Ged Carroll

Month: January 2010

  • The sale tag

    The sale tag is like manna from heaven for my Mum. She loves a bargain and looks forward to sales at her local stores.

    Like many people she suspects that some stores may put in special stock that they have shipped in to sell especially at this time amongst items that have just not sold.

    Allied Carpets was often the butt of jokes for its never-ending sales, but thought of as the exception rather than the norm.

    Sale basket in Shenzhen

    A friend here in Shenzhen got this basket from a market here. The markets are usually full of production overruns and samples. I managed to pick up a couple of genuine North Face Basecamp duffle bags for 30 percent less than UK retail.

    What I found interesting about this particular item was that it had a UK sale tag attached.It reads £29.99  £19.99 SALE.

    My initial reaction was how can it be reduced if it hasn’t even reached the shopfloor yet? It was an interesting proof-point of how retailers play customers as chumps. By all means enjoy bargain hunting but don’t believe the SALE tag hype. From what my friend told me about the production overrun market; the retailer in question (Woolworths) seemed to have vastly overestimated British consumer demand for rattan laundry baskets.

    My friend had the basket for a few years. I was writing this post almost a year to the day after Woolworths Group had gone into administration, closing its stores across the UK. More retailing related content here.

  • Countdown on the traffic lights

    Visiting a different country gives you a chance to notice the small everyday things that might be different to your own country. A case in point for me was the countdown on traffic lights in the Chinese city of Shenzhen.

    When I reflected on the countdown on the traffic lights, I started to think about the concept of time and traffic congestion.

    Chinese driving culture

    Time in traffic congestion is not wasted time. Waiting at a traffic lights is a time for catching up on reading, making phone calls, sending text messages or returning emails. Its the sign of hustle for a non-stop operation. Shenzhen is the Chinese dream and the people here aren’t going to waste a minute if they can be hustling for an extra yuan or two.

    Hands-free kits are the exception rather than the norm. I was in a car where a driver fished out assorted Nokia handsets out of pockets in traffic congestion to answer calls and phone other people. Business was conducted on the go.

    I presume the countdown on the traffic lights was to try and prevent road accidents. Chinese drivers have adapted their practices that would drive your average British traffic police officer.  To better use this dead time that would be otherwise wasted. Drivers use the countdown on the traffic lights; as way of optimising their time reading, making phone calls, texting or eating. Once the lights are green, drivers are told how much time they have to get across the junction. More China related content here.

  • The electric scooter

    One of the first things that I noticed about the Shenzhen streets was the prevalence of the electric scooter. They are ridden by young people and old people. They’re used for delivery services, commuting to and from work and going to the buy the groceries.

    They aren’t slick looking Tron light bike type conveyances, or Something worthy of Shotaro Kaneda’s bike that would fit into the Neo Tokyo-like streets of central Shenzhen. Instead the electric scooter looks like an emaciated Honda Cub. It all comes across a bit half-arsed.

    Electric scooter, originally uploaded by renaissancechambara.

    They represent the cheapest form of powered transport in urban China.

    These are probably the scariest things that you are likely to encounter in China, short of being invited to drink tea with the authorities. They are fast enough to be dangerous, but slow enough to be annoying for other road users. They make no sound, not even the rushing of tires on road surface.

    The riders tend to have little skill and view fellow road users as potential targets. They are also not ridden only ridden on the road, but on the pavements and pedestrians have to be constantly in a high state of vigilance watching out for errant electric scooter riders. This being China, no fucks are given. If you wipe out on the pavement, they’ll just ride on. They’re absurdly dangerous.

    Finally, given that most of China’s electricity supply comes from coal fired power stations; and your scooter will last a few years at best – their green credentials are somewhat lacking. More design related content here.

  • Shrook RSS reader

    How China’s internet regulations got me thinking about the Shrook RSS reader and service. I got unfettered internet access during a trip across the border from Shenzhen , China to Hong Kong. I briefly checked my Bloglines account and found that I had over 11,000 unread posts to catch up on.

    11029 unread items

    This got me thinking about a solution, so I will be trying out Shrook RSS reader and service to see if it provides an effective solution to my RSS addiction in China.

    Bloglines like Google Reader was blocked in China. I presume because these platforms would otherwise provide access to content that the Chinese government might to have censored.

    Shrook is a mix of application and cloud service with a freemium price plan offering always-on RSS goodness. Given my China-specific needs, it makes sense to go to smaller, niche services like Shrook. Shrook has a nice simple design to the RSS reader and is a native app for the Mac. It compares favourably to the way NetNewsWire was back in the day. The ability to sync online also allows RSS usage across different devices – so for instance home and work machines.

    UPDATE (September 19, 2020): Both Bloglines and the Shrook RSS sync service no longer exist. The last version of the Shrook RSS reader to work was published in 2016. The app has since been withdrawn from the Mac App Store. Bloglines closed down on October 1, 2010.

  • Classy Kiss yoghurt drink

    While staying in Shenzhen, I came across Classy Kiss yoghurt drink. At first I was a bit thrown, the European Dickensian vintage illustration was at odds with the product name.

    The name was the only English apart from <- Open on the package.

    Classy Kiss yoghurt drink, originally uploaded by renaissancechambara.

    So why have the name in English and why European people on the packaging? Here are a few likely factors:

    • Chinese people up until recently generally didn’t consume dairy products, so a ‘foreign looking’ brand might make more sense. It came into vogue when they wanted taller stronger kids and had the economic purchasing power to buy a higher protein diet. The old illustration likely conveys heritage (and so trust) of some sort
    • Most Chinese people wouldn’t know what the packaging was saying in English. They also wouldn’t appreciate the odd typography. It would probably feel balanced to a Chinese eye and not too out of step with the feel of the Chinese ideograms
    • It will contrast on the shelf against the clean modernist packaging of western brands like Danone, or General Mills’ Yoplait

    As for the ‘Open’; that was likely on the InDesign file template for the TetraPak packaging. I wouldn’t say that the product is like a classy kiss, but it is a perfectly passable yoghurt drink. More FMCG related posts here.