Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

i was much happier in tooting, tbh, tho thats gotten crazy gentrified since i moved away.

Sort of on the fence about the nando/nimby issue. Don't particularly like Nando's and don't really have a problem with people in a neighbourhood saying the don't want certain types of store there. There is sort of an irony I guess in that people move to certain areas because they have 'character' but then bemoan that loss of character when their move there was really part of that process

But then I'm not all that convinced by the class argument here, that it is middle class nimbys that don't want things like nandos or tescos on their street. Of course there's truth in this but I find this really reductive.

At same time - in a way - the 'battle' is already lost whether the nandos is built or not, because places like nandos are effects just as much as they are causes. The local place it displaces is no longer 'real' if it has to be protected

Its an interesting idea that increasing homogeneity of shopping/eating is killing character in places, when for many towns its a shift in homogeneity - from the workplace homogeneity of old, the mine, the steelworks, the docks, the mill, to a store homogeneity

ha weird, that makes 5 people i know who are, or have been, regular customers of that place now. (the one right by the corner of stoke newington high st, right?)

i've never exchanged a non-transactional word with him myself, but last time i was there i overheard the actual phase "i could've been a contender" from a fellow customer, w/r/t his failed boxing career ;_;

xp

please note i didn't specify middle class nimbys but tbh that concern with realness is basically a middle class ish imo. i think Fair Trade is a good thing but on the whole as far as i'm concerned a small capitalist is still just a capitalist hoping to hit big, so bollocks to paying thru the nose just to feel good about yrself

i shop too often in tesco to be able to say anything against it really - the saturation isn't pleasing but i prize the convenience, see why others actually need the convenience, and think anyone who suggests tesco customers should spend more time and more money on their grocery shopping by going to 805983398342 separate independent businesses to do it should fuck off

please note i didn't specify middle class nimbys but tbh that concern with realness is basically a middle class ish imo. i think Fair Trade is a good thing but on the whole as far as i'm concerned a small capitalist is still just a capitalist hoping to hit big, so bollocks to paying thru the nose just to feel good about yrself

― A Zed and Two Nults (Noodle Vague), Monday, April 25, 2011 7:05 AM

it is more a middle class thing overall but some distance from exclusively i think. 'realness' in this kind of scenario is sorta nebulous as the places trying to be saved have kind of lost their realness if they are to be museum pieces - but then small capitalists or not, there's still the issue of do we as a society want those with power, and use of economies of scale, be able to use that

[a small capitalist is still just a capitalist hoping to hit big,

better one tyrant 3000 miles away than 3000 tyrants one mile away:P

i mean to put this in catholic vs protestant terms!

ha i get the arguments but in a consumer society consumers are gonna decide what makes a business viable or not. i'm not all yay big business but as long as you have businesses they are gonna tend towards getting bigger, or dying

Speaking of Tesco, here is a tale from my former home town:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/wantage/8975401.Class_war__Waitrose_too_posh_for_our_town/

(The Tesco bid was supposedly rejected because it was too far from the existing town marketplace to encourage out-of-town Tesco shoppers to walk across and use the other shops. This makes a bit of sense I guess - town council didn't want to increase traffic on into town if none of the money is going to stay in town - but there isn't really anywhere to build a supermarket closer to the centre. The Waitrose proposal is more central but in a street that can't handle extra traffic.)

There are certainly things to dislike abt Tesco's business methods (to pick one of many similar stories, one round here selling newspapers on a buy-this-get-something-else-free offer right by the front door until the newsagent/corner shop opposite went bust, then stopped the offers and hid the newspapers in a back corner) but I keep using them so eh.

ha i get the arguments but in a consumer society consumers are gonna decide what makes a business viable or not.

