shopping malls (note how the american pronunciation is "mauls" - tell you anything?).



out of town shops.



retail outlets - what the fuck is that all about? whenever i see the word "outlet" i think of raw sewage being discharged into the sea. why would i want to go there to shop?



how do i benefit from having to get in my car and travel, along with thousands of other sheeple, to some retail desert where all i can buy is absolute crap from staff who couldn't give a fuck if i live or die in their retail shed, rather than buying good quality goods from someone who gives a fuck about whether i return to their shop next week?



i live in a little town called bridgend, west of cardiff, in south wales.



bridgend used to have a very busy shopping centre when i left there about 20 years ago to go to college and to work in london. on my return, i find a town centre where there are few good shops any more, there is nowhere to park, there's a one-way system which takes shoppers away from what shops are left. but it's ok, i have lots of "choice" where to shop 'cos there's a nice mall a few miles out of town. there i can buy anything i like - as long as someone wants to stock it. i can even go to the cinema there or buy a mcdonald's shit-burger. but i want to eat in a little restaurant in town, or go to a cinema which doesn't belong to odeon, ugc or some other capitalist propaganda shop.



there was a time when i could go to one of the many family-owned businesses in bridgend, take a look at the stock and choose what i wanted - or not. if they had nothing i liked i could try another shop which sold the same type of products but from other manufacturers. if i could not find what i liked anywhere, they'd order something special for me, 'cos they gave a fuck about whether i returned to their shop - good service produced repeat business.



now i go to a single shop which sells a particular kind of product, if they don't have anything i like or want i can go to hell 'cos they sure as hell won't order something special for me. "special orders" are for things in their normal inventory which they don't currently have in stock, not things i'd like that they have to find from a different manufacturer. complaining to the staff gets, at best, a shrug and a "sorry".



these shops employ far fewer staff to service the number of customers than the family-run businesses used to.



so we have a truly disgusting state of affairs:

• we're forced to travel to the shops;


• we have no choice of products;


• we have staff who don't give a fuck;


• we have staff who are not allowed to order anything not on the standard inventory;


• we have fewer staff employed.

how is this good for anyone?  who benefits?



the mega-corporations who own the shops and the scum-bag local councillors and planners who conspire with them to destroy our town centres and take huge back-handers from them to allow their wholly unethical planning applications to bypass the proper check and controls.



i do not believe that any local councillors or council officers are honest. i do not believe that any of them have their constituents' interests at heart. they all care about two things - lining their own pockets and getting one over on the poor and unrepresented - that's you and me, in case you hadn't noticed - 'cos if you earn less than several million a year, you're poor in this country and we're certainly not represented 'cos the political parties now only represent the interests of the very rich.