a most decidedly British predilection, look you see, is a quaint, historical obsession with shopping trolleys. or trollies, if that is how you are supposed to spell the plural (to me such makes sense), but the spelling thing here does not (doe snot) agree in the slightest. what do i know, i have hardly any degrees in the english language, certainly less than a handful.
for years - decades, perhaps - the simple shopping trolley has been at the heart of our society, industry and economy. if there is no such thing as a poor, financially struggling scrap yard merchant, that is because there was a potentially limitless supply of raw materials in the forms of shopping trolleys. the money entrepreneurs who brought the trollies to scrap yards were paid was in turn spent once more at shops where another shopping trolley was provided, thus providing a perpetual economic success story.
or rather, that is how it was. in a rather draconian, insensitive and harsh move, the majority of supermarkets (and what have you) in the UK decided that they were to be the enemies of the economy, that no more would they provide the complimentary gift of a free shopping trolley to each and every patron. this decision - which saw a pound coin being required to use a trolley, paid back only when you returned the four wheeled beast of the car park - was taken around 2007, maybe 2008. i will let you draw your own conclusion on exactly how much of the blame for that massive global economic crash rests with this decision.
there was of course a brief flurry of a return to the economic stability provided by free trolley dispensing by supermarkets. under chancellor george osborne, who worked out that properly measured suits were best, there was a change in the shape of the pound coin. during the transitional period of this being adopted, supermarkets were forced to make amendments to their pound deposit scheme, and so once again trolleys were free. streets, rivers, reservoirs and scrapyards were once again flowing with them. but then, under that loathsome phillip hammond and his ill fitting suits, the pound deposit scheme was brought back with requisite mechanisms, and once more we face financial ruin.
it was most splendid, and agreeable, then, for my good friend, Codename Magic, to have taken the above image and indeed the below video (yes, we have got a video) of a brief return to the idyllic, halcyon, opulent days when getting hold of a shopping trolley was no big deal at all, in fact it was all perfectly normal.
shall we ever experience a permanent, or at the very least extended, return to the class days of total freedom to do what we may with any shopping trolley that we care to claim as our own? i suspect not. whereas we are in a country now more politically divided than ever before, one thing that unifies the ruling classes and controlling powers is that never again must the general public ever be allowed to make any sort of decision.
if you are reading this in an area of the free world, one where you are trusted to do as you see fit with a shopping trolley, then know that we envy you. our eyes look on how you do things with a sense of wonder, shame, enlightenment, awe and regret. we watch as your economy flourishes, whereas ours stumbles and falls.
yes, why not, above is another image of some magnificent trolleys, bravely trying to escape the slavery of the pound deposit scheme. many thanks indeed to Codename Magic for this further image. like i am sure is true for you, i am in particular pleased with the lighting in this one.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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