Last Minute Shopping Bargains - Without the Crowds

Image by mattbuck4950 via Flickr

For Westbury on Trym residents celebrating mid-winter festivals this month, and for those who tend to leave gift shopping to the last minute, the arrival of The Original Factory Shop in Shirehampton may provide a welcome alternative to the imaginatively-named The Mall at Cribbs Causeway. 


Although the emporium is not on the same gargantuan scale as certain other retail outlets, the Factory Shop offers branded and high street items at significantly lower prices than elsewhere.







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Out and About in Bristol

Traveling into and back out of the city (not once, but twice) today, the following sites caught my attention:

• an Orthodox Jewish man walking north on Clifton Triangle. Wearing a tallit, and it being a Saturday, I assumed he was on his way back from the synagogue on Park Row, home of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation. On my return from town (about 40 minutes later) I noticed that he had reached White Tree Roundabout. Driving on the Sabbath, except in a life-threatening emergency, is generally avoided by the majority of Orthodox Jews.
  

• the Whiteladies Road Farmers' Market, which seemed busier than I have seen it for some time, and which has now expanded to the east side of Whiteladies Road, with several stalls now in front of Barclays Bank. I also noticed some live music at the market, in the form of an acoustic guitar and accordion duo.
  

• a protest further down Whiteladies Road by the Bristol Palestine Solidarity Campaign against alleged bias by the BBC in its Death on the Med programme broadcast last Monday. I assume the Jewish gentleman (above) walked past this demo, which had around 20 participants with banners and placards.

• A black-lead gospel music event on College Green. No Greater Love appears to be a grass roots event, organised by a small team of local Christians. The music was cool, but the crowds were small.

• The Bristol Bike Show, organised by the local Motorcycle Action Group, had closed off the streets around St Nicholas' Market this afternoon for a get together, with live music and plenty of, well, motorbikes. Westbury on Trym residents may notice that the event's After-Show-Party takes place at 6.00 today at the Saracens Rugby Football Club at Cribbs Causeway, just up the road. Should make for a quiet end to the afternoon.

All in all, a good vibe and a nice cross-section of city life.

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My Plan? Maplin!

Despite the underlying misanthropic tendencies that more discerning readers of Trym Tales may have picked up from time to time, this blog, let it be said, is more than happy to give praise where it is due and today I am happy to commend the virtues of a new store at Cribbs Causeway.

Not being technically minded, I always dread going into electrical stores in case I get the Rowen Atkinson treatment.



Thankfully, I have found the staff at the new Maplin (located on the site of the old B and Q) much more helpful. First, they know what things are, what they do and how they work - always a great help when I arrive and say what I want to achieve not how I want to achieve it.

Secondly, they do not sell me things I don't need or want - a practice which in my case reduces the likelihood that I will return to a store.

Thirdly, the staff at Maplin Cribbs Causeway have never placed a paper bag upon my head - again, a definite plus when it comes to good customer service.

And finally, the staff do not have that terribly off-putting habit of wearing shiny ties and enquiring as to my emotional well being when I walk in the door. Instead, they have lots of useful stuff, they know what it does and they answer questions simply and clearly, leaving me to buy or not as I see fit.

Which is what I think a shop should be like.

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Ramadan Meets Asda

Was fascinated while wandering the aisles of Asda Cribbs Causeway this afternoon to notice an end-of-aisle display containing what at first sight looked like Advent calendars.

On closer examination, the thin rectangular packets did, indeed, contain small chocolates - one behind each door which was opened daily for a month.

The occasion, however, was not Advent but the Muslim month of Ramadan, when practicing Muslims fast during daylight hours, breaking their fast after the fourth prayer of the day at sunset. Now, thanks to the supermarket giant, the fast can be broken with a small piece of chocolate.

What will the enterprising retailers think of next? Eid eggs?

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Bristol Traffic Update

The traffic around Bristol has gone mad again this evening. Here are the low lights:

• M5 - stationary traffic between Jn 16 and 17 southbound (Aztec West to Cribbs Causeway)

• M5 - lane closed at Jn 18 southbound (Avonmouth)

• M32 - congestion northbound, heading out of town.

The A4 between Bristol and Bath, meanwhile, seems to have taken the brunt of the traffic off the M5 and is at a near standstill.

The Ring Road was pretty bad inbound when I was on it mid afternoon.

Agh!

More at the AA if you want the latest.

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The Orpheus Experience

Given half a chance, I always prefer the Orpheus Cinema to any of the larger multiplexes.

