Bargain Booze (plus)

My adopted town has a few things going for it. All life can be found there. It's halfway between London and Brighton, yet overall is a stalwart supporter of the Conservatives. It has both a LIDL and a Waitrose, along with an old fashioned independent department store. There are lots of closed down shops. It used to have a nice bookshop, but that's been converted recently: half into a charity shop (probably around the twenty seventh in the town--until recently charity shops played second-fiddle to the Estate Agents, but that's no longer the case for obvious reasons).

And I live on the edge of town, in a fairly middle-income/affluent housing development. At the junction between town and suburb, between Surrey and Sussex in fact, there used to be an off-licence opposite a newsagents/post-office. The off-licence closed down to make way for a breakfast bar that looks far too namby-pamby for the local builders, drivers and bin-men that frequent the towns other cafes. Opposite this, now sits, where once sat proudly the mini-post office-cum-newsagency, is a new shop. And the name of this shop, I kid you not, is Bargain Booze plus. (I have worked out from the bright posters smothering the front of the store to bar daylight that the plus represents items such as pints of milk, red-top newspapers and fizzy drinks).

My town has slipped down in my estimation, but you've got to admire the marketing nous of the owners.


Happy bit between days of celebration.