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Supermarket Blues

Thanks Escargot! I'd love to see those.

Actually we may be moving back to Nantwich soon (at least temporarily).

The only other part of the world where I know the supermarkets is Auckland, New Zealand. Nothing strange there but maybe I should seek one that was built on a Maori sacred site. (I work for a medical publisher with a large carbon footprint). Australia would be fertile ground (though my travels have only taken me to downtown Sydney).

To be honest, in terms of Fortean psychogeography, the North of England is very hard to beat. Jenny Randles touches on this in some of her books. My own 'write that book' fantasy concerns taking an east-west trip staring in North Wales/Merseyside progressing through Manchester and the Cheshire plain and over the Pennines and through Yorkshire. Traditions/legends all forms of Forteana weird and bizarre treated with healthy Northern scepticism but with ample treatment of the rich tapestry - both urban/contemporary and historical/traditional. The working title is 'The Haunted North'. Not too credulous and 'woo woo' (as Rynner would say) but detailing the wealth of stories and their histortical and cultural backgrounds. Also I'd like to point out significant similar themes in the rest of the world. Supermarkets would feature in the former. Indeed 'Haunted Supermarkets in the English -speaking World' could be a whole book subject in its own right. I took some of my US colleagues around the Roman Walls of Chester last month during a visit back and I got re-inspired.

Urban landscapes with their juxtaposition of regeneration and deriliction are a penchant for me (mainly because of where I was brought up I suspsect). We went to stay with friends in St Louis, MO over Easter and there were some wonderful examples there. The so-alled 'City Museum' in an old shoe factory is like being in a Johnny Depp movie (my kids had the time of their lives but really it is quite Gothic'. The whole sun-genre of shopping centres and supermarkets bulit in these locations but somehow retaining echoes of the past is fascinating. There is something of the 'Stone Tape' about the whole area I suspect.

Anyway - I digress...(but in the spirit of the theme...)
 
Thanks Escargot! I'd love to see those.

Actually we may be moving back to Nantwich soon (at least temporarily).

The only other part of the world where I know the supermarkets is Auckland, New Zealand. Nothing strange there but maybe I should seek one that was built on a Maori sacred site. (I work for a medical publisher with a large carbon footprint). Australia would be fertile ground (though my travels have only taken me to downtown Sydney).

To be honest, in terms of Fortean psychogeography, the North of England is very hard to beat. Jenny Randles touches on this in some of her books. My own 'write that book' fantasy concerns taking an east-west trip staring in North Wales/Merseyside progressing through Manchester and the Cheshire plain and over the Pennines and through Yorkshire. Traditions/legends all forms of Forteana weird and bizarre treated with healthy Northern scepticism but with ample treatment of the rich tapestry - both urban/contemporary and historical/traditional. The working title is 'The Haunted North'. Not too credulous and 'woo woo' (as Rynner would say) but detailing the wealth of stories and their histortical and cultural backgrounds. Also I'd like to point out significant similar themes in the rest of the world when writing about the different stories. Supermarkets would feature in the former. Indeed 'Haunted Supermarkets in the English -speaking World' could be a whole book subject in its own right. I took some of my US colleagues around the Roman Walls of Chester last month during a visit back and I got re-inspired.

Urban landscapes with their juxtaposition of regeneration and deriliction are a penchant for me (mainly because of where I was brought up I suspsect). We went to stay with friends in St Louis, MO over Easter and there were some wonderful examples there. The so-alled 'City Museum' in an old shoe factory is like being in a Johnny Depp movie (my kids had the time of their lives but really it is quite Gothic'. The whole sub-genre of shopping centres and supermarkets bulit in these locations but somehow retaining echoes of the past is fascinating. There is something of the 'Stone Tape' about the whole area I suspect.

Anyway - I digress...(but in the spirit of the theme...)
 
Ooops - Internet latency caught me there - the second one is a better edit...
 
The second one..? You posted thrice!

(Now there's a word I don't use every day! ;) )
 
:oops: :oops: and thrice :oops: !

It was late evening here and so the hour in the UK when servers are given to back ups (or maybe I'm just impatient..)
 
Not that I'm sticking up for supermarkets, but my ex boyfriend and I used to go to one during the long dark days of a seaside town winter, and we used to find we came out all buzzing and full of energy. Thought all the bright lights got rid of our seasonal depression.

(And I will hear no dissing of Lidl. I take a bag round and unpack it at the checkout, no-one's ever frowned at me. Perhaps some people look dodgier than others eh).
 
I felt terribly depressed whilst going around Tesco with my missus during the easter bank holiday. Terrible panic, claustraphobia and utter, utter despair had set in by the time I reached the checkout.

