for retailers.

:o:o:o

Edited by Dicky
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HOLA4416
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HOLA4417
The other downside is that Bulgaria hasn't got the life enriching multicultral diversity that London has to offer.

You could say that about almost any rural part of the UK as well as rural Bulgaria. Yes i have lived in London and the diversity is one plus point but there are loads of negative points - noise, expense, polution, traffic, crime, antisocial behaviour, lack of affordable housing etc etc. And i havent even got round to mentioning all the negative points about the UK in general.

There are some Brit enclaves in Bulgaria but not as extensively as in Spain. There is quite a diverse mix of visitors in Bulgaria from all sorts of countries.

Edited by penbat1
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HOLA4418
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HOLA4419

Tonification @ no. 7

I was at Bluewater on Friday. All very depressing, not for me but for the retailers. Whilst having a coffee, I was seeing quite a number of people mooching around but crucially, very few *bags*. I just went to the cinema because it's cheap, bought a paper and some shampoo.

The consumer's all tapped out and no matter how many jamborees Oxford St. lay on, it can't disguise this fact. The sight of Philip Green, Stuart Rose and the simply ghastly Livingstone (who's killed the West End), trying to drum up business in the hell-hole which is central London, was amusing and really rather pathetic.

The retailers are desperate and this is just the beginning.

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HOLA4420
One interesting thing Stephanie Flanders said in last weeks Panorama was that the New Bullring indoor shopping centre in Birmingham had a huge number of people visit when it was first open...

Probably on their way to the Apple Store to pick up their free T-shirt:

http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/bullring/ga...andopening.html

Yeah far more people are concerned about getting the latest Ipod than serious social and political issues.

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HOLA4421
http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Bgr-summary-eng

If I was a hippie I would not live in Bulgaria of all places. At least UK and london especially is tolerant of many ways of living compared to many places in the world.

That report was dated 2002. Bulgaria is being expected to pull its socks up for EU entry in 1/1/2007. Anyway being a retiree there in a country village i dont have to get too immersed in every aspect of Bulgarian life.

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HOLA4422
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HOLA4423

We have been told we are a nation of shopaholics for so long that it is a shock to realise it's now the morning after and we are left with the mother of all hangovers B)

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