YESTERDAY, the first signs emerged of an uprising in Giffnock. This is not a revolt by the peasantry but by the bourgeoise.
What ails such comfortably-off folk in this affluent East Renfrewshire town? Just this: the joint is to be blighted or blessed, depending on your purse-size, by the advent of a Lidl store. What has made things worse, in the sense of better, is that it’s replacing a Whole Foods store, which formerly catered for folk on a diet of budgie seed and sunflower poo.
Lidl, as you know or may have heard whispered, is the cheap and cheerless chain that makes no concessions to fanciness or style.
The stores are generally patronised by those on limited incomes, usually identifiable by their grey athletics trousers. It’s the thought of attracting such ne’er-do-wells that has put the frighteners on the decent ratepayers of Giffnock, who lit their burning torches and sat down to vent their spleen on Twitter.
Some of the language has been shocking. One comment, since removed, suggested Lidl would “bring down the tone of the whole area”. After swigging another vat of sherry, the commenter continued: “Stores like this attract the degenerates of society. I understand that they need to shop somewhere. However, you didn’t see benefit cheats, single mothers and their feral brood flock to Whole Foods.”
Cheats? Degenerates? Feral? By Jupiter, that’s talking the talk. Already, suspicion has fallen on a leader-writer for the London Times. Another top intellectual went even further: “Completely and utterly outrageous! It is only going to attract vermin that do not belong in this prestigious area.”
Well, it does have a good cheese selection, right enough. In fairness, many Giffnockers, if that’s the word, have knocked the knockers, while folk from furth of the upmarket ghetto have mocked the mockers, with one averring: “The poshies will go in with their Waitrose bags to hide their Lidl shame.”
This is actually a real phenomenon. I’ve overhead such people in similar budget supermarkets – not difficult to overhear because they bray even when attempting to whisper – as they search for the aisle that has family packs of sheep’s eyeballs or whatever it is that posh people eat.
And, of course, it was inevitable that Waitrose would come up as a more suitable alternative for Giffnock, even if there is already one just a BMW’s fart away in Newton Mearns.
Now, I don’t want to turn this hitherto uplifting essay into another anti-Waitrose diatribe. However, I find myself helpless in the grip of a higher power that is guiding my quill on this pixelated parchment.
Waitrose’s unabashed appeal to snobbery, and its practice of opening stores only in upmarket areas, is a national disgrace. And I’m utterly confident that one of the first acts of an incoming socialist government led by Gerald Corbyn, if that is the name, will be to close all Waitrose stores and replace them with co-operatives that end the angst of too much choice for consumers.
Only this week, it was reported that the “never knowingly cheap” chain was deploying 100 “nutrition nannies” throughout its stores to “advise and direct” customers about the health effects of their purchases.
Did you ever hear the like? Sometimes, at my current supermarket, I am advised to use the self-service tills and am directed thither, whereupon I reach into my basket for a packet of white stuff and say: “Here’s some advice and directions: get away from me or I shall smear this lard on your face.”
Apart from anything else, as someone who approves strongly of a nanny state government, I cannot extend the same tolerance to the private sector, which as I understand it is just legalised piracy.
Thankfully, these nutrition nannies will be wearing fleeces, aprons and a special badge, so that shoppers can avoid them. An example of their function, apparently, is to advise vegetarians how to get protein. Well, as someone who’s 50 per cent vegetarian, I would not appreciate such interference.
“Excuse me, sir, I think you’ll find your white pudding contains e-numbers.”
“Unhand me, madam, or I shall summon a constable. Anyway, e’s a letter not a number.”
“Your pudding is full of lard.”
“Don’t quote Proust at me. Besides, I’m a lardarian. I eat only vegetables and lard.”
Amusingly, this move has also had a derisory response online, with folk advising Waitrose not to stock unhealthy food in the first place. Honestly, could you imagine Lidl employing nutrition nannies?
“Your burger is made of mouse entrails.”
“Yum! Oh, that reminds me: cheese.”
Seriously, good burghers of Giffnock, you’re lucky to be getting a Lidl – and to have avoided a Waitrose.
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