Agenda 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/22/white-goods-set-to-soar-on-black-friday-shoppers-rush-beat-price-rises-brexit This year’s  Black Friday  will be the biggest yet  Black Friday. Another American "event" imported to this country by shops and retail businesses driven by possibilities of making even more profits. Black Friday soon to be followed by Cyber Monday, yet another American phenomenon rather than "a UK tradition" as the Sun (who else) would have us believe, giving consumers the opportunity to purchase products at ridiculously reduced prices. The issue that I have with these two examples of business greed giving the public the likelihood of becoming involved in fist fights between the rows of shelves in Argos or a thousand and one other shops in the high street, and/or experiencing the trauma of websites crashing as customers try to purchase on line, is that both Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not just 1 day events. I have ...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/28/black-friday-fever-police-battle-shoppers?commentpage=1   Bargain hunting turns violent as American phenomenon comes to UK     Raw greed    Another imported "Ponzi" from the United States, artificially created to extend even further, the "Christmas Shopping" frenzy and make more profits for the stores and manufactures. Over the past week, my e-mail has been inundated with "junk" mail from practically every know on line supplier, advertising "Black Friday" bargains and screaming their "buy now" messages. It is a sad and almost sinister phenomena in British society which now, after only two or three years vigorous promoting has firmly established “Black Friday”, as a regular November event. The photographs and video reports of the fighting in Asda, Tesco and numerous other stores around the country, the police and security staff separating hysterical "s...

  http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/29/fights-asda-black-friday-us-shoppers Black Friday chaos as fights break out over televisions Black Friday, seems to have been  imported into the UK   My e-mail inbox has been inundated over the last week or so, with mail from Asda. Amazon, Curry's, Big Fish Games, Lights for Fun, Argos and what seems to be a hundred other retail outlets, all telling me how many "wonderful deals" are available for their "Black Friday" event. It seems to me that yet another "Americanism" has crept into the British way of life, but Black Friday is perhaps the most insidious one to arrive on British shores so far. Coming as it does just 25 days prior to Christmas, Black Friday provides another opportunity for the "hard pressed" shops and supermarkets to capitalise on the potential of an artificially created consumer market. However, many see it as just another exercise to persuade shoppers to bu...

 A phone call to Debenhams and a visit to Debenhams on line.   Where are all the people? Debenhams. The most user unfriendly site in the whole www area. I have just spent 20 minutes on the telephone (10p per minute plus network charges) listening to a recorded voice automatically transferring to an automated response,giving umpteen options, asking for an account number and then not recognising it. Another call, and after pressing # a number of times (tip received from Santander complaints desk) I found a human voice (which sounded like he was in Mumbai) who promptly told me to ring back in 30 minutes as their systems were down and he could not help. We exchanged a few words and I hung up. A visit to the Debenhams site proved less than useful as after rummaging around in their "Help" sections and being advised to ring the telephone number I had previously used (10p per minute plus network charges) and finding no trace of an e-mail address, I gave up on that too. ...