The above title, especially the phrase shit in a paper bag, is a typical piece of cynical humour that like most Cockney expressions is very much to the point. It’s essentially a market trader’s phrase which, referring to the frenzied rush of the population to buy gifts at Christmas, means that they can sell just about anything to anybody.
The phrase is more metaphorical than literal. Nonetheless, in the experience of so many traders, it is very close to the truth. In their rush to buy presents, especially last minute gifts, people lose all sense of objectivity and reason so that it gets to be a situation where just about anything will do! Everyone has their own notion of anything. For the working class, the poor and the underclass it’s cheap jewellery, ornaments, cosmetics and some items of clothing. For the upper class and seriously wealthy it could be anything from diamond cufflinks in a Harrods Christmas Cracker to a parcel of shares. It’s usually bought in a hurry, as an afterthought, for the person you suddenly remember you’ve missed and are terrified about them having bought you something. This sentiment of course is far more appropriate to the poor as the rich don’t need to give a shit about anything!
For the trader each social class will have its own characteristic rubbish or shit. They won’t themselves regard the things they buy for others as such. They can’t do that, it defeats the whole purpose. Even so, the upper classes undoubtedly regard so much of working class commodity purchase as rubbish with the snobbery that characterises their cynical demeanour. Something they rightly share with Cockney Traders because both kinds of being are fundamentally the same. Creatures on the make. Indeed, the on the make spivvery of the upper classes and their hangers on is only hidden by their accents and public school confidence.
Put succinctly, the title refers to the ability of traders to sell just about anything because of the time of the year. It’s Christmas, the Giving Season! It doesn’t happen anywhere else on the calendar. The need to buy presents at Christmas becomes a national obsession commercially burnt into the psyche. It’s an essentially family thing. You wouldn’t rush to some store or street market for your boss. Of course not! The time of year and the Season flicks on a switch in your brain. The giving hormone has taken you over! You’re like an out of control lemming, heading for the cliffs of your credit card limit. You can’t help yourself, can’t bloody-well stop. Over you go with a box of Max Factor or current rave dvds. In short you’re up for just about anything.
You’re ready to buy and traders ready to sell. Stall piled high with job lot crap from toys to ten a pack feature lipsticks so you can kiss just about anything in ten different shades. The big exceptions are food and most kinds of clothing, though socks, stockings and underwear have now joined everything else that’s cheap out of China. Interestingly enough I saw these items myself only recently in the City of Bath and you really need to look hard to find anywhere in England so completely up its own arse. Of course, I’m sure you can guess which political party runs such a place!
Yes it’s Christmas. The nation’s in a rush and ready to buy anything, particularly at the cheap end. Shit in a paper bag out of China because that’s where most of it comes from. But remember this. There are different kinds of shit in a paper bag. The effluent that people rush to get their grabs on at Christmas is by no means homogenous. There’s shit and there’s shit! Most street traders know what they’re selling. They might shout lovely stuff but they keep their thoughts to themselves. Others, most often the artisan and craft crowd, put it about that they’re a cut above everyone else. They make the goods they’re selling themselves! Hand-made and far above the mass produced tat. They’re artists. Craftsmen if you please! Put all their skill into their products. Say China and you’re dead!
Truth is, ninety per cent is still out of China. They’ve just taken the label off as a prelude to taking the piss, after which it’s your money. Don’t make me laugh. Sunday Craft Days at Covent Garden were always Chinese, just better looking Chinese. Only Chinese Craft Shit doesn’t come in a paper bag, no sir, more in an expensive upmarket carrier along with the craft trader’s superior upmarket demeanour. To the common as muck market boy traders, craft type crap is still paper bag stuff. To the Christmas craft merchants, the market boy merchandise is the lowest you can go. Their sneers are the last word in snobbery but scratch a bit deeper and you’ll find it all a pretence. The little craft workshops in Essex where it’s all so lovingly made are really the back alleys of Shanghai and it gets to your glass living room cabinet along with all its other nick-knacks straight out of a shipping container.
However we need to be careful. There are far worse things that people can do at Christmas than buy shit in a paper bag for themselves and their kids. I could suggest quite a few but they’d only be my opinions. This post is already critical of things people buy and the way that they spend and isn’t meant to be a vehicle for psychological analysis. I might elsewhere castigate the crystal healing profession along with its whacky metaphysics and adepts. I might castigate politicians and political parties. Goodness, we all know these people are professional liars and can’t help themselves, but when it comes to matters of science and the things these people do in their political life you’ll surely allow me that. Market traders are people with definite opinions. They meet people all the time. It’s their job to know what they’re thinking. It helps them to sell.
Most market traders are cynical about human behaviour, and deadly cynical about politicians. They are often genuinely amazed about spending habits and the way people throw their money around at Christmas. They need it and love it and the expression Shit in a Paper Bag to describe that habit shouldn’t surprise anyone. It sounds a bit harsh, a cynical view of human behaviour from those who profit by it. People can spend their money any way they like. They’ve earned it, they have the right to. Trouble is, so many of them spend money they haven’t got and that leads to problems. There’s always payback time to be faced.
Viewed coldly it comes down to this. The people who will benefit most from the annual Shit in a Paper Bag habit pursued in the West will be a handful of Chinese astronauts who will sooner or later land on the Moon.