Well this is the thing, really all this is a subconscious lament for the death of manufacturing

i used to think Waitrose was right up itself but Mrs V says they are pretty progressive as employers and as a biz in general, but again you pay a tarrif for that

or is that sublimated?

sublimated lament? manufacturing's not dead, it's just fucked off to places with no union recognition

that is death, no?

they are gonna tend towards getting bigger, or dying

yeah it's death here. i'm vaguely amused by the last days of Empire feeling of becoming a country that does nothing but money launder and suck up cheap imports

I never used to shop at Tesco because I didn't like the idea of my money supporting the lifestyle of one Shirley Porter. That's the beginning of it for me, and the end of it is that between the butcher 100m from my door (supplier to Moro/the Eagle/Cigala and a load of other great restaurants) and the People's Supermarket getting better by the day, I really don't have to go there (we also have a good Sainsbury's and Waitrose nearby). But I do actively tell people not to shop there.

There's a Nando's close by my flat but it's surprisingly expensive (I had to check but it's £6.85 for a quarter of chicken and 'sides'). Stevie is right - you can get better types of spicy grilled chicken for much less money near Church Street, whether that's Turkish or Afro-Caribbean; the Nando's whole chicken is £11 and nothing says 'that's overpriced' like a wander around an Asian neighbourhood with plus de shops doing tandoori chickens for £5.

Although I have eaten the stuff - one of my friends throws fashion performances and the afterparty always has sponsored catering by Nando's and Smirnoff Ice. My overwhelming thought was how much better my own cooking is. I don't get that feeling with other genres of spicy chicken.

£7 for a meal is 'surprisingly expensive', is it

i would quite like it if the tesco on stokes croft quietly went bust. how big is it? 3000 transactions in a week doesn't really sound like a lot, i have to say.

£7 for a meal is 'surprisingly expensive', is it

for chicken burger and chips i think it is. esp when its not much better than yer local kfc ripoff joint that'll probably serve you the same for three or so quid?

i went to nandos last week for the first time in ages, because i was out w/a veggie friend and they do good veggie stuff appara, and i thought the chicken was dry and tasteless and the chips weird. a couple of nights later my other half and i ate at one of the many, many, many turkish places on green lanes and it was cheaper and much, much better.

but i have no problem with nandos being there, no problem with some chain stores on church street - i mean, i'd hate to see it go totally uniform chain store, but tbh a helluva lot of the boutique-y places there seem crazy overpriced and snobbish and unfriendly, but that's prob just my own vibes. a coupla years ago i'd have had more faith in nandos than some turkish resto i'd never eaten in and knew nothing about. i know betterer now tho.

The NIMBY thing about Tesco isn't quite right though - not wanting what is usually ANOTHER Tesco to open in you area is more about protecting local businesses because the act of having ANOTHER Tesco in the area is a deliberate attempt by Tesco to kill off local businesses. Being snobby about a Nando's opening is another thing.

how much do you think it costs to eat at a beefeater, say? or a burger king?

Tesco don't kill businesses, shoppers do

also yeah BK is pretty freakin expensive but the Texican Whopper is worth it

how much do you think it costs to eat at a beefeater, say? or a burger king?

burger king meal i had at waterloo a coupla days ago qwas just a shade over a fiver? with drink included? nando's meal, w/drink, last week, about a tenner?

as for beefeater, why the fuck would i ever eat at a beefeater. you might as well ask me how much it costs to eat from an open fucking sewer.

ps craig bongo otm. tesco will own us all one day.

Thomp, I have no idea why you're trolling with examples of shitty, overpriced fast/tourist food. What's more, I'm not sure you know why you're trolling either.

As an aside, BK hasn't had my money since forever.

Tesco does do the crowd and close thing that Starbuck's got slated and boycotted for, which is one good reason amongst many not to spend money there (and I've never been to Starbuck's, yo).

rereading this thread, i have entirely been eating too much junk food lately

because i honestly do not understand why anyone would profess surprise that a meal at a chain restaurant costs about seven pounds

are they overpriced? yes probably that is the point of them, that they are overpriced

I'm not surprised, but generally you get more squid for your quid at other chains nearby.

didn't we already do the nandos debate somewhere else on here? it's not the cheapest or best but it's reliable, unpretentious + quick.

same goes for tescos i guess?

was the debate resolved? who won?

