£3 clothes £7 a month

What will it ever take to remove the blinkers that we all seem to don when out shopping? Its all well and good to talk about ethical shopping in a lovely middleclass way while we choose our fair trade coffee just after we've filled our trolleys with bananas and oranges that have been reduced to unbelievable prices and just before we pop off to Primark or Matalan for some £3 jeans. We can be really selective in our crusades, can't we? And at the end of the day, if we knew for sure that a product was produced in sweatshops we wouldn't buy it, would we? Just because something's cheap doesn't mean somebody is being exploited. Who are we trying to kid?

We can no longer claim ignorance as a defence for choosing price over moral high ground. We're savvy enough to know that huge supermarkets selling huge amounts of products at tiny prices while making huge profits means that someone is paying somewhere down the line. I live in a rural area where farmers will tell you exactly what they think of the price of milk in the supermarkets. How much worse is it for the fruit producers in third world countries who are already living at the edge?

But things are changing, aren't they? I mean the big companies all have ethical standards, don't they? They're doing their bit for fair trade, no? Hmm. No.Well known brands and stores continue to sqeeze every little bit of profit they can from their suppliers. Its a cut throat business and, let's face it, we like the prices we're getting. Recently the campaign group Labour Behind the Label brought out a report showing that clothes prices have fallen by a third - 33%! Meanwhile in Bangladesh wages have halved - 50%! Suddenly the figures are starting to make a bit more sense. Aparently some workers live off as little as £7 a month where the cost of living is estimated at £30 a month. The figures are beginning to make less sense again.

Meanwhile Asda, Next, Top Shop, Matalan, Primark etc etc are pulling in the money. I wonder how far below the cost of living their exectutives are earning. Isn't it time we made a little more effort? I for one no longer feel so good about my fair trade purchases.

every little helps

Those crafty checkout operators are on to me. I knew they would eventually - they're not as dumb as they look - I used to teach some of them so I know what I'm talking about.

Tesco - that faceless farmer hating superpower - have a promotion on at present. If you have one of their club cards then you can earn extra points on it by bringing your own bags. They publicised it with TV ads featuring celebrities carrying their shopping in their own type of bag - so Martine McCutcheon uses a hand bag, Alan Titchmarsh uses a wheel barrow, Alan Wicker uses a suitcase, and Paul Daniels pulls all of his shopping out of a hat. I have to admit I sneakingly quite like the ad but don't tell anyone. Oh, and did you know Paul Daniels has his own blog - it came as quite a shock to me when I typed his name in google looking for information about the ad and ended up reading about how he had to eject three spiders from his house last night.

Anyway, I never remember to bring a bag to earn my "green points" so I started pretending to the checkout operator that I had a bag in my pocket and when the transaction was complete and she'd turned to the next customer I'd start filling my pockets with stuff and try to carry the rest in my arms to the car park. Inevitably I had problems trying to unlock my car with my keys under three apples in my pockets and my arms full of bagels and chorizo, but I got my points - I felt so underhand.

But the last time I was in Ballymoney Tescos it didn't work. I don't know why. I carried out the plan to perfection. I waited until someone was about to go towards a checkout and then nipped in front of them (to make sure that the operator had a customer directly after me), I puffed out my pocket to make it look like it contained a bag, I smiled sweetly and waited until the operator was about to reach for a bag, I waved my hand and said "oh, it's ok, I have one here." and patted my pocket (a blatant lie!) and stacked the items for a quick pick up and getaway, I paid for the food, I made sure she wasn't looking and I picked it all up and - away out the door dropping things around me as I went.

The thing was, when I got to my car and looked at my receipt - No green points! She was on to me. What a player! She even smiled at me when I told the lie about having a bag, and all the time she knew. Next time I'll bring my own bag - either that or think even more crafty - they will not beat me.

the townland of the cow

I love Ballymoney. It is sort of my closest town – well, joint closest along with Coleraine and Portrush. It is as typical North Antrim as you can get. It is as different from the big towns as you can get. I had forgotten just how good it is to sit in this colourful leafy North Antrim settlement on a sunny day and consider the meaning of life. I went to school in Ballymoney, back then I hated it and took every opportunity possible to jump over the wall and drive somewhere else. Perhaps that explains my A-level results (cross blog pollination – nice!)

But I am older now, the sleepiness of the place appeals to me – I smile at the leisurely pace even the bees go about their work. When I smile the people dandering along the road beside me smile. We smile at each other. I wonder how long it will last.

