Life is too short for all your petty ways, I remember the good old lazy days

Here is something that annoys me. Not just this in particular, the sentiment behind it. Let’s turn Mill Road into chains free zone. (By ‘chains’ they mean stores that have more than one grotty shop stuck out in suburban cough Bohemia cough.)

First up, this is not an attack against the fine young lady whose Facebook account led me to that group. If I wanted to attack her, she would know. :) As, no doubt, would I…

Here is the thing, all you people who complain about the Tesco-isation of your towns and cities. Petition away. But you know what would be best? If you don’t want it there, don’t shop there. They aren’t running a charity. If it ceases to be profitable long-term they will go away.

But you know what? People shop there. People have a choice.

Oh gnoes! They price the small people out! Then specialise, offer something they don’t, stand out. Give reasons why people should come back to your veg shop with its out-of-date and stale produce. Give reasons why I should make more journeys to more shops at more inconvenience to me.

Tesco top brass don’t twirl their moustaches and subsidize stores until they drive away the competition, content in the fact that they have broken the spirit of a nation of greengrocers. (Actually, I would do that. But that is just me.) They are only in it for the money. Just like me, in fact.

Those same people who signed your ‘keep my ideal of rural England intact whenever such an idyll never ever existed’ petition will be the ones stuffing their trollies full of eight pence packets of noodles, mark my words. But I suppose it is alright if they feel guilty about it afterwards, the dumb liberals that they are.

Competition is good. And if your independant shops down the Mill Road can’t compete, is that the fault of Tesco, the customers, the indies? No, you lot just blame Tesco, as if forces people to buy its produce. Loss-leading, you say? Sure, I am aware of such practices. It is business, and their only goal is the bottom line. So if you want to hurt them, hurt them there. But I bet if and when they do open down the Mill Road, it will be filled with people. Buying their wares.

A road is only as vibrant as the people who are there. If Tesco changes that, it is down to the people, not any new shop that appears.

e-petitioners. Facebook groupers.

Hypocrites, the lot of them. Oh, we don’t mind spending more on our local, independant shops, because, you know, and all. Rubbish. Either that have too much money or too little sense. Or both. You do get what you pay for, but Tesco et al offer a service, and people use that service. If you and your middleclass rabble want to start a Facebook group about it, well, that just about says it all, really. Go join the rest of the tut-tut-ing middle-Englanders and worry over your house price, just don’t try and pull some high-and-mighty ethics card on it.

Contented complete