British Dopers, this is really stupid, but...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

do you guys have supermarkets in the same sense we do here in the states? The reason I ask is this – here is a pretty good picture of the typical Wal-Mart in the US. It is brightly lit, nice, wide aisles, and easy-to-find (ok, easy for me, anyway) merchandise. When I watch BBCA, it seems all the “supermarkets” shown on the shows there are more akin to what I remember in my childhood – more like this. Cramped, cluttered and technologically lacking.

This is something I have noticed more than once. So, fight some ignorance, British dopers – what is your local “supermarket” like? Bright, shiny, well-spaced and technologically up-to-date or crusty, dimly lit, cluttered ancient cash registers and food? If you don’t mind, feel free to let me know exactly (as in the town or even just general N/W/E/S) where you are.

Uhm, everyone else (non-British dopers) feel free to let me know if I am just somehow lucky being pretty well in Suburbia or whatever.

2

Well, New York City (especially Manhattan) grocery stores are small, cramped, and frequently kind of dingy. While they may have a surprisingly wide variety of types of products, they may only have one or two brands of the thing, not five like a suburban grocery store might. There are certainly exceptions to this, but even Fairway, which has a huge range of obscure foods from everywhere (and the giant refrigerated room!) is a cramped warren of slightly dirty aisles.

3

What are you watching on BBCA? If it’s Eastenders or the like, those shops are just little neighbourhood things that vary greatly in style on the random whim of the shopkeeper. The big chains - Tesco, Asda (owned by Walmart), Morrisons and Sainsburies - are invariably modern in style and content. There’s a fair variation in size though, depending on the community they service.

4

Having been in the UK several times, and being an American, I’ll bite.

Yes, they have modern grocery stores, much like ours. I’ve shopped in Sainsbury’s, TESCO, and Waitrose, both the “Sainsbury’s Local” size and the more normal supermarket size.

About the only difference is the slight difference in products carried, in the larger ones. By that, I mean that they generally have different stuff in a different product mix than a US store, although you get the same effect if you go to a ethnic-oriented supermarket chain like Fiesta (Houston/Dallas/elsewhere). One strange thing was the concept of store-brand beer. I just can’t imagine seeing “Big-K Lager” at Kroger (although the Lawson brand is supposedly a house brand)

Otherwise, there was nothing to be shocked by. Brightly lit- possibly more so than ours, they have UPC code scanners, grocery bags, etc…

The smaller ones are more of a unique concept versus those in the US. They’re not much bigger than an convenience store, but have all the usual grocery store things, only in less abundance, unlike your typical convenience store.

5

From my limited experience in England, British supermarkets are not as large as the largest Wal Marts in the US, and the car parks are a lot smaller, but they look much the same as American supermarkets.

6

Tesco Gin or Tesco Whiskey are both sights to behold.

7

Our local Walmart is not as lovely as the OP describes. Nope.

However, I have been to the UK and there are many modern supermarkets there, as bright, spacious, and stocked as one could wish.

8

You can get spotted dick in the UK.

9

I don’t know how common this usage is in Britain, but the big Walmart you linked to is a hypermarket, not a supermarket. The BBC may use those terms differently.

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Struan – funny thing, I have never watched Eastenders. I watch Coupling, My Family, Little Britain, AbFab and a few others. While many of them are definitely older shows, some of them aren’t that old, so I wondered.

I assumed that it was more an indication of (in particular, with My Family*) large city issues. I have been to (and lived in) many large cities within the US, so I know that the stores in those places tend to be more like the second picture I posted (although, interestingly enough, that picture came from a Google Image Search for “Winn-Dixie” which is distinctly southern).

I knew it was a stupid question, but my husband and I were discussing this last night and he said, “well, you know even on BBC World News, it’s like they’re stuck in the 70’s – the male reporters’ hair is always more traditional and their jackets are straight out of 1975!” Ok, so he kind of had a point, and I thought, “you know, we 'merkins do put a lot more of our money into things that other cultures see as frivolous, maybe having high-tech groceries is just low on the priority list in Britain!”

Thanks for fighting my ignorance. We are hoping to get to Ireland and Scotland when my husband comes back from deployment (rumours vary as to when deployment will be) so I can check it out on my own then, but well, I wondered now!

Oh, and dangermom, not all of our local Wal-Marts are as lovely as I described, but the majority are. Funny enough, the store closest to where I work (and the one in which my husband works when he is not conscripted) is one of those places you just don’t go to after dark if you know what I mean. It’s not even in a bad area, just a bad store. The other two that are close by are both new (as in one was just built within the last 5 years the other was just remodeled last year) and quite nice.

*just a side note – that show is the only television show with real, live actors (as opposed cartoons) that actually makes me laugh out loud. I can’t help it, it cracks me up all the time. I swear, though, I wish they’d get rid of all the stupid reality shows and give us some more current sitcoms from BBC.

