Thursday 23 April 2009

Jenners v The Clash


The wedding of the year takes place a week on Saturday. This is mainly a right good thing: Giz and Ali (barry peeps the pair and clearly right for each other) will plight their troths, plus 2 vaguely overlapping gangs o gadgies and 2 separate families will welto it up together for the very first time. It's gonna be a belter o a day.

However, there is one wee downside to this - viz. i've been dragged round the shops for days on end seekin an outfit for my beloved to don on the day. If there's one thing i cannae stand (in truth there are hunners) it's shoppin (fitba!) for stuff other than books, tunes, food or bevvy. And if there's one thing slightly worse than that, it's shoppin (fitba!) for stuff for someone else.

This aftie's instalment took us to Jenners - the grande old dame of Princes Street (pass the boak poke!) Jenners is the very apex of consumerist Embra so i'm supposed to abhor the place. But to be fair, it's got a great toy department and erm....i've been known to sneak in at sale time for the odd hypocritical bitta Smedley, Penguin or Fred Perry. Twould be well cheeky to be too hard on the place. (Oh, and Giz used to work there, teehee!)

So aye, Jenners exists and has its uses but one of these is mos def not to play good tunes. Thus i was fair flummoxed the day to hear Rock The Casbah blastin out the gents dept. This is not the way it should be. Who asked Topper Headon if his best penned tune could be used to flog fashion? What's goin on when i'm diggin the sounds in a gaff like that? Have i joined their target demographic or sumfink?

Urrrrrghh.....it jist wisnae right so we nashed upstairs to the burdz bit to be hit with a spotta Coldplay. Much more like it - dirivitive, tory loving jobbies is what i expect to hear in the shops and ensures there'll be nae unnecessary hingin aboot from either me or Mand. Which has just reminded me - took a bit more time than strictly required to get the hell outta French Connection tother day (Mand draged aes in again, honest guv) cos they were playin somethin sung by Elizabeth Fraser. Didnae even recognise the song.

Those demographic targetters clearly ken things i'll never know. Which is scary.

7 comments:

  1. lol, loved reading about your day out shopping.
    Yhe nothing worse than being dragged round shops, i also hate it, mind you i could spend hours in JJB..

    Hoi nothing wrong with fitba, well okay its no everyone's cup of tea, im not into it much ma self, i only play it..

    That Jenner's is a funny place, you walk in all suited and booted and the staff are crawling over you, you walk in a few weeks later with more ned type clothes on, and they ignore you, hmm why ?

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  2. Hey, AMW, there's nowt at all, wrong wi fitba. I love it, even if i'm a bit old and was always crap at it. Used to watch Hearts a lot til they got bought over by a total numpty megalomaniac. Keep talkin bout goin to see the Spartans but it never happens.

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  3. Your Jenners experience 'minded me of a time in the late 90's queuing up in Leith Job centre where they were olaying Public Image Limited "Rise" quite loudly. Even seemed to turn it up for the "ANGER IS AN ENERGY...." chorus, quite curious........drew.

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  4. PIL in Leith Job Centre? Hmmm...sounds like some member of staff was havin a wee a giraffe. Good on them. "I could be wrong, i could be right..." Aaaah...those heady days afore Lydon lost it.

    Another fave bit of good/weird music in a public space was Brian Eno's Music For Airports in Cancun airport. Reckon some member o staff there was takin stuff a bit literally but it sounded well tasty tinklin out across the concourse.

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  5. I remember the Clash reaching number 1 with 'Should I stay or should I go?' on the back of a Levi advert that used it. That was a bad moment.

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  6. You aint wrong there, JJ. A shameful occurrence for all good peeps - the Clash were apparently never good enough to sell enough records until they sold their soul to some denim multinational. I blame the management.

    On the (vaguely related) upside me and ma pal, Al once listened to the Cocteau Twins' "Lazy Calm" en route from Meynes to Nimes. Nimes is twinned with Preston and is apparently where cotton was first twilled in the way that we currently recognise as denime. As in "de Nimes". Fascinating huh?

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  7. That's ma fotie you've used for this post, bam.

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