One of them has the local radio station playing constantly,
and its stock-in-trade is a slightly (only slightly; any lower and it might be entertaining)
sub-middle-of-the-road mix of chat and mindless music. Most of the others
follow the current trend in commercial shops for preferring a modern and
mindless ballad style. It isn’t the classic ballad style of the great
balladeers, more of a soppy, tuneless, characterless, formulaic attempt to
instil a grinding sense of tedium in all but those to whom appreciation of tedium
is already installed as default. What little melody is evident seems pretty
much the same in all of them. In short, mindless.
The one exception is the YMCA charity shop in Uttoxeter.
What they play is an equally mindless cacophony of indeterminate style and
purpose which I assume is chosen by, or for the sake of, the eponymous Young
Men. Only it isn’t the eponymous young men who shop there, it’s people like me,
and what I like is elegant or quirky melody, imaginative bass and percussion, meaningful
lyrics, and striking harmonies which have the power to shift your consciousness
to a different, better place. I don’t do cacophony. It irritated me so much
today that I left after about thirty seconds. Isn’t that just a little bit mindless?
But I did get a good premium beer called Corby Fox from Cumberland Breweries at
only £1 a bottle. Must get a proper pint mug, though. Good beer definitely
tastes better out of a proper pint mug.
I wonder whether there’s still time to watch an episode of X Files before retiring.
(Or should I talk about the mindless idiot with whom I’ve
been having an argument on YouTube? Nah. When you’ve placed all your rational
cards on the table, and he’s just getting angrier and ever more irrational, and is
obviously determined to have the last, irrational word, all you can do is let
it go. X Files would be less taxing.)
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