The Christmas Sales

A giant rubber duck in John Lewis.

Every Christmas, usually starting Boxing Day, are the sales. Hoards of shoppers (I'd say women if I wasn't just too damn politically correct) drive into cities at a painfully early time in the morning to snap up outrageously cheap merchandise that explains a lot about the state of the economy at the moment. Some people save up money for the whole year to blow in a day. Indeed, for several years, my Mum and my Nan would stand outside John Lewis waiting for it to open and push through to the best deals.

So, intrigued, I went to the shopping centres in Southampton with my Mum yesterday, the day after Boxing Day, and even by 9:30am West Quay was filled with lots of people with bags and cash. 

The problem was that none of it was very good... The best deals I saw were in Waterstones with a selection of new release books at half price. But no sale in Forbidden Planet, no sale of any worth in HMV, no sale that I could see in WH Smith and my Mother, known well for her shopping pedigree commented that John Lewis' sale was useless: a sentiment my friend Sam shared with me when I was texting her, advising her where not to go on her own later shopping spree.

Indeed, I bought nothing at all, and went home at midday, with the knowledge that though I had enjoyed a pretty, Christmas-y walk around my home city before an afternoon of Beth Hobley, Lewis Smith and Gregory Holgate, the internet provides a far more productive shopping experience: even in the legendary sales.