If there is one thing I am more than used to it is disappointment, but on Saturday I was left with a feeling of disappointment that I had not felt since I travelled to the Transport Museum in Prague – home to one of the worlds largest collections of shit Eastern European cars (my car of choice) only to find the place was closed for a years worth of refurbishments, yes I mighty let down that day and I was pretty damn let down on Saturday too. So let down that I felt the need to put finger to keyboard about it!
What could have been the source of this misery? A delisting of the Value Custard Cream from the Tesco range? Some sort of unfixable Skoda problem? The BBC cancelling Watchdog? No, it was a visit to M&M’s World in London.
I had heard that there was a sweet shop in London called M&M’s World that sold nothing but M&M’s. To me this sounds amazing, it’s got ‘world’ in the name so it must sell M&M’s from around the world, like you know the crispy ones and the peanut butter ones and maybe some other amazing crispy shell coated treats like, I dunno, curry M&M’s or Hungarian sausage M&M’s, you know, that sort of thing. So we bounced on the tube and headed to Leicester Square.
Arriving at the M&M shop I was impressed with the size of it, 4 floors! It’s bigger than most supermarkets, should be no problem getting my North American treat of choice in here. This shop though is fucking irritating, firstly the staff are ultra happy and bouncing about and I for one don’t buy that bull shit for a minute. They are pretending to be happy, but I bet they are as pissed off as fuck. I bet they wish every bastard in this hell hole of consumerism was dead. It may be brightly coloured and loud but this is still a job in retail and they still spend all day on their feet and dealing with pricks. Secondly there is the music. Nightclub volume Michael Jackson Greatest Hits was blasting out making asking “where’s the peanut filled ones at?” almost impossible, I bet it adds to the party atmosphere for the visitor (as long as that visitor aint me) but I’m sure anybody who works there now hates Michael Jackson more you can imagine. Then there is the decor of the shop, it’s filled with stupid things like huge M&M statues, a defunct London bus (yes a fucking bus) and lots of screens showing shit and for some reason people love getting their photos taken beside their Gods to Consumerism. Who goes into a shop and gets their photo taken with the fittings and then complains when you accidentally stray into their well planned shot? Two over weight women from Essex judging by their screeching accents, but they were trying to take photos in the door way while people plodded in and out. “excuse me, we’re trying to take a photo here” screamed fattie #1 as we walked in the door “you’re excused” replied Vicky. Then there is the tat in the shop, you want a packet of M&M’s? – fucking forget it. Four floors, four fucking floors! And not one packet of M&M’s. You want branded clothing? – plenty of that, do you want to spend £755 on a M&M cartoon character sitting in a roller coaster car? You can do that, I swear this piece of painted plaster looks like it should cost about £15 – £20 or be even free with 30 empty packets (plus P&P). I couldn’t wait to get out, except it took ages to get out as I had to fight my way through the crowds who where constantly taking photos, plus I was lost. I ended up at the ’M&M technicians lab’ – that’s kinda like a shit version of a lab clean room (except not very clean) where shop workers in hair nets put M&M’s into big tubes for the novelty pick and mix section (all colours in separate tubes for you to mix yourself). Huge crowds where pressed against the window each one with an expression of wonder on their mugs and muttering ’wooh they get to work with M&M’s’. I bet the staff on the other side of the window probably lost all sense of wonder after being in there for 15 seconds. You couldn’t hear what the ‘technicians’ where saying to each other behind the glass, but I bet it was along the lines of ‘I hate this place and those people’.
I was quickly loosing the will to live, I had to get out and I still had not spied any peanut butter M&M’s. While leaving I shouted to a smiling happy bunny of a worker where the peanut butter filled ones where, she told me they didn’t have any, but hoped to have them back in stock for Christmas. Christmas? Fucking Christmas?
Anyway, how can this shop be; a) so crowded, b) still be in business? Are we not in the midst of the biggest financial melt down since the 1930’s? Want peanut or chocolate M&M’s? – Go to the Spar. Want peanut butter filled M&M’s? – Get em online. Want irritated and your photo taken with a 2 meter M&M character? – Go to the M&M’s World shop.
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