95 stores over half a mile.
18 Restaurants.
3,000 staff, many sourced locally.
2,500 parking spaces.
1,000,000 square feet of prime retail and leisure space.
13 times the size of Hampden football pitch.
This is a massive retail cathedral, complete with liturgy, clergy, sacred music, architectural beauty, familiar rituals and symbols, and an all but tangible sense of people's devotion to what's on offer. This is new Jerusalem, centre of hope, renewal, personal fulfilment. The elements of a secular religious activity and devotion are unmistakable.
Exaggeration? My biblical literary allusions getting the better of me? The feel-good factor of a new shopping mall unrelated to religious fulfilment?
Here are two of the massive blue advertising banners,(at least 5x4 Metres), hanging outside retailers whose shops are yet to open but coming soon.
There shall be sorrow no more, for Heaven has sent us Carphone Warehouse!
Paradise is upon us, for J D Sports is coming soon.
More than 30 of these banners have similar texts for the faithful, encouraging us to remain hopeful that in due time, 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well'. Though when Julian of Norwich originally wrote these things she wasn't meaning we would be able to buy all manner of thing on credit, in a glass cathedral, with adequate parking, multi-choice restaurant options, and a sense of being blessed by shopping for all manner of thing.
The message is both subtle and seductive. Heaven approves retail therapy; ideas and questions about consumer overload, or responsible credit use, are heresies best avoided. The inner restlessness, those gnawing hungers of the heart, have their Silverburn spiritual answer, with apologies to St Augustine,'You have made things for ourselves, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you, spent and satisfied'.
The sorrow of emptiness, of lack, of deprivation because what I want is not yet available, well my tears may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning when Carphone Warehouse opens. And for those who enjoy a religion that provides a sense of imminence, of immediacy, of God breaking into otherwise lacklustre lives - Paradise is upon us! And I will, yes I will, be able to look at, handle, long for, and yes, praise be, purchase, my own personal, identity conferring, spiritually fulfilling, trainers at J D Sports. Paradise!
All of which said - I was so heartened to see so many people clearly newly in jobs, learning the ropes of retail customer service, trying hard and glad of a chance in life. That, I will never knock! You can see some of them over here at the Evening Times. And yes, it is cutting edge in the technology that reduces the carbon footprint so that M&S is powered by their own wind turbine in Aberdeenshire, and emits 95% less CO2 than a similar sized traditional store, and uses rainwater for flushing toilets. So a lot that's good - but shopping isn't an experience that fulfils our 'ultimate concern', the new trainers don't quite reveal the utterly transcendent, and for all we might depend on our mobile phones, our deepest sorrows in life are unlikely to be the delay in the coming of Carphone Warehouse!
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