Here is a link to an article I have done with Jo Littler on the Compass site about gender and shopping. Its main argument is that companies exploit gender differences to sell us more stuff – and that fact means that shopping as female liberation – the one place in which women have real power – is not really the point. Anyway, have a read.
Men versus women?
November 17th, 2010Happiness abounds
November 16th, 2010Just when the cuts start to bite David Cameron has rediscovered happiness. Or perhaps its just gallows humour but whatever it is its probably good politics. Measuring more than GDP is called the future. 
Evidence abounds about the break down in the link between wealth and happiness. Cameron knows this. Of course when asked people want more money – or at least most do. But that is all that is on offer – more money. It’s an illusion for most because even before the cuts and job losses real wages for the majority have been flat lining or declining.
Some argue that happiness is not the responsibility of government. It’s usually the rich and powerful who say this – because they don’t want their happiness diminished. Polly Toynbee makes the case today that greater equality is usually central to widely shared happiness. But somehow we all have to slow down and stop buying. Leveling up yes but not an equal share of turbo-consumption.
The political trick is to articulate a vision of the good society that is more compelling, inviting and seductive than turbo-consumption. If we can’t do that then its no ones fault but ours.
For babies that don’t have to try too hard
November 14th, 2010
Sometimes it gets more absurd than you can really handle. I want someone to tell me this is a spoof. That its April 1st! That Huggies arn’t really selling denim diapers. You can watch the promo ad here. But as ever its logical. If you can get parents to buy more expensive denim designer nappies why wouldn’t you. Someone else will if you don’t.
Here is a link to the original aftershave advert I remember from my teenage years. The intervening decades have seen the the tentacles of commercialism reach further and further. And they will go on doing so in ways we cannot yet image. Unless ….
November 11th, 2010
I spotted this in Heal’s on the Kings Road. It was research okay! It is a quote from Bo Derek who was in a terrible film called Ten I think with Dudley Moore who was looking for his ten out of ten women. It was the 1980s! Money can of course buy happiness, but its a fleeting happiness and only some have the money to make such purchases. The rest just struggle to get by. Bo knows, as we all know, that money can’t buy happiness for long – because we are always presented with something new to make us feel dissatisfied with what we have and eager for more. Or is that Moore?
Muppets of the week 2
November 10th, 2010I 
bumped into this queue outside a shop in London. I thought it must at least be a big sale. Alas not. Its just a pretty regular thing outside the Abercrombie & Fitch store just off Saville Row. Here people with not a lot of money spend more than what they have on over priced hooded tops and checked shirts and queue for the privilege. Do I blame them? No. Its what we are conditioned to do as we search for an identity, a meaning and sense of belonging the only way we can in a consumer society – through consumption. Do they/we want anything more, can we even image anything more?
bumped into this queue outside a shop in London. I thought it must at least be a big sale. Alas not. Its just a pretty regular thing outside the Abercrombie & Fitch store just off Saville Row. Here people with not a lot of money spend more than what they have on over priced hooded tops and checked shirts and queue for the privilege. Do I blame them? No. Its what we are conditioned to do as we search for an identity, a meaning and sense of belonging the only way we can in a consumer society – through consumption. Do they/we want anything more, can we even image anything more?Muppet of the week
November 8th, 2010
I’m going to do awards for shopping silliness. This weeks winner is Hamel, a 29 year old banker from ‘the City’. Hamel had his pciture in the Guardian on Saturday above an article about urban Britain going for the rural look! Hamel is seen sporting a country like sporting jacket saying “I got this last week from Reiss. I see a lot of them around the CIty where I work, but I think this one is unique”.
Did I miss something here. Has Reiss started selling one off jackets, designed exclusively for each single person? Or is Hamel kidding no one but himself, and not even himself really, when he says his chain store jacket is ‘unique’? I put it to you that its not just the jacket Hamel has bought – but the whole myth of personal identity bought off the peg from the high street. I suggest Hamel keeps his eyes shut in the City – with 33 other stores in London alone he might find his jacket is not so unique after all.
Here is a plug
November 5th, 2010
For a report I did with my colleague Zoe while I was away.
Its called the Advertising Effect and is about, well the effect of advertising ( I learnt all I know from Ronseal). Don’t click the link if you think advertising has no effect, there isn’t anything we can do about it anyway and you have been completely suckered by an industry intent on making a sucker out of you. Go on I dare you not to!
Poles apart
November 5th, 2010
Islington, the Borough that includes Utopia (see post below and do keep up) is banning any more lapdancing clubs. The good women and men of the Council have decided enough is enough and want no more clubs offering “sex encounters”. But they wouldn’t be of the third kind. The Borough already has four sex shops, three adult cinemas and five other lapdancing clubs. What do they put in the water up there and does it explain Tony Blair’s bad sexual antics in his book the Journey? Anyway, good on the Council and leader Paul Smith. They are using a law passed by the last Labour government which gives councils one planning controls over the massive rise in the sex industry. A small but important victory for democracy over the free market – take that Hayek, Thatcher and Peter Stringfellow.
Who is not happy. He said the Council are leading a “moral crusade”. Well I hope they are. Its the moral duty of society through its elected representatives to stop sleaze seeping into every party of our community. Does Peter live by a lapdancing club, which tarnish a neighbourhood and its residents in just awful ways? Much better to have a barbers – where people get their hair cut Peter.
If you want more on the sex industry and why it isn’t such a great thing go the Object site.
When will the left stop being idiots?
November 4th, 2010Here is something I’ve done on the Social Europe site about the USA Mid-terms and countervailing forces.
Dream on
November 4th, 2010
The problem is simple. Consumer capitalism is more desirable and feasible than any alternative. End of. Not only did/do the right dare to dream – they then make their dreams a reality. Just look at the success of the Tea Party in the USA. Small state, low taxes, have a gun blah. The result is not just that the left loses but the very hope or even belief in an alternative, the very idea gets eradicated. That is what the market does. It gets rid of the competition – either on the high street or ideologically. If unchecked it ends up as a monopoly dominating not just the economy but society and culture. There is nothing left to dream about because all of our aspirations are channelled onto buying.The good life is just another shopping trip away. And when we go what do we find – we find Utopia. Here it is just off of Upper Street in Islington in North London. Who needs to dream when you can just hop on the Northern Line and buy?
