Our lives being governed by the retail

Happiyogi- it’s slightly off thread but Michael Burke was featured in the newspapers the other day.
Apparently slim, fit people who live a long life cost the country more than the drinkers, smokers and the obese all of whom pay lots of tax and die at a younger age. See the other thread on the subject.

Pamela, that'd be pretty low and cynical of our cherished governments and saintly NHS wouldn't it? Allow us to be swamped with opportunities to get our fat/sugar/alcohol fixes while they rub their hands together at the profit flooding to them as a result? Surely not...

But it seems very true, judging by the absolute rubbish on sale in the hospital shop I visited this afternoon. I was so shocked that I took photographs! Shame on the NHS. They need to stop simultaneously preaching healthy diets and peddling, and profiting from, junk "food".

I've still got two large unopened Christmas tubs of chocolates from last year. Keep meaning to check the use by dates.

granny4hugs
I was in a small shop on Friday, well known now on the High Street, and did buy something I needed.

However, there was a young mum in the shop, looking through women's clothes fairly randomly. In her wake were two small, miserable little boys. One, aged about 7, said plaintively "Mummy, we're supposed to be on holiday having fun and all we're doing is going in shops!" She grabbed their hands and marched them out of the shop- I did hope that they spent the rest of the holiday having fun!

I don't shop very often but there are often families trailing miserable little children around a shopping centre on a lovely day.

You can't buy 2nd hand chocolate though

I do want some cholcolate now!

I was talking to a young Chinese woman at work today. She told me that in China, young people (mainly girls) crave designer products so badly that they borrow thousands to get them (I'm talking on the lines of a Chanel bag for a 21 year old). When they can't pay back, they are forced into illegal activity, and can end up in real trouble.

She told me a very sad tale of a friend of hers who borrowed money with pornographic pictures of herself as surety. When she couldn't pay, the photos were sent to her parents and friends (whose numbers she had given in order to get the money), and posted on her social media accounts. All to get a designer handbag. It's madness.

I have never met the girl in question, but I can't stop thinking about her, and what a terrible price she paid for something that she has basically been tricked into thinking she needs.

And we think our kids are pressured! I suppose people in China are brought up being influenced and believing government advertising and that's having a knock on effect with western style commercial advertising. Get this handbag or you're a failure.

I can't say it bothers me - I don't feel manipulated. A lot of people like to spread the cost. I wouldn't normally buy anything C-word-ish until November, though I did buy some C cards at a seaside RNLI shop in July. Oh, and I ordered a C present the other day - a dinosaur book for Gds, having seen a recommendation for it - otherwise I'd probably forget.

Let's just hope I don't now put it away somewhere safe - and then forget where I,put it, or even that I bought it at all - which has occasionally happened with very early C-present purchases....

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201908/medium-268139-coral.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201908/medium-785830-healthy-coral.jpg

Last night I listened to an excellent DVD on the Australian Barrier Reef.

Because of our insatiable craving for sugar, more and more cane fields are being built.
The run-off of fertilisers from them leaches into the sea and is ideal for the over-growth of the Crown of Thorns Starfish, which is systematically devastating corals.

It showed the wasteland left behind by thousands of these beasties; it looked like the aftermath of a nuclear war.

Before and after pictures attached.

Think about that when you are shopping for Christmas chocolates and maybe even consider supporting one of the many charities working towards saving our oceans.

Being an eco-angel is not just about refusing to use plastic bags.

Hmm, M&S had their big £5 tins of shortbread in the other day - the kind they invariably stock for Christmas.

Must confess to buying one. I'm not mad keen on shortbread but dh likes it, and I do find the tins very useful. Particularly for batches of homemade mince pies, not to mention the fairy cakes etc. I always make for Gdcs' birthday parties, mega-batches of my very cheesy cheese straws, etc.