From pathetic to PROPHETIC in just one posting

By Steve Regan on Aug 4, 11 03:31 PM

While commuting I see far too many lorries for the giant "bread factories" which are such an unwelcome feature of British industry - "Kingsmill" etc.

I use "bread factories" because they can't really be called bakeries. Bakers should be local, offering fresh bread to their communities without dragging loaves hundreds of miles across the country by lorry then letting the ruthless brigands of the supermarket industry offload them to daft shoppers.

I hardly ever buy bread in supermarkets - because it is invariably squashed, underbaked and tasteless.

Honestly, the way we sell, shop and consume in this country is wrong on so many levels - environmentally, in terms of social justice, and by failing to encourage independent local enterprise.

Something as beautiful, basic and (if you like) spiritual as the getting of our daily bread has become such a vile enterprise. That reflects just how ugly our consumer society has become ... even as it starts to crumble.

Look at all the new retail developments - Liverpool One, the seafront at New Brighton, and the giant Asda now being thrown up in Birkeahead town centre. They offer space only for national chains - local enterprise and creativity is locked out.

As for that new Asda, doesn't Wirral Council (or the 'Death Star' as it is known where I live!) realise that the superstore, when opened, will bring a killer blow to Birkenhead's once vibrant market hall?

Similar wrong practice has afflicted property development in recent years. Look at all the silly skyscrapers built between Old Hall Street and the Princes Dock in Liverpool. They are shiny and flashy - and so of interest only to a few shiny and flashy people. Most folk are much too sensible to buy into such vanity projects - which is why there is great difficulty now for the developers and a distinct lack of uptake from people who prefer to live grounded lives in the real world.

Actually, with the American and European economies poised on the edge of disaster, I suspect all the flash building projects and ever expanding shopping malls are due for a sharp decline. Please note, the sad fantasists who would turn the atmospheric docklands between Birkenhead and Wallasey into a mini Shanghai, full of, you've guessed it, shiny and flash skyscrapers and chain shops and chain restaurants. Zzzzzzzz ... that's SO yesterday.

The world is changing fast. Shopping is moving online, and political and economic might is slipping surely away from the Western powers.

We are in for a lot of discomfort, I think, but we might just end up with an altogether better world eventually - where your daily bread is baked within a mile of where you live! Let's hope so.

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