There are occasions, beloved but bewildered readership, when this entire industry becomes a wicked parody of itself. Who in a billion years would have imagined that Count Markup de Price would find himself launching a discount line?
No longer will the nation's bag ladies queue for out-of date scraps from the skips round the back of the local Asda (hoping they get there before the proprietor of the local c-store). No, they'll be filling their elastic-banded boots at Waitrose with the newly affordable partridge breast and celeriac vol-au-vents, all washed down with an impertinent little Bourgeuil. No wonder we're in RPI deflation!
Thus the Chubby Grocer becomes the Grubby Choser and the air of desperation surrounding grocery retail becomes a thick fug. Even Tel's tawdry and pathetic Discounter ranges have greater respectability than this. What next? Fortnum's launches processed cheese triangles? Fauchon breaks into the UK spotted dick market? Morrisons goes downmarket to... to... It makes you shudder at any rate.
The real challenge for the Chubster won't be rounding up the hoi polloi, however, it'll be avoiding mass desertion from the indolent middle-class mummies who make up his groupies. He's got more fat to live off than most - obviously I'm only talking margins here - but even JLP can't endure a green-welly stampede for long.
Talking of penny-pinching - the latest departmental diktat insists I file detailed receipts for my entirely justifiable claims against the double-fronted second home on Smith Square. As I've repeatedly stressed, unlike some of my Right Dishonourable colleagues, there's some real work that gets done here - especially by my three Flipino cleaning ladies.
Since, furthermore - and like Sir Stupoured Rose - I'm often forced to work late, they all live here too. And at least one of them has a work permit.
No longer will the nation's bag ladies queue for out-of date scraps from the skips round the back of the local Asda (hoping they get there before the proprietor of the local c-store). No, they'll be filling their elastic-banded boots at Waitrose with the newly affordable partridge breast and celeriac vol-au-vents, all washed down with an impertinent little Bourgeuil. No wonder we're in RPI deflation!
Thus the Chubby Grocer becomes the Grubby Choser and the air of desperation surrounding grocery retail becomes a thick fug. Even Tel's tawdry and pathetic Discounter ranges have greater respectability than this. What next? Fortnum's launches processed cheese triangles? Fauchon breaks into the UK spotted dick market? Morrisons goes downmarket to... to... It makes you shudder at any rate.
The real challenge for the Chubster won't be rounding up the hoi polloi, however, it'll be avoiding mass desertion from the indolent middle-class mummies who make up his groupies. He's got more fat to live off than most - obviously I'm only talking margins here - but even JLP can't endure a green-welly stampede for long.
Talking of penny-pinching - the latest departmental diktat insists I file detailed receipts for my entirely justifiable claims against the double-fronted second home on Smith Square. As I've repeatedly stressed, unlike some of my Right Dishonourable colleagues, there's some real work that gets done here - especially by my three Flipino cleaning ladies.
Since, furthermore - and like Sir Stupoured Rose - I'm often forced to work late, they all live here too. And at least one of them has a work permit.
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