11

Ah Litoris, are you falling into the trap of the Tennessee girl with whom I went to see Far and Away in Chattanooga, who asked “do they still live in mud huts in Ireland?” (to which I replied “do you still have wagon races across Oklahoma in the US?”).

Having lived in both countries, the difference that I note between supermarkets in the two countries are as follows:[ul][li]Smaller parking lots in the UK.[/li][li]Smaller aisles in the UK.[/li][li]Lower ceilings in the UK.[/li][li]Vegetables not under running water in the UK.[/li][li]Way, way, way less selection in the UK.[/ul]However, the last one isn’t necessarily a critique. We have for example, about 30 varieties of breakfast cereal in any given UK supermarket. Maybe 40. In my possibly faulty memory, there is a choice of about 200 different cereals in an equivalent US supermarket. Or about 50 kinds of peanut butter. Whereas my local Sainsbury’s has about six different kinds available. To which I, being ethnocentric, ask: how many choices could you possibly fucking need?![/li]
Finally, I don’t think Wal*Mart is a decent comparison with a regular supermarket. That’s something that we really don’t have over here (yet…). The only thing I can think of that comes close to it is a French hypermarché.

12

Jewel-Osco is one of Illinois largest grocery/drugstore chains and they sell house brand booze, not under the Osco moniker anymore though. I think my mom has a bottle of Osco brand tequila somewhere in the house. Shudder.

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Not unless youre falling into the trap of pretty much everyone who assumes that just because I live in TN, I must be stupid and have never lived anywhere outside of this state. :smiley:

As to all the comments about Wal-Mart not being a supermarket – uhm, well, let’s not debate semantics, shall we? Let me define what I mean by supermarket – the place where you go for your groceries. Does that work? I only found the pictures as they were good representations of the overall feel of the stores I was trying to talk about. I usually buy my groceries at Kroger anyway.

14

I think perhaps part of it is that these shows are alluding to older shows like Coronation Street that portray somewhat idyllic rural and urban communities with small sturdy businesses. It is also perhaps that it’s cheaper and easier to build a small set and film on it than film on location?

15

Just a WAG, but stores in those shows may well just be sets.

There are definite differences in things like the cut of a suit, or hairstyles between our two countries. A real British suit from the '70s (unless it was something nice and timeless from Gieves and Hawkes) would have ridiculous lapels, be maroon and have a herringbone pattern. chowder will probably remember these with fondness. With the hair, there’s a certain American Gentleman’s hairstyle which is almost unknown in the UK. It’s best described as “big hair” and a good recent example would be John Kerry’s tonsure. To the British eye, such a style suggests that the chap in question is altogether rather too familiar with hair lacquer. :wink:

Well, I hope your husband gets back safe and sound, and you can come over and see for yourselves. :cool:

16

Store brands seem to be more prominent in British supermarkets, true (although I’m sure a lot of the brands in US supermarkets are store brands in disguise). It’s something I notice when I see mention of grocery and household products here - Americans usually refer to specific brands of product, whereas if you look in a typical British supermarket trolley (cart), maybe half the stuff in it will be Tesco’s or whoever’s own brand. In recent years the big chains have expanded their in-house brands to have several tiers of quality/price, with the top tiers getting nicer packaging and names like “Finest” and “Taste the Difference”, aimed squarely at upmarket competitors like Marks & Spencer.

17

Oh, Oh, Oh, I remembered the exact show (movie, actually) that got us discussing this. It was Hot Fuzz. The store in that movie, even though it was a rural village, had that same feel as the stores in my childhood, although, admittedly it is well-lit and clean.

Struan thanks. I hope all will be well, too. Our biggest concern is that he may not deploy until next year, which would have him missing my daughter’s graduation. That would suck balls.

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I kid, I kid. I only mentioned her statehood and that of my visit to the performance of that (apallingly shit) movie because I noticed yours, in combination with the 1950s picture you linked to. And I see by your subsequent response that your watching habits are contemporary. I’d say that most of those programmes are in fact showing corner shops - Hot Fuzz shows a village shop. In fact, weirdly, I can’t actually remember ever seeing a British show with a real supermarket in it.

No, there really is a difference between, for example, Food Lion and WalMart. E.g. I bought a tent at WalMart. You can’t buy tents at Food Lion or Tesco.

19

Well, that’s why you make sure you get all your jabs before you visit.

I’ve been to an American Wal-mert, and i’d have to say the closest thing to that here would probably be Asda (now owned by Wal-mart, in fact, though it was somewhat similar before that). We tend not to have so many big stores where you can buy everything, though some of the larger supermarkets do have clothes, and some of the more average sized will have a couple of book shelves. We do have the large, brightly lit, long stacks of food-type places with ample parking as well as groceries, butchers, greengrocers, newsagents and the like working out of bottom-floor-house sized areas.

20

I’m sure I’ve seen tents in a couple of Tescos near me. Mind you, they’re whoppers.