Manter
Lunch Mob
Brixton road proves that one too!
Champagne & Fromage opening in Brixton soon
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
that is a dull high street
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
with extortionate rents.
editor
hiraethified
*can't be arsed.
editor
hiraethified
Brixton's future, I fear.
Ms T
Honey-coloured ramparts
Brixton High Street is already dull, like most other High Streets. It depressed the hell out of me that all three of the Foot Locker units became mobile phone shops, plus half of Woolies, plus a previously family business (Websters). Streatham has a much more diverse High Street, tatty though it is.
simonSW2
Well-Known Member
This thread is an argument about symbolism - absolutely - because there is no singular purpose / function to Champagne and posh cheese apart from the symbolic. The price dictates the pleasure, a pleasure derived from a sense of superiority. Apple laptops and suchlike are marketed the same way as champagne, and many can't afford any of this stuff, so I see how you have conflated the champagne with the computers.
However, the point about the phones and computers being different to Champers is that while they are all pitched as status objects, you can still apply for the job / phone the hospital / document the decline of your locality / Skype your long lost relatives with a bit of technology. Not so much with cheese. A phone and a computer are next on the list after 'basic essentials', and they have a use, while Champagne isn't on the list at all.
Now it's all a right old jolly laugh of course and nothing wrong with spunking one's hard-inherited cash and chowing down on hollow and purposeless status symbols and conversation pieces - but many many people are struggling with basic survival here so they would be justified to see C&F as a slap in the face. They might also see someone with a laptop and be envious too but the level of insult is completely different. There's a distinction between function (albeit expensive) and just mindlessly lording it up.
A concern I have with this thread is the convenient attempt to shut down debate (or just to have a lame pop at the editor) by suggesting that if you have a smartphone and a computer, you aren't poor 'enough' to comment or have an opinion. Irony being that if you were 'legit', you wouldn't have the kit to make a comment anyway.
C&F is a scapegoat because even if it didn't exist, the rents / house prices and gentrification would still be going on. Our government, our council, our Mayor, and a large enough number of old folk who vote endorse it all. In that sense C&F are simply an unfortunate side effect, so maybe we shouldn't wish them ill, or protest against them... or should we? Are these C&F people really salt-of-the-earth folk who just want to set up a little stall of wares, be part of the local community and earn an honest wage? Are they fuck. They don't give a fucking shit about Brixton, it's people, it's past, or it's future (unless any of that is commodifiable). They could have parachuted in to any part of London. There's no interest or loyalty. They are grasping, opportunist, empire building, jumped up, exploitative, Tory-boy pricks, flashing a v-sign at Brixton.
The scary bit is the lack of self-awareness. C&F seem confused and surprised by the reaction to their arrival. It goes to show that gentrification is propelled by people (from politicians, businesses and consumers) who really don't think things through.
really?
Hollis
bloody furious
I dunno, it tastes okay as well - and you get pissed quicker 'cause of the bubbles.
editor
hiraethified
Exactly. The whole argument is facile.
Champagne is often branded (and priced) as an aspirational status symbol, and the opportunity to sip the stuff in a champagne bar is something that is likely to remain out of the financial reach of many local residents (although they may enjoy a cheap bottle from a supermarket for a very special occasion).
Internet access, on the other hand, is often considered to be a ''fundamental right' and only a tiny proportion of laptops and smartphones are marketed in the same fashion as champagne. To many people, laptops and smartphones are just everyday, essential tools of communication/work/creative expression and their prospects may be very much the worse for not having access to them.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
So is your position that if someone doesn't want C+F closed down then they are *automatically* someone who is blind to the problems of inequality?
DRINK?
bummed by karmachameleon
Some posh bloke started giving the staff a hard time last night because he was unable to get a drink when he arrived at the bar as last orders were called. Happily his girlfriend put him straight, commenting, "Stop being such a fucking arsehole."
