please empty your brain below

Loving the idea of a cottage (pie) industry.

It's reassuring to know that I am not the only person who has thought about this topic in depth
There's at least a couple of these in Huddersfield; I'll have to take photos and take notes.
I thought this was because small shops couldn't have graphics on their windows with cigarette branding any more, also the total coverage may been to prevent the in shop cigarette displays being visible from the pavement.
Disappointed that your research hasn't identified the exact date of the newspapers 😀

Two different eras of the guardian in the last one, one of which looks to be early 90s vintage
Great stuff. Reminds me of Nicholson Baker's New Yorker essay Books as Furniture, in which he takes notice of the books used as props in mail order catalogues.
Interesting. Walking past the convenience shop opposite Borough tube station, I noticed that the newspapers on their collage seem to be American. You can’t see the mastheads, but you can read a baseball report in one of them. It includes some very idiomatic phrases, which I think rules out a UK paper. Once you’ve seen these things, you can’t unsee them...
The first picture follows the rules from TV/film that any shopping carried in a large paper bag has to have a oversized baguette sticking out of it.
I always wonder about these things, so am reassured I'm not the only one.

When they first started becoming prevalent I got really annoyed, as seeing the actual interior of the shop with the actual goods on sale is so much better. I even considered lobbying my local council to make a supplementary planning rule to set a maximum of 1/3 coverage of windows. I have long since mellowed on the matter and now find the increasingly vintage ones a source of quaint curiosity.
The shopping in a brown paper bag is very much an American trope. I am pretty much convinced that no Briton has carried a load of groceries home in a handle-less paper bag since at least the late 1950s.
When it reopens you really need to (re) visit the Museum of Brands!!

My guess is it was possibly a security thing that saw corner shops encased in these kind of vinyls, as I don't think they'd do much to keep the heat of the sun shining on them out of the shop!
the oversized and saturated imagery could suggest the message is aimed at those passing in cars rather than walking on the pavement.
my local vet has an elephantine Labrador drooling wetly and a tiger sized cat eyeing up nearby pedestrians.
at least pets with conditions like the squitters are not featured.
A convenience store near where I worked had Korean pictures. I presume they were cheap as neither the owners or the neighbourhood were Korean. The shop didn't last long.
There are a few other dated bits of branding there - the Pepsi can in the Caners shop seems to be the 1998-2003 design, and I'd say the Coke can was probably from around then too.

Farm Groceries' MasterCard acceptance symbol is the 1996-2016 version, and the Visa symbol looks like the 1992-1999 vintage. Meanwhile Brown Bag Crisps don't appear to have become available since 2011, so that's quite a spread.

I also enjoy looking out for these, but I'm not sure any of them beat this picture from a takeaway menu which popped up on Twitter last year.
A fascinating exposition! I'm never sure how enticing "Cheeto" or "Cravendale" are meant to be as brand names, but in these days when fair seems to fowl, perhaps there is rationale.
When going on a train trip, as a child, sometimes got bought Fruit Pastilles from WH Smith on the station forecourt, memories 🤔 (Old packaging always looks better to me)
Part of my job was to buy Evening Standard every day in 2007, and it cost 50p. Did the price more than double in less than a year?

dg writes: The 20p cover price was a special offer.
If someone ever presents this topic at a Boring conference in the future (if we even have a future..) we will finally know who DG is.

My contribution to this is one I previously used to walk past every day, 'West Drayton Grocers & News' - it is glorious, and I spent many an hour* waiting for a ne'er appearing U3.

In these corona times, whilst I would normally recommend a trip out on Fauxcrossrail to see if, you can see the glory on Google Streetview.

What I like about it is the crisps are all mostly promotional packs, and a magical glowing aura Oyster card makes an appearance.

*20 minutes
Wonderful and exactly the kind of stuff I visit for
A superb post, DG!
I've often perused a local example but never in as much detail. I shall review with fresh eyes on the morn.
Arlu. I remember carrying shop from Safeways in Harrow in large paper bags in the 1970s.
Is someone going to go into a shop displaying one and ask them where they got it? Or would spoil the fun of speculating?
I’ve always loved these. They’re always such an incongruous mix of stuff. The shopping trip no one would make but everyone understands.
I remember reading somewhere about a guy who exclusively designs variations of London chicken shop signage.

Maybe he's branched out into convenience store stock photo vinyls.
CJ - he's featured in this book.
RogerB beat me to it - how about asking them where they got them?
Ge ge ge Granvilles of the world unite
Pace Jeremy, those tall brown paper grocery bags are unusual in the UK. Before the plastic carrier bag came the light versatile capacious expandable string bag.










TridentScan | Privacy Policy