I drove into tow-un yesterday morning to get some messages (as the Scots like to say). As I was driving I noticed a few new shops that have opened recently that should give you the flavour of the boom industries in our neighbourhood. They were:
- A Polish delicatessan. I think we must now have half a dozen of these shops in town now, along with a good few Polish hairdressers and beauticians. A sign of the changing face of immigration in the area – many Eastern Europeans have joined the mix that brings a buzz alongside many challenges and gives us 22 languages spoken in the homes of the children in our church primary school.
- A new ‘wine’ shop. There are very many off licences in our high street, and all the grocers sell cheap booze along with the chapatti flour. I saw a chap who must have patronised one of the local off licences in the carpark of Lidl at 11am, rolling as he walked and clutching a bottle of Frosty Jack cider.
- A Brook ‘Young People’s Health Shop’. A sad indicator of the ubiquity of the sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility that is the norm here and that contributes to the brokenness of so many lives around us.
Talking of my trip to Lidl, as I went into the shop a chap charmingly spat generously on the floor by his car, which his wife and child were sitting in. He looked shocked when I mentioned to him that his behaviour was both disgusting and a health hazard.
I didn’t wait to discuss it with him any further though, chicken that I am, and dashed into the shop to stock up on cheap sliced ham and fresh peaches.
The Vicar's Wife 
Not to mention the new pawnbrokers shop! Have you ever noticed that where there’s a betting shop, there’s a pawn shop or two very close?!
Yep… ’tis the same where we live in West London – even down to the spitting… yuck!
We irish get ‘messages’ as well. But from tooyyn instead of tow-un.
What is it with Europeans and spitting? Being a good American from the South, I was flabbergasted when I ran into that on a regular basis when I was in England. You can be arrested for that here in the States.
It isn’t so much that Brits that spit – granted the odd one or two do, but people from other parts of the globe. I remember being taught that it was dirty and rude to do so but things seem to have changed with the sociological changes! For example, I understand that when some Muslims fast, they are taught that to swallow their spit is breaking their fast so they do the other thing! Yuck again!
The chap I saw gobbing was Eastern European. I think it’s definitely something that Northern and Southern Europeans would frown on, but the further East you go, the more acceptable it seems to be. Ugh.
Well done for saying something at least. It’s a disgusting, but all too common, sight around ‘tow-un’