I have never ever seen a 'working class' bloke do this
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
it all began to go wrong when the baked potato place and bradys shut
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
people of all classes can be arses in pubs, even in brixton
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
champagne c.12% fosters c.4%
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
The rest of your post was good, but it's absurd to claim that everyone who drinks champagne and eats posh cheese does it because they think they're superior.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
No - as we can see from the Brixton Village thread - only laaads/LADS behave badly.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
And when all the enemy kulaks are dead we'll kill ... each other
Agent Sparrow
the age of slippers and migraines
I basically agree with you on simonSW2's post - good post but not quite sure the motive for posh cheese/champagne is always superiority. There is definitely a sense of frivolousness and luxury about it that adds to the experience, but I'm not sure that's identical to superiority.
Having said that, time and place can shift the context. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I quite like champagne, for a treat. Occasionally that might be a bottle at home, more occasionally it has been a glass somewhere swanky. Yet I would feel really uncomfortable having a glass at C+F, both because of the sociodemographic nature of the area and also because Brixton seems "normal" to me rather than luxury, and won't be doing so.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
To clarify, are you accusing the people who have posted on this thread that they've had a look in C&F and/or bought something there, of doing so because they want to derive pleasure from a sense of superiority?
Because I think that what I and others find irritating about some of the stuff being posted on this thread is that it's just lazy caricaturisation, of a kind that wouldn't be tolerated directed at other targets. An assumption that the only possible reason people might go there is to flaunt their wealth and lord it up over the neighbourhood poor.
And then when we try and make this point, certain posters then try and twist things to make it seem like we don't give a toss about the changes happening in Brixton or the poverty that exists nearby, and so on.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
This is an example of what people are reacting to. Or what I'm reacting to, at least.
1) Note the use of the word "waste". Not "spend". There's a judgement made about the frivolity of the purchase. This is the "spending money on things I don't like" thing. Hence comments about peersonal choices to spend more than necessary on, say, a smartphone.
2) The assumption that someone making a comment about £40 not being all that expensive compared to certain things, automatically has no concept of the possibility that it *is* a lot of money to many people in other situations. It's either disingenuous or it's patronising. Either way it's very irritating.
simonSW2
Well-Known Member
It's okay people, you can still have a glass of Champagne without feeling like an evil oppressor!
I'm not saying anyone who drinks Champagne does so intentionally to act or feel superior, I'm saying the drink is so heavily loaded with subliminal associations of 'success'
(Success as defined by Western neo-liberal ideology) that the appeal of it is principally I n what it signifies, rather than the liquid itself or the alcohol content.
You might just want to try it, innocently, and without being mean or showy, and that's allright, but somewhere below the surface is a devisive endorsement.
I remember a party where a few guys were hoofing cocaine off a coffee table while also discussing how mad it was that someone is shot dead in Mexico every 15 minutes. These guys weren't stood on the border with AK-47's aimed at Mexican heads, but they are endorsing.
There are plenty of folk who don't like inequality who will still pop into C&F for some futile fromage, so what, in the scheme it doesn't matter I suppose. I choose not to partake.
I'm not saying anyone who drinks Champagne does so intentionally to act or feel superior, I'm saying the drink is so heavily loaded with subliminal associations of 'success'
(Success as defined by Western neo-liberal ideology) that the appeal of it is principally I n what it signifies, rather than the liquid itself or the alcohol content.
You might just want to try it, innocently, and without being mean or showy, and that's allright, but somewhere below the surface is a devisive endorsement.
I remember a party where a few guys were hoofing cocaine off a coffee table while also discussing how mad it was that someone is shot dead in Mexico every 15 minutes. These guys weren't stood on the border with AK-47's aimed at Mexican heads, but they are endorsing.
There are plenty of folk who don't like inequality who will still pop into C&F for some futile fromage, so what, in the scheme it doesn't matter I suppose. I choose not to partake.
boohoo
No.
^^^This!
Most the time when you haven't got lots of dosh, your main concern is making ends meet, where you do your shopping, have you got enough cash to clothe yourself, your family, hoping your rent or any other bills don't go up, turning the hot water switch off and just putting it on when you need it, turning the heating down.
There are many more things to get angry about before you get to the C & F shop.
Chilavert
Undermining strikes :-(
Thanks so much for your approval.
editor
hiraethified
I've asked quite a few people around my estate, friends, people in the local cafes/pubs and amongst the traders, yes.
