Rev Billy Comes to Bristol

How on earth could I have missed it?

I refer of course to the visit to Bristol of the legendary Rev Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping bringing their gospel of freedom from consumrism to Cabot Circus and Broadmead.

What was I thinking of by missing the show?

Photos here .

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Westbury on Trym News

As the weekend approaches, a round up of some of the mundane but none the less mildly interesting events or developments in and around the village.

The large house at the bottom of Henbury Road remains unsold and the owners appear to have lost faith with estate agent Savills, the six-bedroom property now being marketed by Andrews. The asking price for the executive property has dropped in price by £100,000 over the last eight months.

I have never seen the sign at the entrance to Red Maids School looking quite so scrubbed and pristine. Could the school's open day have anything to do with this dramatic facelift?

Another brave entrepreneur has taken on the commercial property at the top of Westbury Hill, near its junction with Falcondale Road and Grange Court Road. This time, it has become a retail wine merchant. I wonder if this business will fare any better than the numerous car showrooms and other outlets that have occupied this oddly-sited commercial space over the last ten years.

The Westbury on Trym local food market takes place this Saturday morning for all things locally sourced.

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Sellotape

Is it my imagination, or is sellotape - the UK's leading brand of pressure-sensitive adhesive tape, of course - becoming thinner, less sticky and more difficult to find the end of?

Hmm.

Not sure what the Bristol, much less the Westbury on Trym connection is with this question.

Hmm.

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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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Tesco Targets North Street

Charlie Bolton, Bristol's only Green Party Councillor, is attempting to prevent the opening of a Tesco store on North Street, Ashton (or is it Southville?)

His reasons are coherent and sensible and can be read on his blog here.

They are also unlikely to succeed - unless there is a massive movement from grass roots consumers to (a) oppose the plan and (b) to refuse to use the store if it does open.

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Plastic Bottle Success

Bristol residents who want to recycle but are frustrated by the difficulty of doing so with plastic bottles may take some small comfort from the city's recognition by the environmental charity Recoup who have described Bristol as the number two city in the country for plastic recycling.

Bristol residents recycled nearly 930 tonnes of plastic bottles in 2007 via the city’s 39 plastic bottle banks. In May, three new banks were opened - bringing closer the aim of all residents living within a mile of such a facility. There are now 42 plastic bottle recycling sites in the city, compared with only 7 in 2004. Sites currently collect over 77 tonnes of bottles a month. A map of the plastic recycling sites can be viewed here.

Nationally, an average household uses 500 plastic bottles a year, of which 130 are recycled. In 2006, the cost of producing these these bottles was £50 million with a further £100 million spent on getting rid of them.

Made originally from oil, plastics remain a key target area for those seeking to reduce carbon emissions at both the manufacturing, transportation and disposal stages. More on the issue of plastics and recycling at Recoup.

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Co-op, Somerfield and the Future of Food in Westbury

If, as the Evening Post has confirmed, the Co-op is attempting to buy the Somerfield chain, the future for food shopping in Westbury on Trym looks, well, interesting to say the least.

When the new Somerfield convenience store opened on Falcondale Road earlier this year, I asked the duty manager whether the old Somerfield in the village could survive. She gave me one of those scripted answers that we all know have come from head office when asked an awkward question - which confirmed my view that the Canford Road Somerfield was under threat.

Now, with the Co-op interested in taking over Somerfield, things look even more complex. Co-op have, of course, a successful store on Stoke Lane. Will they really want two others within a mile of that one?

Beyond these economic and business issues, however, is the more fundamental question: how will we continue to feed ourselves if our strategy for doing so is so dependent on oil? From the use of intensive farming methods to the transportation of food around the world, to the industrial processing methods, the plastic packaging, the congestion on our roads from supermarket lorries and the drive to the supermarket to buy increasingly expensive food carried home in plastic bags, the whole way we feed ourselves is increasingly being seen for what it is: unsustainable.

There is an alternative: eating locally grown food in season.

The monthly farmers' market at Westbury on Trym Primary School is a small step towards that model. The next step is to grow some of our own.

I know it sounds crazy but that's how good ideas often start - at the fringe of society. Eventually they appear obvious solutions and everyone takes them for granted.

At least, that's how I see it.

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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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Westbury Residents Divided Over New Texaco Somerfield

Westbury on Trym has been split apart by the opening of the new Texaco Somerfield on Falcondale Road.

The divisions - exclusively revealed on Trym Tales following an exhaustive poll of blog readers - cast doubt on the suburb's ability to remain united in the wake of the supermarket's latest development in the heart of the community.

"The village feels like Mitovica," said one Westbury resident who wished to remain anonymous. "We all used to get on happily until the petrol station was bulldozed."

Key survey findings reveal:

• 33% of residents describe the petrol station as "the source of all evil"
• an identical percentage accept that "it's got to go somewhere"
• a staggering 22% claim the new mart means that "all my shopping needs are met at last"
• a mere 11% describe the dadaist building as "a wonder of design and innovation"

With opinion so sharply divided, community leaders on both sides of the River Trym (which flows symbolically underneath the re-built petrol station) have appealed for calm in light of the shock survey.

"We appeal for calm," said one community leader on the north pro-Somerfield bank who wished to remain anonymous.

"So do we," replied a south-bank leader, "though we do have grave concerns for the long-term viability of the Canford Road Somerfield."



Editor's notes:

The Trym Tales survey was conducted over a 28 day period in Jan-Feb 2008. The nine votes cast represent the lowest turn out for a local survey since records began.

