Results tagged “Shopping” from Birmingham Mail - Nathan Jolly

'Taxing as a deterrent is highly flawed'

If you'd happened to be living in a cave until recently, before coming out and reading the news; you'd think that everyone in Britain is spending every evening on the pavement outside a nightclub: head over heels, arse over tit - and, due to an obesity epidemic, are using the friction between their two massive thighs to generate enough electricity to keep Burnham-On-Sea powered for a fortnight.

But it's sparked a drastic action plan to get everyone sober and slim.

There's something a little worrying in the news that the British Medical Association conference has voted against the proposal to tax chocolate by only 2 votes.

2 votes.

If we want an example of a dumbed-down Britain, there's no need to look for Katie and Peter: The Next Chapter on ITV2, look towards the BMA. An organisation made up of supposedly well-educated people who think taxing chocolate to the extent of making it around 5p more expensive, is a good idea.

Where do we start? as Jo Brand's dietician might say. Britain is already taxed on wages, pensions, benefits, saving's interest (what's left of them), dividends, property rental, capital gains, stamp duty, inheritance, goods and services, fuel, alcohol, tobacco and betting.

And the same goes for alcohol. Leading medical advisors are suggesting that no drinks should be sold for a minimum of 50p per unit of alcohol.

If it was the case that making something overpriced would stop people from buying it and making something cheaper would make you buy it, then people wouldn't be coming home with Armani shirts and everyone would come back every weekend with a new sofa from DFS.

Admittedly, Gordon Brown has initially rejected the idea of making alcohol more expensive. But, if we're going to live in an age where busybodies are going to say people can't smoke foxes or drive while eating Class C 80%-proof kebabs, and instead; have a national holiday to celebrate parking attendants, it can only go downhill from here.

Surely, making alcohol more expensive is not going to deter people who really want it from buying it.

Earlier this month, hospitals in Staffordshire have had to remove the alcohol hand gels from wards as people were stealing them and drinking it. Apparently, the alcohol gels - as well as being effective against MRSA and 99.9% of all bacteria - also goes well with orange juice.

There is also set to be an imminent attack on supermarkets for promoting irresponsible drinking. No longer are people drinking in pubs where it can be more easily monitored. It's all coffee shops now.

And since people are willing to pay £57 for a small Espresso - just so they can sit and talk about how often they cut their lawn, how far the seats slide back in their new Toyota, and the decline in garden decking since the 90s- it means increasing the cost of something as a deterrent isn't going to make a difference.

This has sparked a Bring Back the Pubs campaign from bearded gentlemen in waistcoats that enjoy drinking in front of an open fire and playing darts: a 'game' where you stand up and do maths. Fun.

But there's not really space for a pub in today's society. There may have been a time a couple of hundred years ago when they didn't have PlayStations and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, and they needed a distraction from diphtheria. People would leave the factories and not bother going home because the toilet was at the end of the garden and their children had rickets.

Off to the pub.

The attack on the cost of chocolate and alcohol isn't going to make any difference. If people aren't in pubs, they've bought a couple of litres of alcohol for 11p and are out on Sainsbury's car park travelling at high speeds in a shopping trolley.

Or they're rambling, sliding in vomit, and a little trickle of alcohol has led them to believe they're about 10 times more interesting than they actually are.

It's these people the busybodies should be interested with. Not the people who drink responsibly. Taxing as a deterrent is highly flawed.

Next, they'll be taxing women for wearing high-heels, people who breathe out too much carbon dioxide, and those who are so skinny they have a tendency to fall down drains.

'Bankruptcy is set to be all the rage this season'

CHRISTMAS has come and gone and everyone's attention seems to be turning to what's ahead in 2009.

Unless you're one of those people whose New Year's Resolution was to not have any resolutions, most people's are very similar. By the end of January you'll have given up alcohol for at least 17 minutes and have a year's subscription to the local gym that you will only have gone to once: to spend a couple of minutes on a treadmill or pick up a weight and put it back down again.

That's if you haven't invested in the latest celebrity exercise DVD that you tried and couldn't complete; not bothering to press the stop button because the remote control has dropped off the end of the sofa and you're eaten so many Miniature Heroes you can't physically, or be bothered, to move.

And, as bankruptcy is set to be all the rage this season, this year's winter sales are perhaps more prominent.

There have already been queues outside retailers from the early hours since Boxing Day. Millions of people will be dashing into shops and ripping clothes off the rails (or from the floor in TK Maxx) for the bargains in the hope that they will find what they're looking for.

In the winter, when you need a warm coat, the shops sell summer-wear and swimsuits. And in the summer, when you are thinking of holidaying in the sun, all you can get is warm clothes and scarves.

Many people have been waiting for the winter sales to spend their vouchers and get the prices that they think the stores should be charging in the first place. Prices in the shops have been getting higher all year as if British inflation had somehow been confused with that of Zimbabwe's.

Pairs of jeans from only £4, jumpers and fleeces from only £3, and pairs of shoes from only £2.50. I'm sure the Bangladeshi children stitching in their own blood, sweat, and tears are much obliged.

Food shopping is pretty easy: a woman who breathes heavily with her mouth open, drags your bread and milk across the scanner numerous times before calling Maggie to run along and find how much it costs. Simple.

But general shopping itself, I hear, is much more difficult than it used to be.

It isn't fun to be wading through shops with people intent on bumping into you at every opportunity, walking in front of you then suddenly stopping because they're out of breath, confused, or have been distracted by something shiny.

It's no surprise internet shopping has proliferated.

As I'm writing this I could have a tab open with a shopping cart full of books waiting for me to press 'purchase', and I know that what I see on the screen in front of me will be on the doorstep tomorrow morning.

Secondly, if I couldn't just type the title of the book into an online search engine, I would have to wonder around a real book shop. This usually consists of rummaging through the autobiographies of 12-year-old singers and books about tea with the Vicar in a village, or asking for help from an unwary member of staff who think that Charles Dickens is a fictional character and Salman Rushdie is a sexually transmitted disease.

And you can get all your music from iTunes for your iPod from the comfort of your iHome.

But then again, doing the shopping online does have its downsides. You can usually only buy something after you've given your name, address, email, what password you would like to use, how much you earn, and whether you would like some Viagra from Mr. Seboni in South Africa for £4.99 a pop.