MaRX & SPeNC3R

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As we walked thru thiz beautiful bright hall, past thee rows & rows ov frilly knicks & sensible jumpers. As we approached the food hall, w'itz myriad sandwiches, blocks ov cheddar cheese ready cut into little cubes, so all U have 2 do is stix0r the cocktail stick in, and LO!!! It's a paaaartaaay!!!! Past the ready prepared peas & onions U only have to microwave 4 a little while & the accompaniment 2 yr sunday roast is complete! Roast parsnipz @ a meagre one pounds sixtynine for a little black plastick tray, ready chilled bags of potatoes (a very perishable foodstuff i'm sure U all agree) we gazed upon our fellow shoppers - the better clarse of folks, for the most part, & richer studentz, Mercedes drivers et al.....*but* somehow not az classy as those U see in house of frazer. How we refleckted on the english class system, and how consumtion is stratified therein (circa 1966 - working class = Austin/Morris driver - middle clarse = Wolseley driver - upper clarse somewhat on its uppers = Van den Plas Princess driver - wealthy upper class - bristol driver) and how M&S surely does represent thee idealised shopping environment for thee suburban booj-wah. Everything v nice, but somehow not quite as nice as it appears. It's Xpensive, but scum like us can afford 2 shoppe there. All the konsumerz well off, but somehow not quite *rich* (NB except us - poor cranks - sigh) A-Klasse basic model not fully-loaded S-klasse, so to speak. Thus how it was & evermore will be. This is not shopping, it is a heritage experience

― Norman Phay, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the only respresentative of the upper classes in Hackney M&S = me. I like M&S: the foos is OK provided you don't so over- indulge on one pre-cooked that you start to notice the taste of the additives and the shop — in Hackney anyway — is a very strange shape.

― mark s, Saturday, 9 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

They opened a food-only M+S at the end of my street about 9 months ago, called 'Simply Food'. M+S are now being taken to court by a small greengrocer in Sheffield who claims that they've stolen the name of his shop, which he's used for 20 years+. Hope he gets some dosh out of them.

― Dr. C, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Surely people moving away from the strict social / cultural stratification Norman mentions is a factor in M&S's decline?

― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Surely it should be the opposite Robin? Hackney = primarily a working class and poor area (admittedly w.odd pockets of affluence or at least bohemian non-poverty) => no longer behaving acc.class stereotype = shopping at a "posh" place like M&S? In which case M&S has increased its constituency rather than diminished it? (However, I actually think the Hackney one is a bit anomalous, since a. its range of stock is much the same as one at Angel — Islington too has very poor areas, but of course many more well-off streets — and b. I think Hackney may be *unusually* culturally fluid compared to most London boroughs, nexus of a Cockney-Jewish-Caribbean-Vietnamese- Turkish-African-[***] confluence.)

(OK if the last claim brings howls of doubt I shall probably change my mind. I haf lived in Hackney for 19 years, after three months in Stamford Hill in 1983 and three weeks in Clapham just before that... I love Hackney so much.)

― mark s, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We are clearly very backward up here in the grim north. I bought a "Tuna Melt" sandwich and soome fancy ice cream, BTW. They were very nice.

― Norman Phay, Sunday, 10 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i really can't be arsed to buy food from M&S unless i am in a TEARING hurry (they used to do a nice bean salad, about the only vaguely vegan-friendly thing they have). it's overpriced and hideously overpackaged. i don't even buy pants there any more - for the same reasons!

― katie, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am really bloody disapointed with M&S at this moment in time. I just bought a pasta salad which looked all lovely and tempting. I get back into office and chuck it in a bowl and it's full of bloody huge big chunks of iceberg lettice, which is the most pointless salad product ever, being utterly tastless. Components of salad which actually taste of anything are minimal.

Sadly I work right opposite a huge branch of Marks and it is the easiest place to get lunch from.

― Anna, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dear God.

I called it Marks.

I am turning into my mother.

― Anna, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Calling it 'Marks' is nothing to be ashamed of. Surely there are other areas that should concern you more in the mother-replication stakes. Not that I know anything about your mother, but if that's all you've got worry about then I think you're OK. I thought everyone called it 'Marks'.

I have started stopping off in the Islington MARKS on my way home. It is pleasurably empty compared to the mad hell of Tesco Metro and not nearly as expensive as of yore. Or maybe the competition has just got more expensive. I still buy my underwear there too, though their new trunk pants seem to be much bigger than they used to be and I am unhappy about this.

― N., Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There was one here in Frankfurt. For, like, THREE FRIGGIN' DAYS.

― Colin Meeder, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

She's quite pretty actually my mum. I wouldn't mind looking like her at 54. It's just I have noticed that I am using mother/ grandmother phrases more and more frequently and this scares me as soon I will be looking at friends/ work people and saying "Oh but your shirt would look so much better if you'd let me give it a press." etc.

Sorry this has nothing to do with MARKS (might as well embrace the mother revolution I suppose).

― Anna, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Oh but your shirt would look so much better if you'd let me give it a press."

Worst chat-up line ever?

― N., Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, really, [flips hair, bats eyelids] just let me come over here and smoooth out all those horrible creases [pout]. Maybe it would look better on the bedroom floor? [winks seductivley]

I had never, ever thought about that sentence like that before. Nick you have cast a shadow over my childhood.

― Anna, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I was more just thinking of press as poke.

― N., Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ha ha! Norman Phay, you are sitting on a pile of crisp new five pound notes. Actual M&S foodhall always simultaneously exceeds and undermines the idea of food shopping in M&S (for the upper working/lower middle class, ie me). When I lived behind the cathedral in Sheffield it was nearest to a local newsagent/corner shop I had (in those days before Tesco Metro &c.) and I liked to think going there for milk and bread and occasional hyooge shiny red apple (Snow White style) elevated the shopping experience beyond student squalor (tho' of course we had to do our bulk shopping in scabby Somerfield across town). M&S milk =ed my cultural capital (ironic branch), perception of cosy embourgeouisement following close behind.

PLUS Mark s probly right about class shifts and M&S demographic, altho' maybe if in the process of attracting the unwashed it loses all connotations of quotidian superiority no-one will want it. I thought the foodhall was the part that was doing well? On the rest, I have long cherished the theory that Stephen Bayley et al who bruit the 'Marks is failing cos it got made irrelevent by the lure of branding therefore it should embrace designerism' talk rubbish and M&S should re-brand as Brit Muji-esque 'no-brand just pared down quality', a kind of palate cleansing haven away from aggressive branding, although where that leaves a) per una and Autograph 'collections' and b) little old ladies looking for sensible skirts I don't know.

― Ellie, Monday, 11 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

AN UPD4T3 F0R YUO L4M3RZ!!

― Norman Phay, Saturday, 30 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I bought a matching knicker-and-brassiere set for mrs k-rad there> They cost £27. They are very nice indeed & on examination better than those seen in house ov phrazer for s.th.like sixty quid. Thus M&S = OK in thee phay household right now.

― NoRMaN PHaY, Saturday, 30 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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