Thursday, September 25, 2008

BRISTOL CELEBRATES FALL OF CAPITALISM BY OPENING HUGE NEW SHOPPING MALL


"It's exactly the same as every other shopping mall on earth!" exclaim punters.


"Buy stuff! Buy stuff! We get to buy stuff!"



Making eight in all.



Solving the obesity crisis one cake at a time



I don't think all my ties cost £65



Exciting new House of Fraser department store



Exciting empty building where House of Fraser department store used to be

All her merchants stand with wonder,
What is this that comes to pass:
Murm'ring like the distant thunder,
Crying, "Oh alas, alas."
Swell the sound, ye kings and nobles,
Priest and people, rich and poor;
Babylon is fallen
is fallen
is fallen
Babylon is fallen
to rise no more.


8 comments:

Ron Tomlinson said...

Lol. One new thing about this shopping centre: its location might make it more convenient for some residents.

Your tone seems flippant however let me say that not everyone who buys something nice for himself or for a friend is a mindless consumerist.

Oh and those ties work out at £22 each if you buy three!

-- ThomasR

Andrew Rilstone said...

But Bristol already had some shops. And if you want to buy, say, a book, a coat hook, or a copy of the Guardian, you have to go to the old shops. The new city within a city is basically given over to the sale of clothes. A very narrow range of clothes, as well: the sort of stuff teenagers wear to clubs seemed to outnumber other outlets by a ration of 20:1. To be fair, I did see a casual purple shirt in my size that I'd have been prepared to wear; but we had a branch of Next already.

On the plus-side, I can now go to the cinema without a long bus-ride, and I quite like Starbucks. But I don't really see the need for eight of them.

Bristol SF Group said...

Indeed.

We didn't really have any strong views about Cabot Circus itself during its building (though the crass 'regeneration scheme' being targetted at Stokes Croft is getting me quite irate) but - as Andrew says - the range of goods on offer are so breathtakingly narrow. It just makes the whole thing seem a bit pointless when the shopping centre which already existed (and is next door to the new developement) has a wider *range* of things availlable than the new one.

Apologies if I'm even more incoherent than usual, BTW, I've just got out of the dentist and amheavily doped up.

Louise H said...

Who buys all these clothes? What happens to their old ones?

We have our own glossy though not enormous shopping mall (called, confusingly, Touchwood, and it's even got a Hub) and apart from the odd book at Borders and tea at Starbucks (which is sort of on the entrance so doesn't really count) the only thing I think I've bought there in the last 6 months is a pair of hairbands for £2.99 from Superdrug. If you actually want useful/interesting/edible stuff ideally you need to go to a different town with some soul remaining, or failing that, the "proper shops" in the scruffy old shopping square full of pigeons.

Does anyone need to buy three silk ties at once? Assuming they haven't just materialised from another dimension or had a house fire?

Andrew Stevens said...

Does anyone need to buy three silk ties at once? Assuming they haven't just materialised from another dimension or had a house fire?

Sure, anybody who has just moved to a new job which requires professional dress. Or someone who already has such a job who is updating an aging wardrobe. There are people who let themselves slowly drop down to only one wearable tie and then update all at once rather than updating tie-by-tie as they wear out. I've bought three ties at once on at least a couple of occasions.

Tim Ellis said...

Louise - Are you sure that's what it's called? See this picture

Louise H said...

If only it were that exciting. A pterosaur or two would liven the place up admirably.

Gavin Burrows said...

Seen this yet?