High Street Robbery

I received a Marks and Sparks voucher for my birthday which I put to one side with the intention of spending on works trousers, shirts, underpants or any of those other nerdy things that Marks and Sparks tend to do well (essentially, vaguely decent work-wear that is machine washable). I never got around to spending the thing so I had a look at their website and saw that they did a presentable looking pair of jeans for the £25 that the voucher covered. Noticing that their standard delivery fee was £3.50, I opted to pick the item up from their Falkirk High Street branch: I could call in on my way back to work so I wouldn’t have to make a special journey.

I find that I go high street shopping less and less frequently these days. I think the main reason for this is that I am a man and can’t get over the single bloody awfulness of the whole experience. However, this was a straight in, straight out, no messing about journey just before closing time.To save the misery of finding a parking space I opted to go for the multi-story car park in the Howgate Shopping Centre. After all, it was only ten minutes so how much could it cost? £1.50 – that’s how much it bloody cost or, to put it in perspective, £9 an hour. Now we are constantly told that the high street is struggling to compete with the downturn in the economy combined with competition from the internet and out-of-town shopping centres but if they charge that much for parking I’m not really surprised. I won’t be back in a hurry.

The real killer in all this is that the jeans are horrible. They are made out of some thin, scratchy, non-denim like material and even after giving them a wash they are still unpleasant. So, I’ll have to go back and change them. Bugger!