I’ve just had an afterthought… sooner or later land on the Moon, yes, and bring back many large pieces of rock out of which they’ll manufacture tens of thousands of ultra-exclusive Moon Rock Pendants worn only by the super-rich, on the sales of which, you may be sure, another Chinese Moon Expedition will soon be launched and then another… and another…
The phrase is more metaphorical than literal. Nonetheless, in the experience of so many traders, it is very close to the truth. In their rush to buy presents, especially last minute gifts, people lose all sense of objectivity and reason so that it gets to be a situation where just about anything will do! Everyone has their own notion of anything. For the working class, the poor and the underclass it’s cheap jewellery, ornaments, cosmetics and some items of clothing. For the upper class and seriously wealthy it could be anything from diamond cufflinks in a Harrods Christmas Cracker to a parcel of shares. It’s usually bought in a hurry, as an afterthought, for the person you suddenly remember you’ve missed and are terrified about them having bought you something. This sentiment of course is far more appropriate to the poor as the rich don’t need to give a shit about anything!
For the trader each social class will have its own characteristic rubbish or shit. They won’t themselves regard the things they buy for others as such. They can’t do that, it defeats the whole purpose. Even so, the upper classes undoubtedly regard so much of working class commodity purchase as rubbish with the snobbery that characterises their cynical demeanour. Something they rightly share with Cockney Traders because both kinds of being are fundamentally the same. Creatures on the make. Indeed, the on the make spivvery of the upper classes and their hangers on is only hidden by their accents and public school confidence.
Put succinctly, the title refers to the ability of traders to sell just about anything because of the time of the year. It’s Christmas, the Giving Season! It doesn’t happen anywhere else on the calendar. The need to buy presents at Christmas becomes a national obsession commercially burnt into the psyche. It’s an essentially family thing. You wouldn’t rush to some store or street market for your boss. Of course not! The time of year and the Season flicks on a switch in your brain. The giving hormone has taken you over! You’re like an out of control lemming, heading for the cliffs of your credit card limit. You can’t help yourself, can’t bloody-well stop. Over you go with a box of Max Factor or current rave dvds. In short you’re up for just about anything.
You’re ready to buy and traders ready to sell. Stall piled high with job lot crap from toys to ten a pack feature lipsticks so you can kiss just about anything in ten different shades. The big exceptions are food and most kinds of clothing, though socks, stockings and underwear have now joined everything else that’s cheap out of China. Interestingly enough I saw these items myself only recently in the City of Bath and you really need to look hard to find anywhere in England so completely up its own arse. Of course, I’m sure you can guess which political party runs such a place!
Yes it’s Christmas. The nation’s in a rush and ready to buy anything, particularly at the cheap end. Shit in a paper bag out of China because that’s where most of it comes from. But remember this. There are different kinds of shit in a paper bag. The effluent that people rush to get their grabs on at Christmas is by no means homogenous. There’s shit and there’s shit! Most street traders know what they’re selling. They might shout lovely stuff but they keep their thoughts to themselves. Others, most often the artisan and craft crowd, put it about that they’re a cut above everyone else. They make the goods they’re selling themselves! Hand-made and far above the mass produced tat. They’re artists. Craftsmen if you please! Put all their skill into their products. Say China and you’re dead!
Truth is, ninety per cent is still out of China. They’ve just taken the label off as a prelude to taking the piss, after which it’s your money. Don’t make me laugh. Sunday Craft Days at Covent Garden were always Chinese, just better looking Chinese. Only Chinese Craft Shit doesn’t come in a paper bag, no sir, more in an expensive upmarket carrier along with the craft trader’s superior upmarket demeanour. To the common as muck market boy traders, craft type crap is still paper bag stuff. To the Christmas craft merchants, the market boy merchandise is the lowest you can go. Their sneers are the last word in snobbery but scratch a bit deeper and you’ll find it all a pretence. The little craft workshops in Essex where it’s all so lovingly made are really the back alleys of Shanghai and it gets to your glass living room cabinet along with all its other nick-knacks straight out of a shipping container.
However we need to be careful. There are far worse things that people can do at Christmas than buy shit in a paper bag for themselves and their kids. I could suggest quite a few but they’d only be my opinions. This post is already critical of things people buy and the way that they spend and isn’t meant to be a vehicle for psychological analysis. I might elsewhere castigate the crystal healing profession along with its whacky metaphysics and adepts. I might castigate politicians and political parties. Goodness, we all know these people are professional liars and can’t help themselves, but when it comes to matters of science and the things these people do in their political life you’ll surely allow me that. Market traders are people with definite opinions. They meet people all the time. It’s their job to know what they’re thinking. It helps them to sell.
Most market traders are cynical about human behaviour, and deadly cynical about politicians. They are often genuinely amazed about spending habits and the way people throw their money around at Christmas. They need it and love it and the expression Shit in a Paper Bag to describe that habit shouldn’t surprise anyone. It sounds a bit harsh, a cynical view of human behaviour from those who profit by it. People can spend their money any way they like. They’ve earned it, they have the right to. Trouble is, so many of them spend money they haven’t got and that leads to problems. There’s always payback time to be faced.
Viewed coldly it comes down to this. The people who will benefit most from the annual Shit in a Paper Bag habit pursued in the West will be a handful of Chinese astronauts who will sooner or later land on the Moon.
I’ve just had an afterthought… sooner or later land on the Moon, yes, and bring back many large pieces of rock out of which they’ll manufacture tens of thousands of ultra-exclusive Moon Rock Pendants worn only by the super-rich, on the sales of which, you may be sure, another Chinese Moon Expedition will soon be launched and then another… and another…
