Everything That’s Wrong With the World (and How to Change It)

Would you rather have some unfair trade tea?

We had nothing in for dinner. Neither of us was particularly hungry – she wanted cereals, I wanted porridge. We had no milk. I could have gone to the local store but we had nothing for tomorrow night’s meal either, so I thought I’d go to Sainsbury’s.

As I parked up I realized I’d forgotten my plastic bags even though they’ve been at the bottom of the stairs making the hall look untidy for weeks. Pissed me off number 1.

I left the car opposite the “parent and child” parking section (there’ll be a rant about this at some point in the future) where someone had managed to park diagonally so that they took up all of the extra space on one side. In a 4×4. That they probably take their precious little ankle-biters 3 yards down the road every morning (there’ll be a rant about this at some point in the future). Pissed me off numbers 2, 3 and 4.

Inside, priced at £1.99 were some strawberries. Half price so they say. So, strawberries, in season were at some point in the recent past £4 for a pound?!!! Still, fresh strawberries in season. Hard to resist eh? Not if they’re FUCKING ELSANTA, the strawberry of evil and a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the world. Pumped full of water to make it LOOK good but TASTE like, well, a watered down strawberry. Pissed me off numbers 5 and 6 (price and strawberry variety).

So I looked down the aisle and there we have a punnet of “Taste the Difference” strawberries for £5 for a pound. FIVE ENGLISH POUNDS?!!! I didn’t catch what variety they were. Doubtless they were the sort of strawberry that they get for about €2 a kilo in mainland Europe – bred for flavour not appearance. But for us, they’re “Taste the Difference” – taste the difference between the shit we foist on you as a matter of course and what a strawberry is supposed to taste like (there’ll be a rant about this at some point in the future). Pissed me off number 7.

Then I wanted some mince. No British mince available, just Irish. And it’s not as though this fact was revealed in some discreet “produce of” corner of the packaging. No, this was apparently something for them to boast about: “Begora, this is McMince O’MooCow, from the Emerald Isle so it is!” Why the fuck would I want to buy Irish mince or Irish anything apart from stuff they’re good at like whisky or accents? You get it with butter as well. And Irish Cheddar?!!! That’s like saying British Wexford. And how far would that get you? And the worst of the lot – they’ve managed to charm the British public into believing cider should be a) Irish (no), b) tasteless (no) and c) served with ice (no, no, no, no, no, oh Mama Mia) (There’ll be a rant about this at some point in the future.) Pissed me off number 8.

So many “2 whatevers for £x” offers where 1 of whatever costs about tuppence more than x/2. Pissed me off number 9.

BOGOFs where it’s not clear until you get to the till whether you’re allowed to mix and match between similar products. Pissed me off number 10. And also, a strongly worded letter on its way to Mr Sainsbury.

In the middle of the tea and coffee aisle, a large red dot proclaiming that all Sainsbury’s own brand tea with a red label on it is now Fairtrade. I’m a hearty supporter of Fairtrade. I go out of my way to buy Fairtrade, even when I’m skint. For anyone with a conscience, it’s a moral duty. For the supermarkets, it’s a marketing tool. And yet another example of their cynical attitude towards their customers. By promoting their Fairtrade products, they’re attempting to get our vote. Now the Fairtrade mark is, like the Free Range stamp, a minimum step in the right direction kind of deal which confers rather more status on a product than the British buying public ought to give it, but nonetheless if we stop to think of the logical implications of what they’re trying to sell us here it really is sickening. They’re attempting to make us feel better about the contents of our trolleys and in the process earn some brownie points for supporting “fair” trade. It’s nice to buy something with a Fairtrade mark on it. But everything else in the tea and coffee aisle is built on unfair trade. It’s like having a sales assistant that you treat wonderfully for all the world to see while in the back room having a sweat shop full of child labourers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a law was brought in to label all produce that doesn’t meet Fairtrade standards as “Unfair Trade”? Pissed me off number 11.

Then I got to the till. As ever, Sainsbury’s lag behind the (admittedly evil) Tesco in the appointing staff to the tills department. I realise I’m coming over a bit Victor Meldrew here, but really, don’t make your customers queue. Pissed me off number 12.

Two Indian ladies were in front of me. One had bought a plastic cricket set. Rather than lay it sideways and put back a divider so that I could start loading my trolley onto the belt, she laid it lengthways. Then toyed with it a lot as though she were thinking of laying it sideways. Then laid it lengthways again. And still didn’t put back a divider. Pissed off number 13.

I know and you know that my angry demeanour was caused by many things and by the rude behaviour of the ladies in front of me. The man at the checkout, who was also from the Subcontinent, did not know this. I began to suspect that he suspected my pissed-off demeanour was caused instead by racism when his smile disappeared in an instant once he’d finished serving the ladies. Then he pinged through my shopping as fast as he could while failing to give me any bags. Then “enter you PIN” instead of the more usual “could you enter your PIN please sir”. Just annoying, but on top of everything else it made me pissed off number 14.

Then I got back to the car park to be affronted by the sight of a car emblazoned with “traffic accident? need a lawyer?” Ambulance chasers are perhaps my least favourite breed of human. I hate being reminded of their existence, let alone the fact that it’s acceptable for them to drive around touting for business in this way. Pissed off number 15.

And then I was on my roundabout where the sign clearly says for about half a mile that the right lane is for Ashton and Oldham and the left lane is for Sainsbury’s and Ikea, but nontheless a lot of people insist on turning right in the left hand lane. Which always makes me grumpy. Pissed off number 16.

And then I was home. Porridge was nice. Wasted evening writing this blog post. Pissed off number 17. Then read through the blog post and realised I really am turning into a grumpy old man. Pissed off number 18. Then got pissed off that I had an even number of pissed offs. Pissed off number 19. Aaah, that’s better.

