Doesn't surprise me at all.

And not those particularly, but there a lot of those sort of products, from a variety of supermarkets, that include loads of additives and crazy ingredients – one of my 'favourites' was pectin in a "finest" Tesco Lancashire hot pot.



There's an extent to which they create the demand, though. Again, the Blythman book is good on this sort of stuff. But when you get into the realms of stores employing psychologists to design stores and displays etc, you're into something that goes beyond offering a choice and then just responding to what the customers buy.

It's slightly off topi (ie away from grocery retail), but I had a few hours in Manchester one Sunday morning a year or so ago, and went for a nostalgic wander around the Arndale. Well, not so much nostalgia, since it had been rebuilt. But the thing that struck me most forcefully – perhaps because I just don't go to such shopping centres except in very rare circumstances – was the music.

Apart from the Waterstones and the Games Workshop, every retail outlet had pounding music blasting out of the doors. Even the Disney shop had music pounding out – okay, rather Disneyfied, but still with a very strong rhythm/bass line. And it struck me to wonder why this is such a universal. Does a strong bass raise the heartbeat and increase probability of a spend? I don't claim to know the answer, but why would everywhere, from clothing to high-end electronics to toys use the same approach?

I don't think that the relationship between such shops/stores and the customer is anywhere near as evenly balanced as some people seem to think it is.



Things have certainly changed – and not all for the worst. But it's still possible to shop, in essence, just once a week. Unless you really have masses of space in the freezer and can shop once a month and freeze everything, most people will still have to do a weekly shop. I manage that – without a car – and there's usually not much that I need to pick up (if at all) between weekends. If I'm off work, I might do it differently, but that's the norm.

And as I said, there are young businesses that are opening differently to cater for people who work, being able to pick up something on the way home from work – very much as you'll see in somewhere like Paris.

Just to reiterate, there is a place for supermarkets (as that interview with the butcher illustrates, they can co-exist with independents): the issue is the dominance of the market and the negative impact it has on local communities and independent businesses.



I'd not disagree with a lot of what you say there. However, it's difficult to conclude that, if not created from scratch, then it was certainly boosted (for want of a better phrase). Decisions were taken to change the nature of the national economy, and increasing retail was a major part of that. Disposable income didn't massively increase at the same time, so specific decisions were made to change the culture to include cheap credit. Similarly, with housing, there were very specific political decisions taken to move people into home ownership rather than rent and, most particularly, away from council housing. Even decisions such as scrapping the Sunday trading laws – on the publicised grounds that it was stuopid that you could buy porn on a Sunday but not a Bible. In retrospect, it can be seen that that was a massive boost to big retail.

The problem is you are in a minority - supply and demand suggests the need for traditional butchers is on the decline. No one is forced to use a supermarket, Tesco's haven't got a load of staff and prevented customers visiting your butcher. The problem is that for most of us the opportunity cost of visting numerous retailers cannot be justified by the enhanced experience we encounter.

When there are no butchers in a town other than a Tesco or a Sainsbury's, then there is no choice.

There is a reason that phrases and words such as 'Tescopoly' and 'Tesco Town' and 'trolley town' have entered the lexicon – because there are places in the UK that, for instance, have three different-sized Tescos, and that's it. I didn't invent or imagine this situation. And that is not a choice.

Indeed, in a post I made earlier, I explained that, when we first moved into the area we're in, the local street was 3/4 derelict and it simply was not possible to do the weekly shop there. The alternative was therefore one of the myriad Sainsbury's or Tescos that had sprouted up within a 20-minute walk in various directions, or to undertake a bus journey further away to a market somewhere (one of which option was destroyed by stalls being driven out by a landlord hiking rents massively because they could get franchises in instead).

I do not get what part of that is difficult to understand.

That situation has only changed in the last nine years, with the revival of the street, including (but not limited to) a Saturday farmers' market (okay, technical definition, apparently, is a 'fine food market'). And since the businesses that have opened on the street in the last few years seem to be sticking around, they are presumably doing okay. Which also suggests that your assertion that there is no demand for butchers etc is, at best, flawed.

One of the shops that has opened is a fishmonger. This is a young business, run by a team of young people, and it's the particular one I was referring to earlier, when I said that they were changing traditional patterns of opening hours in order to better serve people who work conventional hours and may pop in in the evening on the way home.

They'll prep your fish as much as you need; they'll suggest things to do with it. They even organise cookery/skills classes if you want (something various butchers I'm aware of are also doing).

And let's be quite clear: the demise of high street butchers, replaced by in-store 'butchers', has seen a major deskilling. As Blythman illustrated in the book Coddy linked to, a countrywide experiment, very, very few so-called butcher's counters in supermarkets have staff who know much about cuts of meat or can prepare them. The same applies to fishmongers.

And the whole thing with the burgers with horse and pig in them is illustrative of an issue about the mass production of food – and the mass retailing of it, with the concomitant demand for ever cheaper prices.

Now horse and pig in a 'beef' burger may not actually kill anyone, but that's not the point.

So those who say supermarkets only supply what customers demand ignore the whole advertising industry, money paid by manufactures for shelf position and the millions the retailers spend on store layouts and psychologists , all to get us to but what we really don't want or need.

Sure if there is a choice the customer can go elsewhere but when the independents have been forced out of business that choice is limited to one of the other big 4 retailers, with the same "choice" and the others.

Blockbuster gone now. Who next, I wonder?

The irony when Dominos are the last high street chain standing

In the longer-term the demise of these chains may be a good thing. It paves the way for lower retail rents and the possibility of diverse high streets with exactly the sort of shops Mintball hankers after. Just a thought.

Bored when out of town last week, I went to see the Jack Reacher flick. Next day I mentioned to a site manager that I had seen it and he said he had also seen it as well as the Zero Dark Thirty film as well. I said I thought the latter wasn't out until late January and he said he had downloaded both for nothing. There is no wonder that Blockbuster cannot survive, I doubt any of there films isn't available at some illegal site on the net.

this.
and it's a problem for the government at the minute because they desperately need people to dig out the plastic and go mental, they need self certification mortgages to kick start, they need people to plead with the bank that they can afford the mortgage that's 6 times their salary and they need them to change their 4 year old car for a 2 year old car. unfortunately for them people realised they don't actually need lots of stuff and recalibrated their spending habits, i certainly did and i don't think i'm missing out. i must have wandered into hmv half a dozen times over the xmas period and each time i saw something i ended up walking away as i didn't actually need it whereas in the past i'd have bought the lot.

Seconded.

I wonder how long it will be before people realise it is no longer 'essential' to have the latest Ipad / smartphone.