Vicky Goes On (Again)

Tag: capitalism

  • Inflation. Everything costs £20

    In the olden days (anything longer than 5 years ago, but which 5 years? This could be a much longer tangent but basically, time is an illusion and everything was either “the other day”, “5 years ago (but resolutely NOT 2020), or “in the past“) I always thought of Coke (Coca-Cola) as being 50p and figuring out the cost of foreign money from that. About 5 years ago (see tangent) this changed to £1. Listen, I know we all know the Freddo cost price index but I am no economist so I used the price of a can of Coke. Now, here’s the horror: A can of Coke, when not purchased as part of a Meal Deal is £1.55. One POUND and FIFTY FIVE PENCE. In GBP.

    My friend Kelinda writes: ‘Why is everything £20?’
    And she’s right. Everything is £20. I leave my house to buy some vegetables for an evening meal and the price is £20. What are these vegetables made from? I’m not even shopping at Waitrose. This is Asda. And my wages are alright, you know? I spend £150,000 a week on food shopping and I don’t even buy the meat. Everything is either £5 or £20 or £1000.

    And here’s the kicker – it really, really doesn’t have to be this way. B&M reported earnings will be between £510m to £560m in 2025 which is an 18% decline. So fucking what? It’s still a lot of fucking money. Why is everything in capitalism growth, growth, growth? Because of the shareholders. Look, I get that the shareholders want their sweet, sweet green but you cannot seriously look me in my eyeballs and say £510 million GBP Sterling cash money is not a lot of money. You cannot talk straight out of your mouths and expect me to think, “yeah, you know what? You should be putting Coke up to £3 a can. Coca-Cola is a poor li’l company with no money at all. Won’t somebody think of the shareholders?”

    £11m was paid out to the UKs privatised water companies as part of the “water restoration fund” in April 2024. £78BILLION was paid by water companies to its shareholders since privatisation started in 1989 (with much thanks to the Private Eye for the figures). All that and approximately 590 million litres of water are lost DAILY by Thames Water alone. I pay those bitches over £50 a month. Literally falls from the sky and I pay that. (OK, I pay half but the point damn well still stands).

    What are we supposed to do? Pay £20 for eggs, bodywash, tomatoes. And then £30, £40, £700? Where will it end? When do we say, “enough. I am not paying £14 for a Freddo!”?

    A lot of companies are going bust but I wonder if it is because they’re also pricing themselves to extinction? Capitalism is supposed to be about market forces and the consumer dictating through their wallets what we want and what we are willing to purchase. But, I’m not willing to spend £4 on a tomato. And what are we left with? We do need to purchase food. We literally cannot sustain ourselves singularly. We are homo sapiens because of agriculture and tribal living.

    OK, this is too much. I’m going to get a chicken coop and some tomato seeds. BRB.

    Oh, and don’t get me started on shrinkflation. Kerrygold butter is now 50g less for the same price. The feckin’ gobshites.

  • Pumpkin Spice Lattes and fall (of mankind)

    The Commercialisation of Christmas Autumn

    I blame Starbucks. No, I blame the Americans. Hmmm, I suppose they made Starbucks so maybe I blame Starbucks. I blame Starbucks and Instagram and social media and white women and capitalism.
    Babes, it’s always capitalism.
    I agree that we all need to squeeze whatever pleasure we can out of the world and if you want a pumpkin spice latte and an aesthetic pic to post on IG with a browning leaf in the background then who am I to stop you? But, and do hear me out here, I feel like when all the corporations are getting in on the act maybe take a moment to pause and think, ‘do I really want this fuzzy pumpkin table decoration or am I just being sold stuff?’

    That was a long sentence and I apologise.

    We are always just being sold stuff.
    Do you like Autumn? Do you want to tell the world that you’re a GIRL who likes candles and hot drinks and pumpkins with bows on them (?) and burnt orange? Why not buy this piece of fast fashion from Shein (surprise!) for only £8. The thing is, that is a really nice colour t.shirt. Can I get that but without the nonsense graphic?

