of south east trolley experience

hi there

of life, society, civilisations, culture and what have you, it has been said before that there is far more that we have in common than differences, look you see. we just for some reason always tend to dwell (focus, perhaps) on the different parts, and let them divide us. 

no, i am not going to kick off on one of them (most tiresome and very transient) social media so-called knee jerk reaction to whatever perceived offending thing has caused momentary, end of the world like outrage on twitter or similar. instead, let me look at a longer lingering example, the age old "north south" divide here in ostensibly the UK, but mostly England, since our friends in Scotland would like a general word about what we call "north". 

yes, it is true. guilty as charged. my understanding of anyone of the south, and that means from anywhere below the great Yorkshire (except Tipton, that sounds quite class), is that they are a shandy drinking southern softie, or even twat. and yet my (relatively) recent adventures, accidental or incidental, down in the area of the south east, has caused me to doubt that this is so. whilst it may well be that they drink shandy, and are a lot softer than we are, well, we have much in common. yes, also, twats exist in the north too. some might say you are reading the words of one of them, but no matter. 

it was particularly pleasing, an in many respects life affirming, to see that they, too, in the south east are gratified by the random generosity of some shops in providing free trolleys (trollies) for patrons to take home and do what they will with. should i have thought in advance, my assumption would be that them down in the south would have been far too posh, or all prim and proper, to indulge in the assumed charity of providing rudimentary metal devices for free. gladly i see so that this not. 

to be honest (as ever), the main revelation at seeing a couple of shopping trollies (trolleys) parked up at someone's house was that they had actual, proper shops down there. our (as in the north) understanding of shop requirements for people in the south is based on the news. we had been led to believe that everyone in "that London" basically lived on a diet of cocaine and ludicrously named forms of coffee, or dined on expensive nibbles from something called 'Pret'. also, breakfast was taken at things called gentrified cereal bistros, whatever the hell they are. not so, as it seems they also have normal shops like what normal people would use. 

chance permitted such, so i did indeed go into one or two of the shops that were familiar from home. whilst i braced for the worst, when i went in i found all was pretty much the same in them, even the pricing. you can, for example, get a decent pack of own brand custard creams from two of the leading supermarkets (Tesco and Morrisons) for south of 50p, meeting all known dietary requirements without in any way risking exposure to whatever this "gentrified" business is. 

sigh, i hear some of you say, for yes, the above is me (moi) doing one of those selfie things, spoiling an otherwise lovely view. no significance to the location or place, it just seemed really lovely. besides, for every one thousand (give or take) of you who would prefer not to see me, surely by accident at least one or two people looking at this don't object to seeing me or how i am getting on. 

not all with the trolleys (trollies) i saw was quite the same as up home in the north. whereas we have strong, industrial strength, workmanlike, hard as f*** ones, down in the south they did seem to be a bit more aesthetic and design fixated. these would probably not last long at home, but do seem sturdy enough for purpose in the much more tranquil approach to life in the self declared "garden of england". 

but what of economic activity with the free trolleys? or trollies, if that is the correct spelling. well, no, on my travels i did not see any great number of scrapyards. not one, as it happens, but then i was not looking for them. my guess would be that yes, they will, somewhere, in the south east have scrap metal merchants, and i am sure they will operate on the same principal of cash in hand, cash is tax free, no questions asked, nothing look suspicious when handing over coins of money in exchange for as many of these shopping trolley devices as anyone would care to bring to their lavish, often bespoke places of business. 

perhaps this is to state the obvious, but no, on first passing this arrangement i did not immediately notice the shopping trolley. something niggled the back of my mind, so i walked back, and looked on in astonishment at the subtle placing of it. truly, an inspirational (and of course impressive) way to make a trolley look as though it is a perfectly natural part of the environment. 

a persistent view i was presented with was that i would not care for the south east if i went. this blatantly turned out not to be the case at all, as i have commented in a few places now. just about all of it that i experienced was excellent, and we do indeed have much in common with our unknown friends down there. yes, i would very much like to go and experience all the more of it. who knows, if i do then maybe i shall fetch one of these southern versions of the shopping trolley back with me, so people can look at it and note the differences. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!