In the last few decades, many corner shops have been taken over by people from Southern Asia who have delighted the neighbourhood by staying open very long hours.

► Some well-known names

The best known supermarket chains are Sainsbury and Tesco. although there are others. Asda is the best known of many discount Stores.

There is only one department Store with a large number of branches. This is Marks & Spencer. It is so well-known that it is often referred to as ‘Marks and Sparks’ or just ‘M and S’. To the British, clothes at M and S are typical of the middle ränge: they are neither cheap nor expensive, fairly good quality and rather conservative. Unlike most other department Stores, M and S also has a ‘food hall’, where items are more expensive than they are in supermarkets.

In a category all by itself is Wool- worth’s, which used to have a branch in almost every high Street in the country. It sells mostly sweets, music, toys and children’s clothes of the cheaper kind.

stay open very late on some evenings as a way of putting new life into their ‘dead’ town centres.

But die most significant change in recent years has been with regard to Sundays, By the early 1990s many shops, including chain Stores, were opening on some Sundays, especially in the period before Christmas. In doing this they were laking a risk with the law. Sometimes they were taken to court, sometimes not. The rules were so old and confused that nobody really knew what was and what wasn’t legal. It was agreed that something had to be done. On one side were the ‘Keep Sunday Special’ lobby, a group of people from various Christian churches and trade unions. They argued that Sunday should be special, a day of rest, a day for all Lhe family to bc together, They also feared that Sunday-opening would mean that shop workers would be forced to work too many hours. On tlie other side were a number of lobbies, especially people from women’s and consumer groups. They argued that working women needed more than one day (Saturday) in which to rush around doing the shopping. In any case, they argued, shopping was also something thal tlie whole family could do together. In t 993 Parliament voted 011 lhe matter.

By a small majority, the idea of a complete ‘free-for-all’ was defeated. Small shops are allowed to open on Sundays for as long as they like, but large shops and supermarkets can only open for a maximum of six hours.

QUESTIONS

t What are the differences (if any) between the present role of trade unions in Britain and their role in your country?

2. How can banking be such an important part of the British economy when some Britisli people don’t even have bank accounts?

3. Here is an extract from a book written by a Frenchman who has spent a long time living in England:

Continentals are always disconcerted by the English attitude to work. They appear neither to view it as a heavy burden imposed by feite, nor to embrace it as a sacred Obligation. Effort is a matter of personal choice, and payment simply a quid pro quo.

(from Les Anglais by Phillipe Daudy)

Do you find the British attitude to work confus- ing? In your country, do people see work as a ‘heavy burden’ or a ‘sacred Obligation’ (or something eise) ?

4 I11 your country, do shops stay open for more or fewer hours a week than they do in Britain? Do you think the de-regulalion of shop opening hours is a good thing?

► The national papers and Scotland

16

The media

British people watch a lot of television. They are also reported to be the world's most dedicated home-video users. But this does not mean that they have given up reading. They are the world's third biggest newspaper buyers; only the Japanese and the Swedes buy more.

The importance of the national press

Newspaper publication is dominated by the national press, which is an indication of the comparative weakness of regional identity in Britain (see chapter 4). Nearly 80% of all households buy a copy of one of the main national papers every day. There are more than eighty local and regional daily papers; but the total circulation of all of them together is much less than the combined circulation of the national ‘dailies’. The only non-national papers with significant cir- culations are published in the evenings, when they do not compete with the national papers, which always appear in the mornings.

Most local papers do not appear on Sundays, so on that day the dominance of the national press is absolute. The ‘Sunday papers’ are so-called because that is the only day on which they appear. Some of them are sisters of a daily (published by the same Company) but employing separate editors and joumalists.

The morning newspaper is a British household Institution; such an important one that, until the laws were relaxed in the early 1990s, newsagents were the only shops that were allowed to open on Sundays. People could not be expected to do without their newspa­pers for even one day, especially a day when there was more free time to read them. The Sunday papers seil slightly more copies than the national dailies and are thicker. Some of them have six or more sections making up a total of well over 200 pages.

Another indication of the importance of‘the papers’ is the morning ‘paper round’. Most newsagents organize these, and more than half of the country’s readers get their morning paper delivered to their door by a teenager who gets up at around half-past five every day in order to earn a bit of extra pocket money.

There is an exception 10 the domin­ante of the national press thröughout Britain. This is in Scot­land, where one paper, the Sunday Post, sells well over a miliion copies. Another weekly, Scodand on Sunday, also has a large circulation. There are three other notable ‘Scotland only’ papers, but two of these, the Glasgow Herald and the Siotsman, are quality papers (seepage 1 j 2) with small cir- culations and the other, lhe Duily Record, is actually the sister paper of the (London) Daily Mirror. The other national British papers are all sold in Scotland, although sometimes in special Scottish editidris.

Each of the national papers can be characterized as belonging to one of two distinct categories. The ‘quality papers”, or ‘broadsheets’, cater for the better educated readers. The 'populär papers’, or 'Lab- loids’, seil to a much larger readership. They contain far less print than the broadsheets and far more pictures. They use larger headlines and write in a simpler style of English. While the broadsheets devote much space to politics and other ‘serious’ news, the tabloids concen- trate on ‘human interest’ stories, which often means sex and scandal!

However, the broadsheets do not completely ignore sex and scandal or any other aspect of public life. Both types of paper devote equal amounts of attention to sport. The difference between them is in the treatment of the topics they cover, and in which topics are given the most prominence (o Different approaches, different subjects).

The reason that the quality newspapers are called broadsheets and the populär ones tabloids is because they are different shapes. The broadsheets are twice as large as the tabloids. It is a mystery why, 111 Britain, reading intelligent papers should need highly-developed skills ofpaper-folding! But it certainly seems to be the rule. In t 989 a new paper was published, the Sunday Correspondent, advertising ilself as the country’s first ‘quality tabloid’. It closed after one year.

► How many do they seil?

* This is the combined figure for the ■ tabloids

Daily Mirror and the Daily Record ■ broadsheets