I thought it was normal?
 
oweny29 said:
I felt terribly depressed whilst going around Tesco with my missus during the easter bank holiday. Terrible panic, claustraphobia and utter, utter despair had set in by the time I reached the checkout.

I thought it was normal?
Click to expand...

Normal Thursday night shopping for me! :roll:
 
I like decent French and Belgian supermarkets, especially the ones that make a feature of local produce.

Belgian supermarkets for the beer.

British supermarkets just seem to be experts at biscuits, 2 for the price of one kings sized Mars Bars and 2 ltr bottles of Coca Cola. :(
 
I find most Food Lion grocery stores to be uncomfortable--i can't stay long and feel relieved when I get out. Farm Fresh supermarkets are much better--though the one on Coliseum Drive in Hampton makes me jittery. The Bottom Dollar stores are owned by Food Lion and are just depressing. Yes, the soup are 3 cans for 99 cents but there are only two or three flavors though a huge amount of cans. They are just so gloomy , I get sad at the thought of having to go in one.

I won't go into a Best Buy, ever! They're a huge electronics store--like an aircraft hanger almost inside. You get assaulted by the noise as you walk in as they have their Muzak screaming and then all the TV's are on and there is apparently NO sound deadening anywhere in the place. It amazes me that the people working there can hear when they leave. I have to wait outside when hubby goes in there-He has lost a lot of his hearing to years spent on flightlines in the AF. I just can't take it. I don't care how cheap some electronic whatzit is-I'm not going in a Best Buy to get it.

Wal-Marts make me want to leave as well. The ghetto-mart down the street from me is just intolerable--i get too nervous, turned around and then panicky if i can't find the door. It doesn't help that the last time I was in there two of the other female patrons got in a fist fight over some piece of stuff and I was very nearly hit with a table as I tried to get out of the way. Target makes me edgey as well. I applied there when I was out of work this past summer, but I must say that I am happy I didn't get the job.
 
Very interested in all these posts. I've had some strange moments in the supermarket myself, but most of the experiences have been very pleasant. I'll occasionally feel a child-like sense of elation and almost altered state of reality. The best description I can come up with "mysterious excitement"

Sounds silly, I know. :lol:

I think it has to do with all the sophisticated marketing techniques, meant to induce the "beta" brainwave mode that encourages shopping, etc.
However, it doesn't happen all the time, maybe only a few times a year.
Also, I've never been an impulse shopper. And it only happens in the grocery store, never any other type of shop, even though they're all usng the same type of darn-near-coercive marketing.

There are a few shops in my area that have a bad effect, though. A certain...erm...big box discount store for one. I get the feeling that so many angry shoppers have spent so much time there being furious at the world, and the energy just remains there, trapped. Even at 3 AM, which is the only time I can bear to go, when it's nearly empty.

Most of the stores here were built on the original piece of land, so there's no history to speak of, as an influence on the mood.

All this makes me wonder if i'm the only person who gets elated at the supermarket :lol:
 
I like buying groceries, too. I feel so grownup! (Seriously! I'm pushing 50, but I still get this. All those trips to the Commissary with Mom when we were small, I guess; I can't get over being able to decide for myself how many packages of cookies we need.) Individual supermarkets, and individual features of certain stores, can diminish this. I particularly like small, cozy stores when it's raining, but there's a store here in San Antonio, part of the regional H.E.B. chain (stands for Herbert E. Butts; you see why they use the initials), to which we go as a treat and when we have tourists in tow. It's official name is HEB Central Market, and is part of an upscale specialty chain-within-the-chain, but this one is far superior to those in other towns. We call it Gucci-B. Valet parking! Masseur on staff! Bulk bins! Mexican Coke and Dublin Dr Pepper (ie made with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup - that's Dublin, Texas, not Ireland)! Ten different varieties of sea salt (and me on a low-sodium diet)! A produce section bigger than some people's farms! Bakery area with as much square footage as my mom's house! OMG the DELI!

It's the sheer abundance that gets to me, and the possibility of finding something I can't get at the regular store. And the layout is, though a little confusing, almost perfectly balanced between the claustrophobia of a store trying to cram too much into too little space and the nerve-grating discord of the big box retail outlet. Expensive though. For ordinary shopping I use the ordinary HEB, though I know it won't have certain things I need. Like tea - the tea selection at the ordinary HEB is dismal, and it's gotten worse since I've had to restrict my caffeine. Plus they drop things unexpectedly and you can never tell when or if they're going to be available again. Green label Karo syrup, apple cinnamon toaster pastries, Murphy Oil soap, Johnson wax - simple stuff. That part, I don't enjoy.

