We’re S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G….we’re shopping. – Pet Shop Boys

Shopping used to be so easy. When I was a boy (oh, here we go Grandad), we went grocery shopping once a month and made it last 28 days. February was the only month in which we failed to run out of provisions. It was a day trip ending in playing with boxes on the lawn.  Anything lacking was grown on the allotment, which sadly didn’t grow chocolate biscuits, or Kellogg’s Frosties.  Shops were windows for pressing noses up against.

Despite this I thought I lived in the future, which is a strange prism through which to see the 1970s, but in light of my father’s wartime experiences it was Disneyland. But compared with today we lived in Eastern Europe, when towns would hang out bunting and hire a brass band to celebrate arrival of the first washing machine. Our local toy shop…