Mary Portas

Now, before I actually write what I want to write about, I usually love Mary Portas. I thought the series she had done for the BBC on independent shops (last year) and on charity shops (the year before last) were both amazing. Ok, not amazing like Planet Earth amazing, she's no Attenborough, but they were good TV shows.

Portas has now moved to Channel 4 and has a new show called Mary Portas: Secret Shopper, in which she dons a wig and parades around being outraged at the state of our beloved high street. By the way, I don't plan on doing some hideous review of it as such, as the show itself wasn't actually that bad, and it'll probably get better throughout the series; however, I do have a few gripes, and I shall explain them now...

The whole show is based upon what Portas calls the 'shopping experience'. The 'shopping experience' consists of four rules, I can't even remember them, they were boring and a bit "well, duh". What I don't understand, is how she thinks it's even possible to extend rules that's she's obviously taken from the independent stores she usually frequents, to the high street, where the shops are busier, larger and have a higher turnover of stock *sigh*.

Obviously if you're going to make any form of film about something you don't want things to look "a bit shit" and "bordering acceptable", you wanna go all out and show some eXtremes. So naturally she heads to Primark, the one place on the high street officially void of all organisation. A bit of covert filming of the staff and messy shop-floor takes place, she counts people in the queue and then at the tills, it's all very scientific. I think this may have been the first time Portas has ever set foot in a Primark, as everyone knows you don't go into Primark for the 'shopping experience'. Experience, yes; shopping experience, no. It's more of an 'ordeal'. She goes on to complain that staff don't know where things are, but really, come on? If the staff in Primark did know where everything in Primark was, they wouldn't be working in Primark, because that would make them fucking geniuses. GIVE THEM SOME BLOODY CREDIT, PORTAS.

There are a series of vox pops with "normal looking people on high streets" and they're all pissed off at their lack of 'shopping experience'. Again, seriously, who are these people? I was discussing the whole being-approached-by-sale-assistants thing with one of my flatmates, and we decided that no-one likes it. I like walking in, having a browse and not being bothered, and I'm pretty sure most people (in Britain, anyway) are the same. (If you like being approached by helpful strangers in shops, then let yourself be known, freaks).

She then settles on revamping Pilot, which I have only just realised is quite funny, as it's the first episode, and it's called Pilot because of the shop she revamps, not because it's the pilot episode. The mind boggles. Pilot only has 44 stores, so it's possible for her to have her wicked way with them all, unlike Primark, where she hasn't got a batshit chance in hell of even making them pick their dirty bras off the floor (literally).

Anyway, the point of this blog was/is, whilst Portas does have a point, that the high street rakes in massive profits and we (the shoppers on the high street) get poor customer service, I just don't buy into her idea of the 'shopping experience'. I think most people appreciate a nice changing room, some sales assistants bobbing around, and not to have to queue for an eternity. I think that's fairly reasonable, and some shops do it well (Monsoon and H&M particularly)....

And despite what the crappy people in her vox pops may have said, I don't want people asking me what I'm looking for, I don't want people to be all "HELLO" when I walk into the shop and I don't want a fucking tweet mirror.