    What about a mug that only really makes sense for 4 months of the year (IF I’M BEING GENEROUS)? Again, that is a pretty nice looking mug. Let’s make it ridiculous. Because it is a *Season*. And, I get it, you are a company that sells stuff so you think of ways to sell stuff. That’s showbiz, baby. And Halloween is a fun, spooky time of year that somewhat acts as a barrier between Summer Fun tat and Christmas tat. Great. Except it doesn’t, not really. You just get Halloween AND Christmas stuff in the shops (and Thanksgiving stuff if you’re in the USA) so every corner you turn you see variations of this:

    Christmas pumpkin disco mayhem bauble.

    And the flavours! Oh the flavours you get. Like Willy Wonka in an Autumn fever dream. Cinnamon this, pumpkin that. Nutmeg, cloves. It’s never garlic and basil is it? Is it?

    Finally, pumpkin is not a spice. What spice is pumpkin spice? This isn’t about pumpkin spice, really.

    I’m tired.

  • I ain’t being nostalgic but… (enshittification strikes again)

    I went for an eye test the other day and, in a rare positive of ageing, my eyesight is improving. This means I need a new prescription. A weaker prescription. Weird, huh? Well, things can only get better and then they’ll get worse.

    I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 11 years old. So only 5 or 6 years 32 years. I was reminded only today that there was a time when you could get spectacles within the hour. WITHIN the hour. Do you know how long my regular, boring, single vision, no coating, no thinning lenses will take? 2 weeks. One whole fortnight. Why? How have we regressed?

    I was watching a YouTube video (now, I warn you, the topic of the video is going to sound boring but we’ve been over this. I need to be distracted and I find myself watching no end of nonsense) on the decline of 24-hour Tesco supermarkets. And I thought, “oh yeah. That was a thing. An actual, real thing that did not exist, then did exist, and now no longer exists.” And, like, I get it. They’re not economically viable. But there feels like there used to be a time when things were done, services provided, goods made – not for profit (or not solely for profit) but because that was what was for the best for society, or the customer, or whatever.

    ‘Enshittification’ was coined by a science fiction writer, Cory Doctorow, about declining in quality of services. Usually this is about web platforms, e.g. Google. Have ya noticed how shit Google searches have become? I tend to add “reddit” to the end of my searches in order to get something useful. I know, but Reddit can be useful. When I first heard about enshittification I thought, “yeah. I see that. The internet ain’t what it once was.” But, enshittification is actually everywhere now.

    Police stations no longer have service counters in them, if they’re open at all. Glasses take several weeks to be made and even then the level of care, of customer service is severely lacking. I don’t want to sound like a Boomer but it used to be that opticians, shops staff, police officers, etc at least pretended to care about the services they were offering.

    In a world that is over consuming and over selling you’d expect that they should want to give us something more. But you know why they don’t? Because we accept it. We still buy the things and overconsume so who cares that it’s shoddier now? We’re still going to buy all the tat we want.

    In the 1950s fridges were a marvel. These basic goods were built to improve the housewife’s life. These were goddamned beauties.

    Just look at this

    And now what have we got? Smart fridges? HAH

    Greggs used to sell more than just sausage rolls. The other day I went in there to buy, admittedly, sausage rolls but I also wanted to buy, like, whatever else. A cookie. A sarnie. I was at a loose end and I had money on the app. Now they’re selling pizza and whatnot but they’ve forgotten that they’re a bakery. Do you think you can buy bread from Greggs? You’d think so, wouldn’t you. What with bakers famously making bread. You’d be wrong. Not a bloomer nor a cob in sight. It’s actually bullshit. (NB I still love Greggs though I do fear they’ve become rather overrated and they’d better knock it off).

    This all began when Freddos started being used as a guide for inflation. I do not think nor want to pretend that the past was better. It wasn’t. And even if it was – who cares? We’re here now. All I’m saying is that there seems to be a lack of care in the world. There are fewer and fewer customer care phone numbers and where there are you’ll be lucky to be answered within 20 minutes and for your call to be resolved. Everything is a hoohah and a palaver. And I am sick of it.