It’s stringy and it tastes of chicken.

What wacky japes we got up to in the name of charidee

So you think you’re a bit “crazee” huh? You’re not. People who go around boasting of being “mad” are, almost without exception, stultifyingly dull. You want crazy? Visit a mental ward and see if you still think it’s funny.

But it’s not so much the enforced jollity that rankles or even the crass perversity of sitting in a bath of baked beans to raise money for those who can’t afford to eat.

It’s not the sliding down your friends and colleagues’ estimations when you refuse to participate.

It’s not the necessity of repeatedly harping on about how half the money is spent in the UK in order to appease the jingoistic simpletons whose concept of charity is unable to embrace relative need (“Umika here has to choose which of her sons to feed today, but at least your local playground has a new layer of soft tarmac”).

It’s not the self-serving c’lebs peeling off their “wacky” face to turn earnestly to the camera and inveigle us to part with our hard earned cash after they’ve done their skit and returned to their luxury pads in Chelsea and Hampstead Heath.

It’s not the virtual pollution of wacky songs or the actual pollution of a million stupid red noses.

It’s not that big corporations like Sainsbury’s and Walkers make a mint out of the extra product they sell and bank a hefty deposit of undeserved goodwill to boot.

It’s not even that I once made a cake that had cost about £8 in ingredients that was cut into 8 slices and sold off for 50p a slice.

Actually it’s all of those things. But more than anything it’s this: that we all get our egos stroked and get to feel good about all the fine work we’ve done, turn around, go back to sleep and take no further part in actually changing the world. You’re happy you helped raise £60m? That’s ONE POUND for every person in the country. The Bank of England has just created £1250 of new money for every man, woman and child in the nation out of thing air. The average salary in this country is £25,000. And yet ONE POUND is enough for you to be content?

Karl Marx said of religion, “[it] is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” In our increasingly secular age, we seek to assuage our moral nausea not by going to church but by dressing up as a banana and running through Swindon town centre clanging a bucket. The pay-off is the feeling that we’ve made a difference. But to feel like we’ve made a difference is a very different thing to actually making a difference. How can you actually make a difference? Let’s see…

TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO THAT ARE BETTER FOR THE WORLD THAN BUYING A RED NOSE

1. Vote. That £60m you helped raise last year is less than 1/25^th of the UK Government’s DAILY budget. The parties are not “all the same”. Get informed. Get involved.
2. Don’t buy that charity single. If you’re itching to buy music try getting something good to number one instead and then donating some money to charity.
3. Read a different newspaper. The world is a million colours. Each newspaper has its own. If you read the Guardian, take the Telegraph for a week. If you take the Mail, try the Guardian. If you don’t read anything, try it.
4. Start a standing order to a charity. That way you’re giving all the time.
5. Learn about the problems in the world. Similar to 3., if all you ever do is watch ITV “news” or Sky, try Channel 4 or BBC4’s “World News Today” – far more informative. There’s a Gary Larson cartoon: the scene is a plane crash; there’s a bird reporting from the scene earnestly, “we think the name of the bird sucked into the engine is…” And that sums up our attitude to news perfectly really. If it happens somewhere they speak English, it’s a tragedy, otherwise it’s a mishap.
6. Actually go to Africa.
7. Volunteer. Do something locally to help your community.
8. Organise a “curmudgeonly old gits refusing to wear a red nose” day and give the proceeds to a nominated charity. You’d be surprised how many people would gratefully pay not to participate.
9. Give your money to Comic Relief but DON’T take the red nose or the single or any of the other wacky bits and bobs that reduce the impact of your money.
10. Tell everyone else what you’re doing by clicking on the “add this” link below.

That lipstick-clad walking sedative? I rest my case…

Yawn the night away with Kylie, Robbie and Phil Collins at the Tescos

All award ceremonies suck. The awards that suck the most as those that “mean so much more as it’s voted for by you, the fans”. What, so when we paid to buy your crappy single and got it to the top of the charts, that wasn’t enough? You want us to phone a premium hotline to tell you again that you’re great? Are we that dumb? Hold on…

The BRITs aren’t like that though. Nor, like some other ceremonies, do they make any pretence of redressing the balance between the freeze dried coffee appetite of the great unwashed and the knowledgeable and trustworthy arbiters of taste: previous winners of the “outstanding contribution to music” award include Cliff Richard, Status Quo and The Spice Girls.

The BRITs are about product. The crass and unabashed commodification of an artform that at its best can move men to tears. It’s buy one get one free. It’s 12 months for the price of 10. It’s distilling variety down to the lowest common denominator until we’re faced with a choice of Brand A or Brand B because Brand C, although far superior, wasn’t promoted well enough and it’s become uneconomical to store on the shelves. It may as well be called the TESCOs.

Recently they even learned the supermarkets most insidious trick: the premium label. This isn’t just three-lunged soulful teenage angst in a can, this is “Critics’ Choice three-lunged soulful teenage angst in a can”. And Adele sells a bucket load more records.

The BRITs will go on, just like Tesco will go on. And for every Chumbawumba or KLF pissing all over the dairy counter, there’ll always be some fame-hungry Little Eichmann ready to whore themselves out re-stacking the shelves to the beat of some marketing man’s stick (step forward Duffy, Leona Lewis, Scouting for Girls) and there’ll always be a public too lazy to go to the market, the butcher or the greengrocer to seek out quality produce. We’re just that lazy.

But imagine what a world it would be if we turned our collective arses stage-wards and did for this gut-crunchingly banal parade of mediocrity what Jarvis Cocker did for Michael Jackson. What a wonderful world it would be.