Shopping

[poliphilo]

Apparently Nike is pronounced as if it were an English word- to rhyme with spike. It sounds wrong to me- because surely it should have an accent on the final syllable- as with the Greek Goddess I presume it's named for. A TV reporter was telling us how people were pushing and shoving to get into the company's flagship London store on Monday morning- when "inessential" shops were given permission to reopen- and I thought, "Nike, what's this Nike he's talking about? Oh I see..."

The pushing and shoving were unedifying.

We drove through Heathfield yesterday. Heathfield is your average small English town. A prosperous one, I think. The antique shops (two of them) were open, the charity shops (four or five of them) were shut. Other businesses were open or shut without any pattern being obvious.

I went to the supermarket once during lockdown, to the Post Office three times, and to the farm shop in Hurst Green once a week- and that's all the shopping I've done. I'll be a little shy next time I go into a High Street store. I'll be wondering about the etiquette: should I be wearing gloves? a mask? Am I allowed to touch? Will the staff be shadowing my every move- and tut-tutting when I get things wrong?

We'll be sticking with the farm shop, but I expect some of the custom it picked up during lockdown will drop away. It was less busy yesterday morning than it has been- but that could just be a blip...

I'm expecting a lot of established businesses to disappear (many already have done)- and because I believe in human ingenuity and resilience- a lot of clever, quirky little start ups to take their place.

Comments

[strange_complex]

Nike's chairman says otherwise, so your man on the news was just an ignoramus.

[poliphilo]

Which only goes to show that you can't believe what you see (and hear) on the box.