Seasonal Nonsense

Every year, without fail, we get a warning from retailers that Christmas sales are down on last year; that they will be discounting goods in the next few days to shift stock; and that the last minute rush might be greater than last year, making it possible you won't find the presents you want to buy.

I expect retailers to do this. It's classic sales spiel. Or lies in other words. "Sale Now On" means nothing: of course there's sale now on - it's a shop selling stuff, which is also known as a "sale" - but it's immediate and it lies by implying that there's something extra special to what prices they are accepting for their wares at this very moment when there isn't. The same with the identical doom and gloom predictions they issue each year about Christmas. It's just nonsense.

Journalists keep publishing this nonsense. Of course, most journalists will have walked in a town centre in the past month or two and experience the scrum of bodies all bustling around buying the latest gadgets and must haves for nearest and dearest. It's the human equivalent of the great migrations of African wildlife reaching a ford in a river, concentrating into a dense mass of bodies all pushing and shoving to get to the other side. Any fool knows that the high street is busy as hell.

But they keep on publishing because it's bad news, it's frightening, it's scary, it plays on a misguided sense of nationalism (if we don't buy loads of stuff now the economy will collapse - spend for Britain!) and editors love a good bad news story more than they like probing the contents of press releases made by shop keepers.

Keep on shopping. Shop more. Time is running out. The economy will collapse if you don't. There will be bargains to be had. There is a sale. now. on.