Ballymoney town centre is a single street of family owned independent shops that have been there forever. The fashion shops have the same window displays they had when I was driving past them to avoid a double period of English Literature. The word fashion seems to be lost on them. You can literally count the number of chain stores on one hand; and even they tend not to be the big name ones. There are no Marks and Spencer, no WH Smith (not even an Eason’s), no McDonalds, KFC or Starbucks. It’s the kind of place that, were it even to have a chain store Burger joint, would have a Wimpy. We have all we need in our Cassell’s and our Walker’s and our Wilson McMichael’s and our McLaughlin’s and our Tweed’s and our Gault’s and our Young's Newsagent and our Ann’s hot bread shop and, of course, our Brown Jug. And I wonder how long it will last.

Ballymoney is a small town that thrives on its smalltowndom. It’s not quite somewhere everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came; but its near enough. I can’t imagine how big-town Ballymoney would work. It’s not likely to have a gay pride march any time soon and I’m not sure our local hood’s/neds/chavs are capable of turning to organised crime. The fact is that Ballymoney doesn’t need to be a big town; if you want a chain store Coleraine is less than 10 miles away, if you want a theme park Portrush is a short bus ride away, if you want a university education without leaving home you have UUC, if you want a stroll by the ocean you can’t get much better than Portstewart, if you want sectarian interface problems Dunloy is a few short miles away. Ballymoney is the small town that doesn’t need to grow up. Yet I wonder how long it will last.

People move there to escape bigtowndom and with every person that moves there Ballymoney gets bigger, gets one consumer closer to being able to support a Starbucks. It will happen; the single modern coffee shop in the town is constantly full (hence the fact that I am outside.) It can’t last much longer.

That, however, is exactly what I said last year, and the year before that, and the years when I was at school and thought of it as a positive thing. It hasn’t happened yet and so I’ll smile at the passers-by for a little while longer.

coleraine - and the next big thing

I live near a little town that is in many ways like many other little towns in many western counties. We have our high street chain stores - our Burtons, our Argos, our HMV, our Boots, our Woolworths, our Dorothy Perkins, yadda yadda yadda. We also have our own independent stores such as Dixons of Coleraine, Moores of Coleraine, Bishops of Coleraine (all independents should have 'of Coleraine' in their name - it works well with the locals.)

We have several dodgy modern sculptures, all donated by other countries (trying to boast their own tourist industry by putting people of going to Northern Ireland.) We have our churches - by the dozen (Presbyterians, Free Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Anglican, Brethern, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Church of the Latter Day Saints, Seventh Day Adventists, Wiccan, Humanist, Coleraine Football Club) We have everything that the average provincial town needs to make it an average provincial town.

But what makes Coleraine special in my mind (well, one of the things) is the way it evolves not gradually, or even smoothly, but completely randomly and in great waves of whatever the latest trend is. What I mean is that Coleraine doesn't ever seem to have a good range of everything - it has complete overkill of one thing and when people start to realise there is too much competition in that particular business then everyone closes down and moves into the next trend. When I was very young it was hairdressers (now referred to as salons - I'm pretty sure there are no hairdressers anymore - just stylists... well except for Sean over on the Waterside but he'll soon clearout the shop and paint it mimimilist white with a plasma screen over the counter I'm sure) then it became shoe shops (Don't worry, Bishops (Coleraine's biggest employer of young Christian summer staff) still dominate that market), then it was card shops, then Jeans shops, then finally coffee shops. Cafe Capri, Riverside Cafe, Cuil Coffee, Ground Coffee, Dixons, Moores (Moores actually have not one but two coffee shops within their shop), Pepperz, Lily D's, Twenty Two, The Belfry, Bon Appetit, The Forum, and (of course) Starbucks can all be found within walking distance of the Diamond. And that is off the top of my head - there are more.

Don't get me wrong. I like a coffee as much as the next man. In fact the staff in Starbucks and Ground know me by name. I've taken to going to them time about so they don't think I'm an addict. Coleraine, however has less than 25,ooo residents. That's not huge. How can it support more than fifteen coffee shops? Especially since Ballymena (less than 30 miles away) probably has even more. I do my best to get round them all to support them but I can't help thinking that some of the smaller shops will have to close. What will they become? Well, whatever the next trend may be. Personally I'm hoping for more bike shops - I could do with one of them.