For weeks all the town has been quivering with anticipation. The talk has been of little else. The world at large may debate ejections from conferences, lottery winning rapists and the successful apllication of a consitution in Iraq. In Ormskirk the talk has been only of the opening of our shiny new Somerfield.
Now, regular readers will be aware of my deeply held antipathy towards Morrisons, and the discovery that one in every eight pounds spent on the high street fills their coffers makes me uneasy about feeding the Tesco monolith. And Waitrose is all the way in bloody Southport. So will the shiny new Somerfield be a Blairite Third Way for me. Will I be able to browse it's shiny white aisles soothed and at peace, picking up those various bits and bobs that I just can't get in the butchers and greengrocers?
Don't be fucking silly. I'm going there for the freakshow.
Somerfield stands on the site of the old Kwik Save. A cheap cheap cheap hellhole where the playing of the theme from Fame as the in house music led me to reflect that that was the cruellest form of joke. The place where I once cracked when a rude, plank-faced woman, after elbowing me aside and ordering two hundred cigarettes and a couple of bottles of vodka shouted repeatedly at her partner to remember to "get lottery" ("Of COURSE! I cried, the LOTTERY! You're bound to win because everything's going SO RIGHT FOR YOU"). Essentially a seventies Co-op as painted by Hieronymous Bosch filled with wan, malnourished types shuffling slowly in an endless waltz of low low prices for shit shit food.
Now, Somerfield, to it's credit, is significantly easier on the eye than the old Kwik Save. Brightly lit, fresh and clean, clearly designed from someone with a very solid idea of what a supermarket should look like i.e. every other supermarket. But, like those buildings built on ley lines which have lovers of the paranormal wetting themselves it is as a lodestone for it's old customers. The ghastly half-alive of the old quicksave point in wonder at bottles of balsamic vinegar, squalk in fear at the price of the organic chicken. Gaze fearfully at the booze shelves, wondering where the white lightning went.
And, to my delight, they've kept the old staff, as well as hiring one or two promising youngsters with an eye to the future. The lad who served me this morning, for example was a particularly interesting specimen. Actually crying out in fear and looking about him wildly when the conveyor refused to work. He then attempted to get it going BY BLOWING ON IT. I reminded him gently that there was a switch under his till with would get it going and he gazed at me with a mixture of awe and terror which was really quite disturbing. A loose cannon, clearly, and one to watch.
Now, regular readers will be aware of my deeply held antipathy towards Morrisons, and the discovery that one in every eight pounds spent on the high street fills their coffers makes me uneasy about feeding the Tesco monolith. And Waitrose is all the way in bloody Southport. So will the shiny new Somerfield be a Blairite Third Way for me. Will I be able to browse it's shiny white aisles soothed and at peace, picking up those various bits and bobs that I just can't get in the butchers and greengrocers?
Don't be fucking silly. I'm going there for the freakshow.
Somerfield stands on the site of the old Kwik Save. A cheap cheap cheap hellhole where the playing of the theme from Fame as the in house music led me to reflect that that was the cruellest form of joke. The place where I once cracked when a rude, plank-faced woman, after elbowing me aside and ordering two hundred cigarettes and a couple of bottles of vodka shouted repeatedly at her partner to remember to "get lottery" ("Of COURSE! I cried, the LOTTERY! You're bound to win because everything's going SO RIGHT FOR YOU"). Essentially a seventies Co-op as painted by Hieronymous Bosch filled with wan, malnourished types shuffling slowly in an endless waltz of low low prices for shit shit food.
Now, Somerfield, to it's credit, is significantly easier on the eye than the old Kwik Save. Brightly lit, fresh and clean, clearly designed from someone with a very solid idea of what a supermarket should look like i.e. every other supermarket. But, like those buildings built on ley lines which have lovers of the paranormal wetting themselves it is as a lodestone for it's old customers. The ghastly half-alive of the old quicksave point in wonder at bottles of balsamic vinegar, squalk in fear at the price of the organic chicken. Gaze fearfully at the booze shelves, wondering where the white lightning went.
And, to my delight, they've kept the old staff, as well as hiring one or two promising youngsters with an eye to the future. The lad who served me this morning, for example was a particularly interesting specimen. Actually crying out in fear and looking about him wildly when the conveyor refused to work. He then attempted to get it going BY BLOWING ON IT. I reminded him gently that there was a switch under his till with would get it going and he gazed at me with a mixture of awe and terror which was really quite disturbing. A loose cannon, clearly, and one to watch.
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