I hate, hate, hate big box retail stores. They're wasteful, they're usually built on land that was pretty and supplied wildlife habitat and erosion protection before it got scraped; they pop up in five small towns at once, drive out local business, and then abandon all but one because the small town economy isn't strong enough to support more than that; and they make me, literally, dizzy & sick with their combination of bad acoustics, confusing layouts, looming shelves, and overabundant cheap crap. Ten different kinds of sea salt = bounty. Ten thousand different cheap dust- collecting "ornaments," ranging from sentimental kitsch to straightforwardly ugly and all created by underpaid workers in Asian sweatshops = LET ME OUT OF HERE.
 
I also love reading these posts. I know what you mean about the elation you can sometimes feel when shopping - I think it's the old hunter/gatherer instinct or something like that. There's nothing more satisfying than finding a good quality bargain or spending an hour or two in a place where there are so many possibilities.

I noticed in the new Ikea store in our town that everyone looks so miserable - there wasn't one person who looked like they were enjoying the experience. Instead they were barging each other out of the way with their trolleys. It was as if every single person in the building (and car park) was in a bad mood.

It's the same every time I go there, and it's not the sort of place you can just pop in and out again - which sort of adds to the misery.

Maybe that's why I nicked so many of their pencils.
 
There's an excellent book called "Coercion" by Douglas Rushkoff, which goes into detail about all sorts of psychological techniques used in marketing. Definitely worth the read if you're interested in the subject :)
According to the book, Ikea's layout is specifically done that way, so you can't just go in and out. The more product you have to walk past, the more you're likely to buy. If it's making people miserable now, though, maybe something in the public psyche has changed?

That kid-in-the-candy-store feeling...I notice I'm prone to it in Target, with it's colorful layout and rosy lighting. And I can't help but note that I fit exactly into the demographic they're trying to attract.

I'm also Texan, so I'm very much aquainted with HEB :)
Our new store here has a terrible warehouse feeling to it, though. Not a good place to have a transcendent experience :lol:
Albertson's is better for that!

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one, then. I don't feel quite so silly now ! :)
 
This is a bit extreme:

Salami battle in supermarket leaves Germans in hospital
Two Germans needed hospital treatment after they fought a pitched battle in a supermarket with salamis used as clubs and a chunk of Parmesan cheese brandished like a dagger.
By Allan Hall in Berlin
Published: 2:51PM GMT 14 Dec 2009

The fight took place in the western city of Aachen when a 74-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman both laid claim to a shopping trolley on Saturday.

As the pensioner wrestled the cart from the hands of his rival, her 24-year-old brother stepped forward and floored him with a punch.

Together with their 53-year-old mother, the brother and sister then took the trolley into the supermarket. But the OAP came round and followed them to the cheese counter.

He clubbed the younger man with a salami as his mother tried to fend him off with a sharp 4lbs piece of Parmesan.

The pensioner then pushed the woman down on to a glass countertop on which she cracked her head.

Police arrived to break up the melee. Two of those involved were treated in hospital for minor injuries.

The trolley was undamaged. 8)

A police spokesman said a sudden rush of shoppers on the last-but-one Saturday before Christmas had depleted the supermarket's trolley reserves and "raised tensions" between the would-be customers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... pital.html
 
rynner2 said:
...
He clubbed the younger man with a salami as his mother tried to fend him off with a sharp 4lbs piece of Parmesan....
Click to expand...

I really shouldn't laugh... :rofl: , I nearly snorted coffee down my nose...
 
Re: Those Damned Lights!

madgarlick said:
I often feel Ill, confused, or angry when shopping in supermarkets. I've alwasy just put it doen to some quality of the overhead lights,
Click to expand...

The lights in Supermarkets tend to give me quite bad headaches and feelings of nausea. Sometimes they get so bad I can only stay in a few minutes. They start as soon as I hear the buzzing sound that they seem to make.

On another note, I have only visited the TRAFFORD CENTRE once and swear I will never go back. When I was there I felt an immense forboding sensation, like something really bad was going to happen there. The air felt thick and heavy and my heart too felt heavy. I kept feeling as if it was all being engulfed by flames or was collapsing all around me.
This was two years ago, and its still standing, so could just be me!:eek:
Click to expand...

Ive experienced the odd change in atmosphere whilst shopping in supermarkets.

