Christmas Shopping Hell in Cirencester

Off for most of the day, and headed for the bright lights of the nearest biggish town to Tetbury for some Christmas shopping. Not exactly Oxford St or Bluewater, but plenty of shops, most of the chains, and still a nice town. And it probably could be almost any town of that sort of size in the country.

But after weeks of more or less staying in a little world consisting of our village, Tetbury, the odd supermarket and Nailsworth, it was a horrible horrible shock.

Like being shouted at for no good reason.

All the shops were shouting their ‘value message’, which was uniformly ‘money off’, sad staff stood behind their tills in cheap uniforms, some wearing plastic reindeer hats or Rudolf noses, tinny Christmas music, and desperate looking shoppers sifting the tat looking for bargains in the rain. Even the shops selling quality products (like books, for example), were just cheapening their products – not celebrating them!

I had two three year olds with me and I felt that I was letting them down, exposing them to this late capitalist venality. They are lovely, genuine, beautiful little things, and this was just dirty and sordid.

So we bustled back to Tetbury. Where it’s not just about money, sales and earning a dividend for the shareholders. Sure, we all need to make money. But not like that.

If you buy something cheap, you’ll get something cheap – and give something cheap, too. Not only to the person who gets your present, but the (generally) underpaid staff in the shop, the (generally) underpaid people who make and distribute pretty much everything, and to society as a whole.

Bah! Humbug!

Be genuine. Pay what things are worth. Buy local. Keep the money away from the bankers, investors, marketeers, rip off merchants and assorted hangers on. It can’t be any worse than the system we’ve got now.

Systematic bloomin’ exploitation, as Father Christmas might put it!