Laying aside for a moment the romanticism of attending an older and smaller cinema, the simple fact is that it's a lot cheaper to view films at the Henleaze cinema than it is at one of its larger competitors.

Compare my visit on Saturday night, for instance, with the equivalent experience up the road at Vue Cribbs Causeway where I would have paid £27.70 compared with £18 at Orpheus to take my family of five. That's before buying the popcorn. On Mondays, single tickets at Orpheus are a mere £2.80.

The possibility of walking to the Orpheus is another attraction, though one which I must confess, I rarely take. Then there is the simple charm of turning up at the front desk, buying your ticket from one person, stepping one pace to the left to be relieved of your change by the person behind the sweet counter and then, also one step away, handing over your recently-purchased ticket to be torn in two by the usher as you step into the auditorium itself. I would bet that the Orpheus Cinema tickets hold a record for shortest distance traveled from point of sale to point of destruction - about six feet.

The cinema has what Prince Charles might call "a sense of proportion", nestled as it is above Waitrose on Northumbria Drive and containing only three smaller-than-average screens. It also has a reasonable selection of up to date films at affordable prices. In fact, I would describe it as the cinemagraphic equivalent of the Westbury farmers' market - local, seasonal and direct.

Boom, boom.

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The Mall Bristol - Thank Goodness for Clarity Over the Name

The Galleries - as we've all been used to calling the shopping centre in Broadmead for the last 10 years - is to change its name.

From April 1st (no, seriously) the three-story retail building will be officially renamed: its new name will be The Mall Bristol. Please remember this name and try not to confuse it with anything else.

This choice of name, say the building's owners (a company with the potentially confusing name of The Mall) had originally wanted to give the building a totally different name following its recent £11 million revamp. Predictably, the preferred name was...... The Mall - a name which must have taken hours of blue-sky, out-of-the-box thinking on the part of the company's marketing and branding team.

Having burned the midnight oil in coming up with this innovative name for a shopping centre, the company then decided to change it (says the Evening Post) after "shoppers said it could be confused with the regional shopping centre of the same name at Cribbs Causeway." Shoppers! What do they know about it?

Presumably, The Mall (the company) wished to help its customers avoid the following Saturday morning text conversations:

Tracey: whre r u?

Lisa: on d bus goin 2 d mll

Tracey: me 2 c u thr

Lisa: whre shll we mt?

Tracey: fontain

Lisa: aint no fntain at d mll

Tracey: yer is nxt 2 smiffs

Lisa: na, wrng mll im goin 2 mll in twn

Tracey: soz c u ltr


Confusion thus averted, the new building will now be clearly referred to by all Bristolians as The Mall Bristol.

Unless of course, shoppers start to abbreviate its name. I wonder what they might start shortening it to?

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Avonmouth Wind Turbines - No Brainer

Bristol City Council are consulting on placing two large wind turbines on a disused oil tank site in Avonmouth and want to hear the views of the great Bristol public.

The turbines are designed to supply electricity direct to the council - covering about 20% of its current electricity costs.

Trym Tales says, if we can't place turbines on a brown field site which is surrounded by warehouses and industrial sites, where can we place them? Let's build them and be proud of it.

Whether you agree or not, you can have your say here and see all the background information on the proposal.

On a related note, the Telegraph reports that next week's budget will include measures allowing individual households to generate electricity from wind turbines or solar panels on their roofs and sell it to the national grid at guaranteed prices.

As reported on this blog last week, B & Q are now selling domestic wind turbines at Cribbs Causeway for under £1900 (including fitting). It's surely only a matter of time before they start appearing on roofs across Bristol. None too soon, in my view.

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Torwood House Misses a Tick

I was mildly amused yesterday by an advert I saw on the screen at the Vue Cinema at Cribbs Causeway.

The ad, from the £1,425 per term independent Torwood House School in Redland, declared that the school was "committed to your childs individual development."

Perhaps the school does not feel that apostrophes are an important part of child development any more.

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Wind Farm at Cribbs Causeway?

Trym Tales understands that a planning application is due to be submitted later this month to install six small wind turbines on the roof of Marks and Spencer's flagship store in Cribbs Causeway.

The turbines would generate electricity for use in the regional shopping centre.

The trend towards placing turbines in urban areas is already well established and looks set to continue after the successful trial of two larger wind turbines at Avonmouth.

On the subject of Cribbs Causeway, DIY superstore B & Q now stock a supply of individual wind turbine systems for use on domestic properties in the Bristol area. The WS1200 micro-wind system comes fully installed on the roof and connected to the domestic supply for the production of free and clean electricity. The price of the 4 meter high system is a breezy £1898. Planning permission is required.

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