There was one occasion where i reached the meat/poultry isle in Tesco and experienced a dizziness which i put down to the lighting and strange humming sound coming from the refrideratora. It totally changed my feeling of well being into a great struggle that just left me wishing to leave quickly. On another occasion I went in after a normal day at work and when i got to a certain spot in the store I suddenly felt ill and off balance. I then pushed my trolley around trying to shop whilst feeling unhappy without knowing why this was. I left the store and drove to an Asda store closer to home. Here ther was no repeat of the "strange cloud of despair" as i call it.

Be it lighting, humming noises or something paranormal it is definately a mood changing experience.
 
This is probably completely different, but when my husband and I are doing a lot of errands we find that there's a conversation force field around certain stores. We'll be having a conversation in the car about something mutually interesting and absorbing - often planning or working out something, like our next RPG session or how we should deal with some real-life problem - and as we walk into the store the conversation will switch off. When we walk out again, we resume the conversation in exactly the same place. This is so even when we know exactly where we're going in the store and don't have to pay much attention to what we're doing in it.
 
Coffee machine explodes injuring seven
Seven people suffered minor injuries when a coffee machine exploded at a supermarket today.
Published: 4:14PM BST 14 Sep 2010

The blast involved an industrial machine at Sainsbury's in the Kingsmead Shopping Centre, Farnborough, Hampshire. The casualties included customers and staff.

A Hampshire Police spokesman said six people were taken to Frimley Park Hospital in nearby Surrey after the incident at about 12.20pm.

The store was evacuated and environmental health officials informed, the spokesman added.

A Sainsbury's spokesman said a ruptured pipe in the machine caused the explosion and the store was able to reopen.

''Colleague and customer safety is our main priority,'' the spokesman said.
''The store was evacuated and closed while the council's environmental health officers undertook an inspection.
''The cafe will remain closed until we have completed a full investigation into the cause of this incident.''

One of those taken to hospital was a 23-year-old woman with head, arm and eye injuries, South Central Ambulance Service said.

Rushmoor Borough Council is investigating the incident and not the Health and Safety Executive.

A Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said: ''Crews from Rushmoor fire station attended the incident, where they found no fire. However, a number of people were in need of first aid treatment.
''Firefighters assisted with first aid and made the scene safe.''

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink ... seven.html
 
drbates said:
I've had that happen with a home coffee machine - that one was due to the milk frother getting bunged up. I would'nt be suprised if the same thing happened at Sainsburys..
Click to expand...
Oh Drat!

I was hoping it was a supermarket poltergeist at work... :(
 
an old friend of mine had a coffee machine - lavazza type - blow up by putting sugar in the filter alongside with coffee
 
No wonder we get the blues - we're blue with cold!

Chilly as Alaska - Britain's coldest supermarket: Shoppers at Tesco store in Solihull left shivering in the aisles
By Jo Macfarlane
Last updated at 11:11 PM on 2nd October 2010

Next time you pop out to the supermarket, make sure you wrap up warm.
An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed what shoppers have long suspected – that supermarket temperatures dip to levels more common in the Arctic Circle.

For the first time, the coldest supermarkets in the country are revealed by a study that confirms that most supermarket temperatures are considerably lower than normal room temperature or basic comfort levels set out in official guidance. In the most chilly store, a Tesco in Birmingham, shoppers suffered temperatures of just 11.1C (51.98F) in the chilled foods section, while the average recorded across the whole shop was only 13.95C (57.11F). Even temperatures in Alaska exceed these figures for four months of the year.
The warmest temperatures were recorded in a Waitrose store in London where shoppers were greeted inside the entrance by air heated to 22.6C (72.68F).

In most of the 32 supermarkets surveyed across four major cities, the temperature failed to rise above 17C (62.6F), even though guidance set out by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers recommends supermarkets maintain a temperature of 19-21C (66.2-69.8F) in winter and 21-23C (69.8-73.4F) in summer. Room temperature is generally accepted to be between 20C and 25C (68-77F).

The investigation follows anecdotal evidence that food halls have become markedly cooler in recent years. Speculation prompted newspaper columnist Kelvin MacKenzie this week to complain about his local supermarket. He wrote: ‘I quite understand that chickens have to remain chilled but surely the customers don’t need to be included?’

To carry out the study, The Mail on Sunday used four state-of-the-art digital temperature meters from the manufacturer RS Components to measure the air temperature in supermarkets in London, Bristol, Birmingham and Glasgow.

The unannounced survey, carried out on Friday, included major outlets of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda, Waitrose, Aldi, Lidl and The Co-operative. Readings were taken in five separate areas in each store and over a five-minute period to give the meters time to calibrate. The research discovered that Tesco stores had the lowest average temperature, followed by Morrisons and Lidl. The warmest overall were Sainsbury’s, followed by Aldi and The Co-operative.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z11HdulwLN
 
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