I know where I am going to be on Friday 27 November: Asda. It is the date of this year’s so called Black Friday, the day when thousands of people head off to their local shops and get into a fight about who saw a discounted telly first – and Asda are not participating. Given Asda actually started this great tradition – in 2013 – they probably have a lot to answer for, but two years later, they’re not bothering anymore.
Black Friday was always, to me anyway, the name of one of my favourite Steely Dan songs and the day back in 1869 when the price of gold collapsed in the New York Gold Room, but nowadays it’s something very different. Black Friday represents the collective explosion of a few million British brains falling out.
Our Black Friday reminds me of the classic Monty Python sketch which went as follows:
Mrs Non-Robinson: Morning Mrs Robinson.
Mrs Robinson: Mornin’ Mrs Non-Robinson.
Mrs Non-Robinson: Been shopping?
Mrs Robinson: No, … I’ve been shopping.
Mrs Non-Robinson: What’d you buy?
Mrs Robinson: A piston engine.
Mrs Non-Robinson: What d’you buy that for?
Mrs Robinson: It was a bargain.
Mrs Non-Gorilla: Bloody rubbish.
I thought that summed it all up really. Whilst nowadays Mrs Non-Robinson goes to Tesco to buy loads of things she doesn’t really need, in the old days she was satisfied with a piston engine because it was “a bargain”.
I wonder where the people who stormed Asda last year in search of a cheap telly found out about Black Friday? Did they see an ad on the telly, which suggests they already might have had one in the first place, or perhaps they just wanted another one? It was a bargain, wasn’t it? Why wouldn’t you. But imagine the embarrassment when you turn up on the Six O Clock News, scrambling to get your mitts on an item reduced from, say, £1000 to a mere £995?
As ever, I shall carry out my festive shopping on the internet. I will not need to arse around for hours trying to find a parking space or participate in all-in wrestling in order to reach the technology section. Good luck on Black Friday, if that floats your boat. When you’ve finished, then come and meet me in the pub. I’ll have been there for hours.
