Primark

The centre of Manchester is mixed – the east is pretty up market these days, with Selfridges and Harvey Nichols, the north is still quirky with botiques and sex shops, but the south really has some catching up to do. Primark is the main attraction here, and it is a pretty sorry place. It has taken up almost all of what was Lewis’s (nothing to do with John) since 2001, and does a roaring trade. It is pretty massive, but so is its client base – single parents, the terminally unemployed, the tight, old people and students. That seems to be about everyone. You have to fight your way around, past maddening crowds of angry mums with bleached blonde hair and at least an inch of their roots on display.

I assumed it must be a northern thing – former industrial workers and old people who still think the war is going on probably think it is their only option, where as the south would be far to civilised for such things, with their ‘Cook Shop’ and Krispy Kream donuts. My trip to the Hammersmith Primark affirmed this view – it was calm, small and almost verging on pleasant. No one pushed past me, and the woman at the checkout even greeted me with a friendly ‘hello’. That is approaching customer service. However, apparently I am wrong – London has its share of these nutters, desperate for some cut price crap too.

Joy of joys, there is now a Primark on Oxford Street, which combines the two worst shopping phenomenon going. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of these northerners who just hates everything in the south by default; far from it – aside from the: prices, transport and lack of hills, London is great, with so much to do and so many places to explore. I do hate Oxford Street, though. Why does anyone go there? It is so busy you can hardly walk down the pavement and all the shops are just the generic chain stores you find in every city, with some awful discount t-shirt shops mixed in. The only shop I can think of worth the trip is Selfridges. If you want chains why not just go to a shopping centre? It would be much more pleasant and easy to get around. And now there is Primark.

Apparently on the day it opened two staff had to be taken to hospital, despite the presence of fifty security grads. There wasn’t even a discount, so all this was to avoid a short trip down the Piccadilly line. No one should be shopping at Primark anyway – the quality is just crap. Sure, it might be cheap, but for less than twice as much you can buy something which will last more than twice as long. It will also have the added bonus of actually fitting, so you won’t feel the need to injure yourself again when going back to Primark.

There is a special name for these people, who will needlessly push past their advisories to get clothes, and then buy them even though they don’t fit, without even trying them on, just because they are 50% off. The name for these people is ‘women’. I have honestly known women to buy shoes in the wrong size just because of the wonderful bargain they are getting. You aren’t actually going to wear these, so it is thus a complete waste of money. Not only that, what a waste of resources – it is hardly doing your bit for the environment. But there is just something in women’s mentality which attracts them to bargains. I mentioned a while ago that women only make themselves look good to impress other women, so I assume this is the case for bargains too. “Do you know how much these shoes cost? I got a really good bargain at the Primark sale. They don’t fit, but they only cost 50p”, at which point other women will look impressed and launch into tales of how little their ill fitting clothes cost. I despair.

On Oxford Street there is also a man with a megaphone who tells us that we are all going to die because God wants us to. Hopefully if I have to go to Primark again God will do the kindest thing and finish me off. But not before I have had time to get three t-shirts for a fiver.

Primark Update - I have been told that the Oxford Street Branch is one in one out