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Somerfield Falcondale Road - A Triumph of Convenience over Aesthetics

Fanfares, balloons, bunting and celebrities were conspicuously absent this morning when, a little after 9.00 a.m. the new Somerfield/Texaco petrol station and convenience store in Westbury on Trym opened its automatic doors and switched on its pumps for the general public.

The low-key opening (which I must confess looked touch and go at 11.00 last night when the men in hi-visibility jackets and hard hats were still rushing around) has followed months of demolishing, cutting, digging and re-building.

The new store, rising phoenix-like from the petrochemical fumes, looks, well... new. Beyond that, I am puzzled as to the branding and design issues involved.

Somerfield's buy out of Texaco forecourts happened several years ago and there seems to have been confusion over the branding policy ever since. Here in Westbury (as in Shirerhampton) we have red and black Texaco petrol pumps juxtaposed with a blue and yellow Somerfield store front.

This may work for Esso/Tesco on Henleaze Road where the two companies' blue, white and red blend in with each other. With Texaco/Somerfield, by contrast, the final product puts me in mind of art class in nursery school where the four year-olds are given free rein with the paint pots.

The colour clash is the more perplexing when considering that Bristol's other new Somerfield petrol station (opposite Hengrove Leisure Centre in the south of the City) is branded entirely in Somerfield colours - including the pumps.

Is there something we're not being told here or are different parts of Bristol managed by different teams of PR people?

Whatever, at least I won't have to walk so far for my milk and papers.

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McColl Booze Buster

Residents and visitors to Westbury on Trym High Street will have noticed the latest addition to the store front at the new McColl shop in the village, a development described earlier in Trym Tales.

As well as its usual supply of newspapers, bread and processed food, the convenience store is now describing itself as a "Booze Buster" after having entered into a franchise arrangement with the north-west based supplier of cut price alcohol.

With the corner store already having an existing licence to sell alcohol off the premises, the new arrangement is an attempt to capitalise on this through a partnership that aims to take on the might of the supermarkets.

As a piece of trivia, readers might be interested to know that the Booze Buster chain is owned by Iranian entrepreneur Nader Haghighi, owner of the Wine Cellar chain of stores, who following the death of his father in Iran became the family bread winner at the age of nine. Arriving in the UK in 1979, he worked part-time at Pizzaland and later at Thresher where he eventually became Operations Director responsible for 1,000 stores.

Meanwhile, residents of the village of Trimbsbury in BANES have successfully campaigned for the removal of the Booze Buster sign from their local village store, describing it as "inappropriate" for the area.

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Westbury's Finest?

Westbury on Trym residents and visitors will have noticed the new Finest Deli that has opened on Canford Lane opposite Somerfield.

Intrigued by all things edible, I set off to investigate and have a chat with the shop owner Bridget who was very happy to tell me all about the new venture, which opened at the end of November last year.

Declining Bridget's kind offers of free snacks in the interests of journalistic objectivity, I learned that she and her business partner Richard aim to provide a food shop that specialises in quality produce at affordable prices.

Although the store has a range of locally-sourced items - including faggots and scotch eggs from the Iron Acton Farm, a range of cheeses from the Bath-based Fine Cheese Company and Gloucester Old Spot Pork - local produce alone is not its central doctrine. Similarly, it is not an organic store, though it carries some organic products. Finest, as the name implies, is interested in quality food.


The range of foods on offer seemed familiar rather than totally unknown, which fits Bridget's description of the store's produce as "unusual but not too exotic." The pick and mix selection (right) seemed like a tasty way of spending a few quid.

The Deli is the result of many years in the food and retail trade (including a stint with Tesco) and the formation of the Snackology company which supplies quality snacks to petrol and convenience stores. Westbury on Trym was chosen as the location for the retail outlet after a process of research and provides an example of the changing nature of shops in the village, a trend highlighted in an earlier post on this blog.

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National Prize Register - a Clever Use of a Comma

Despite having signed up several years ago with the Mail Preference Service, I still receive occasional junk mail. A recent example caught my eye and made me burst out laughing at the audacity of the company in question. If the writer were so inclined, he (or she) could be making a career as a writer or copy editor rather than a marketer of "prizes" from a spare room in Leeds.

After the initial greeting informing me that I was guaranteed to receive one of the following fantastic awards, the list of prizes was presented to me. The list, in handwritten font, was as follows. Please read it carefully, paying particular attention to the use of commas.

A cheque for £15,000, a Sony 42" Wide screen TV, £1,000 in cash, a Jeep, Omega or Rolex wristwatch, an Internet ready Dell laptop or £200 in cash.

Experience has shown that with such a list, the hapless recipient will always be given the cheapest prize. On this list, however, the cheapest prize appears to be an Omega wristwatch, available on eBay from £99 up. On closer examination, however, it is apparent that the cheapest gift is in fact a Jeep wristwatch, available on eBay from as low as £0.01.

The clever use of the comma is confirmed by the footnote at the bottom of the page which states that there are 100+ Jeep watches to be given away (in other words, about 50,000 of them) compared with one Rolex, one Omega and one cash prize of £15,000 (which has presumably already been awarded to a distant nephew in Ukraine).

To add insult to injury, the lucky winners of the Jeep wristwatch will be required to pay a £7.99 "insured delivery charge", a charge which for some reason is not required for those contestants lucky enough to win one of the five Dell laptops or the three £1000 prizes. This insurance cover is in addition to the cost of calling the 24-hour claim line: calls to the 0906 premium number cost £1.50 per minute and will last 6 minutes.

So, armed with this unmissable offer of spending £16.99 on a half-penny watch from the far east, I will be using my first class stamp (also requested by National Prize Register) to forward their letter to the relevant authorities in the hope that the owner may be encouraged to pursue an alternative career in the future.

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