Sainsbury’s can usually be relied
on to put a good dollop of effort into Halloween, turning their seasonal isle
orange for the month of October and stocking a fine range of tat. I don’t know
if it really is a good seller for ‘em or one of the top brass as Sainsbury’s is
just a particularly large Halloween fan and has been abusing their power to
make sure us Halloween nuts are well catered for, I kinda want it to be the
latter. This year is not an exception to the rule, though I was a little
disheartened to see that the very end of the seasonal isle is filed with
Christmas stuff already (I LOVE Christmas but it’s fucking October, can’t we
have Halloween and Bonfire Night first? Are you really going to lose that
significant an amount of sales if you don’t’ get the Chrissy stuff out ‘til November
6th?) but to make up for that they hung a giant fluffy spider above
the self-service tills:
That makes up for a lot of
things, actually. So anyway, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin:
Cheap Shit
I have no idea what the
logic in this stuff is, it’s not like Halloween party bags are a thing – they’re
not right? I mean we haven’t turned Halloween into another gift-giving holiday
have we? Please say we haven’t? OK, hopefully Halloween party
bags are not a thing so I question the logic in making party bag-like items in
Halloween flavours but given how half-empty these boxes always are they must
sell well, maybe just the desire in adults and children alike to simply own Halloween
themed cheap shit outweighs any logic? Or for £1 parents can shut their grabby little
brats up with a rubber bat or a plastic skeleton – speaking of which Sainsbury’s
has some great plastic skeletons this year, you can see them on the second row
from the top? There’s some translucent ones and then some that come in Hot
Green, Hot Pink and Glow-in-the-Dark, I did think £1 was a bit expensive but I am
happy to accept the argument that ‘nothing is too expensive for a hot
pink/green skeleton’ .
Cute Shit
Sainsbury’s, despite being
a supermarket aimed at families, actually has a surprisingly low amount of training
wheel Halloween items this year, just this small section sandwiched between the
cheap crap and the costumes, and most of it less ‘cutesy’ and more ‘cartoony’. I’m
particularly fond of the HUGE eyes, and no they’re not anything other than HUGE
eyes, they’re just HUGE eyes you hang up your wall so you can have HUGE eyes
staring at your Halloween guests. They’re so wonderfully pointless and yet so
wonderfully necessary for all Halloween hallways, they’re also sparkly. A lot
of the Soft Toys were really tempting, even for a tenner each (I’ll remind you that’s
two-thirds of a life-size plastic skeleton in Wilkinson’s), the ghosts and
pumpkins especially reminding me of the toys that’d I’d get at Halloween when I
was wee, so why didn’t I buy them? Well other than me having way too many soft
toys for a heterosexual adult male they played… Let’s Twist Again. Y’know the
Chubby Checker song? Let’s twist again, like we did last sum-mah? That one? Wanna
know something about Let’s Twist Again? It’s not scary! It’s not spooky! It’s
not all-together ooky! It’s not a Halloween song in any way, shape or form. Now
the toys do spin but so what? They’re ghosts and pumpkins first, spinning toys
second surely and are you telling me you couldn’t afford to licence Monster Mash,
Zombie Dance or the fucking Ghostbusters theme? If these’d played Monster Mash
it’d’ve bought one of each.
Elite Shit
Sparkly and ‘tasteful’
stuff for the sort of moms who own Pandora jewellery and have every room themed
and furnished from Ikea; this ‘tasteful bling’ shit does nothing for me and
never will – it’s not ‘tasteful’ it’s gaudy and the glitter gets everywhere. HOWEVER the bottom row somewhat saves this
section, black candelabras are rarely a bad thing and those are some great
lanterns, when lit they project giant spiders onto the walls, sadly at least
one of my friends is a horrendous arachnophobe and while everyone deserves a
good scare on Halloween giant shadow spiders would be less ‘a good scare’ and
more ‘ending in a referral to an institute’ so I decided to forgo purchasing
them, I decided to forego purchasing the candles next to them because they
looked to damn edible and I wouldn’t’ve been able to control myself.
Fluffy Shit
Look how adorable they are!
Trick or treating becomes the happiest pastime this winter with Fluff O’
Lantern the delighted bag of joy.
Party Shit
Something I haven’t gone
into yet, but I have an endearing fondness for party supplies – paper plates,
napkins, cups, etc. it’s totally because it takes me back to my childhood and anything
that reminds of a time when I wasn’t ill and thus depressed all the time is a welcome
thing. I don’t collect it anything (though so do, and fair play to ‘em) it just
makes me momentarily happy when I see it – and as I usually see it in
supermarkets – which are boring, cold, sterile and filled with people – that
little moment of happiness is even more welcome. Everyone’s doing the Halloween
party stuff this year and as someone who’s held parties for 30-50 people they’re
really useful in practice even if there aren’t any kids around. Also in this
shot are Halloween crackers (why?), a Halloween chips ‘n dip bowl that I did in
fact wear as a sombrero while in the shop and an inflatable pumpkin drinks
cooler – I’ve ssen a couple of these around and something I haven’t gone into
yet but I have an endearing fondness for inflatable toys, sadly I don’t drink
and I felt spending between £8 and £15 to keep my lemonade cool for one night
was a big excessive.
Awesome Shit
Sainsbury’s clearly
believes in saving the best ‘till last. Though their awesome shit levels are nowhere
close to Wilkinson’s they do have enough that I’d not sure where to start, no I’m
kidding I know exactly where to start, Halloween Wreaths:
This is a thing now? Or did
Sainsbury’s just decide to see if they could make a few quid by repurposing
some Christmas items? I hope this is a thing, and a thing that catches on, not
because it really has much in the way of ties to the Samhain traditions of old
but just because I like wreaths – they mix Christmas and funeral and that
appeals to me – the eyeball arrangement is particularly snazzy don’t you think?
It’s like something the denizens of Halloween Town would make. What next, oh
yeah – HALLOWEEN GNOMES:
The price of these put me
off a little, I had a feeling that the novelty of a Halloween gnome would wear
sooner than would be acceptable after spending £7 on one, but HALLOWEEN
GNOMES!! They’re so precious. I’m not sure I understand any of the thought
process that went into green-lighting these (unless it was simply ‘HALLOWEEN
GNOMES! SO CUTE!) and I don’t think Sainsbury’s has sold a single of them (because
they’re £7, if they were a fiver I’d’ve bought one) but HALLOWEEN GNOMES!!
And finally 20-odd inches
of plastic skeleton – in a natty hat:
I don’t think I need say
any more about this fellow, only that I want him on wheels so I can take him
around as my small person-sized travelling buddy. Also the green hand there - that spins and
plays a tune, again not sure what the thought process was in creating it (“what
else can we put this mechanism in?” maybe?) but whoever had said thought
process is a mad genius.
Just Shit
This upsets me on so many levels;
I didn’t know you could make something that was this obnoxious for something as
awesome as Halloween.
And that’s our tour of the Halloween
isle of a supermarket, our FIFTH tour of such a place, I hope this isn’t
becoming repetitive and/or boring – nah, what could be boring about reading about
stuff you can’t buy in another country to where you live – if you existed.
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