I feel like the thing with Tescos opening is that it financially ruins specific and often locally-liked people - like overnight all your local grocer's accumulated business resources of goodwill and local knowledge and etc become worthless because they no longer have a profitable business, and there's nothing to do but sell up. Like, I shop at Morrisons (lol Brecon) rather than my local grocer because I don't care about food really, but if my local grocer asked me to write a postcard against the opening of another one nearer us I 100% would - it's just much more important to me that this actual-person-I-sort-of-know not be ruined than that I save 20 minutes a week in walking from A to B?

Complaining about opening a Nandos OTOH is 100% incomprehensible to me.

xxxpost KFC isn't that cheap really, last time I went I ended up saying "oh, go on then" to the extra piedce of chicken with my burger and a sauce and before I knew it I had spent £6.

Complaining about opening a Nandos OTOH is 100% incomprehensible to me.

me too, but i was new to stokey and its "unique ambience" at the time. i grew up in tooting so what did i know?

it's just much more important to me that this actual-person-I-sort-of-know not be ruined

but isn't the only way to achieve that by people going to his shop and buying stuff? which if they prefer to go somewhere else, well hey, THAT'S BUSINESS SUNSHINE. don't remember many shopkeepers being virulently socialist when the mining and manufacturing industries were being decimated

NV - that's kind of an interesting idea actually - I intentionally prefaced it by saying that I never go to his shop anyway - as if to say, y'know, it's not incompatible not to patronize a business and to wish it success? But like possibly in thinking like that I am screwing over of people I don't know who would actually really benefit from a shorter walk?

isn't the only way to achieve that by people going to his shop and buying stuff
But that's what'd be exciting about writing a postcard to the council - I could do something to help without buying lettuce that I don't actually want!

but isn't the only way to achieve that by people going to his shop and buying stuff? which if they prefer to go somewhere else, well hey, THAT'S BUSINESS SUNSHINE. don't remember many shopkeepers being virulently socialist when the mining and manufacturing industries were being decimated

This is the whole thing tho, pitting local people against other local people, 'well u never cared when i was going out of business' and its understandable but to the detriment of a place over time. But do agree with your point in regard that businesses have to survive based on their merits not being a museum piece

But, that said there's a short/long term aspect to this imo. A big store comes in and wipes out all the competition because people decided to shop at the new place because it was cheaper but then the other places die out and then one day the big store isn't so cheap after all and actually they're not carrying so much stock now either.

the South Park ep on Walmart was pretty accurate in its depiction of nobody wanting the store there and everybody using it

god knows the Free Market is a laughable lie but i don't think when we live in a barren wasteland populated only by giant supermarkets and charity shops the supermarkets will start jacking the prices up, cos a) they are competing with each other and b) if they tried this, people wd start small businesses to undercut them and ze circle of life continuez

But then the steelworkers union didn't exactly support the miners when they were being decimated so i dunno should we bothered about them either

not rly cuz then the supermarkets would immediately undercut them! they have a pricing point elasticity that small shopkeepers will never enjoy xp

i don't think that's especially true or an ish. i'm not saying "where were they?" i'm saying shopkeepers on the whole are some flavour of little Tory and have little room to complain at being gamed by the system they presumably favour

xp

if they tried this, people wd start small businesses to undercut them and ze circle of life continuez

Is this really possible? A supermarket can run a loss in a particular place all day long - can certainly hold their breath a lot longer than any local store could even dream about

i don't think it's fair to cast our nation of shopkeepers as conniving lil nazis, and i can sympathize with some of their perennial complaints wrt regulation and taxes cuz running a little shop seems like a lot of work

i mean a lot of this comes down to should we support this particular place or that particular industry or this other store and maybe there's no particular obligation for any particular one, but cumulatively i think actually it does come down to ending up with a barren wasteland populated only by giant supermarkets and charity shops and empty buildings

but how much did people moan about the passing of the blacksmith and other suddenly irrelevant businesses? also the mega supermarkets are pretty good at running imitation gouging-corner-shop businesses on they own, right?