Friday 28 November 2014

Black Friday rant…

So Black Friday is upon us. Sounds ominous doesn’t it, a bit like Bloody Sunday, Blue Monday or that other Black Friday, the one with all the cars which really isn’t just a Friday but any bloody day where there are roadworks. 

Of course, this Black Friday is really the old New Year’s Day Sales brought forward - this is before they became the new Boxing Day Sales you understand – all in line with yet another imported American custom. Thanks Wallmart.

Yes, the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday in the US, the day when every shopping mall in every state turns into a small version of Hell and the National Guard are called out to control the crowds of would be paying looters. Having lived through the experience ‘stateside’ a couple of times, I was quite pleased that we didn’t have it. But alas! It seems we can’t escape the madness any longer and this year, for the first time that I remember, black Friday is all the thing in the UK.

Hoorah, we now have Black Friday! Whistles and bells and la-di-da-di…

There was I just getting used to Trick or Treat (that rather enjoyable Halloween impostor) and along comes: Baby Showers, Prom Nights, Tuxedo Weddings, Leader Debates and all that other American stuff. Not only that, but Waitrose (that most English of gentile supermarkets) are claiming that one in six of us Brits celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. Thanksgiving? Yesterday? Did I miss something, and just what was it that all those British people were giving thanks for anyway?

I see no Indians! Sorry, Native Americans.

Yes, the Atlantic really isn’t the barrier it once was and somehow, what with all those celebs and their Mid-Atlantic accents, our British identity is getting slowly washed away by the waves of that particular stars and stripes sodden ocean.

Our traditional festivals are disappearing to be replaced by stateside’s rough equivalents. Harvest Festival, Halloween, Shrove Tuesday, May Day, Swan Upping, and our glorious bank Holidays may soon be a thing of the past. If we are celebrating Thanksgiving, surely Labor Day, Martin Luthor King Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day (yes, we really should celebrate our own defeat) are just around the corner. Just what will this do for Bonfire Night and will Boxing Day - a day that even I have never really understood in celebratory terms - be embraced across the pond as we have embraced Black Friday and so much other needless crap?

I doubt it.

Meantime we’ll continue to drift on our tiny raft towards what were once the American colonies until one day soon, instead of wishing each other Merry Christmas on December 25th, it’ll be Happy Holidays so as not to offend. I know, here's an idea -  how about Uncle Tom Cobley and All Day?

Well, we might as well whilst we are about it.

Mmmmmn? Maybe, Black Friday is blacker than I had at first thought.

23 comments:

  1. Yesterday they give thanks to the founding fathers, and today they worshipped the gods of shopping...
    Have you seen the TV...? (That's your own TV, not the one you trampled everyone underfoot to get...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I said Martin: Hoorah, we now have Black Friday! Whistles and bells and la-di-da-di

    ReplyDelete
  3. Paul Whitehouse on FB
    Not just the adoption of American customs which bugs me but the way in which we slavishly adopt their phrases now too. 'I'm fine thanks' has become 'I'm good' and since when was macaroni cheese 'mac and cheese' ??? As much as I love the US, we do need to stop pretending we are American.

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    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      Awesome Paul. We sure do pardner.

      Delete
  4. Richard Shore on FB
    Swan upping? Did you make that up?

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    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      It's the Royal Swan Census you pleb.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Upping

      Swan Upping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
      Swan Upping is an annual ceremonial and practical...
      EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

      Delete
  5. Pete Bevins on FB
    It's unstoppable. Teenagers can't speak a sentence without kinda or like in it, and instead of reserving the word awesome for the night sky or a cure for cancer, it's used to describe a fucking sandwich. Wankers.

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    Replies
    1. I think you mean 'Monkey Pullers' Pete

      Delete
    2. Paul Whitehouse on FB
      Or 'jerk-offs' I believe

      Delete
  6. Neil Barrett on FB
    Our special relationship ,Proms, Trick or Treat, Baby showers ,Fox News , Plastic surgery, White Teeth , and Television Evangalisa. m

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  7. Paul Whitehouse on FB
    Black Friday always sounds a bit ominous to me

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  8. Nick Jones on FB
    I prefer Blue Monday.

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  9. Lynda Henderson on FB
    Give thanks for being some of the funniest people on earth. Oh and pudding, your weird and wonderful mysterious pudding. Is it dessert? Is it sausage? Or is it a breadlike pastry?

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    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      Don't forget our sandwiches Lynda. They are awesome, right?

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    2. Andrew Height
      And not very full...

      Delete
  10. Richard Shore on FB
    You lot couldn't sound any older if you were taking about pipe smoking

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    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      You down worth the youf these days Rick?

      Delete
  11. Tim Preston on FB
    i'm more concerned about black friday being a time where you pay homage to the devil. i can live with Americanisms because language is always changing over time. personally i'm offended by the Normans calling pig meat "pork". it's all about elitism

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  12. Tim Preston on FB
    It's a bit old but I recommend this audiobook "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender". Only the word "Surrender" is not old English. That may be significant. http://www.audible.co.uk/.../ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl...

    The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language
    Check out this great listen on Audible.co.uk.This is...
    AUDIBLE.CO.UK

    ReplyDelete
  13. Buffey Glandon on FB
    Since we gave you black friday, can we have boxing day?

    ReplyDelete