What an amazing week in terms of meeting other blue bags.
There were loads about in London. So many in fact, I began to wonder if the
National Convention of Blue Bags was drawing near. Every road I went down
seemed to have blue bags happily going about their business. Like this guy,
enjoying the sun today in Russell Square Gardens, which just so happens to be
one of my favourite places to hang out.
If you are ever
nearby, I recommend the Cafe in the Garden on a nice day, and there is the
Brunswick shopping centre just round the corner as well. Although, if you floated
too far up the Brunswick you may run into a Waitrose bag before
too long. Now I am not one to judge, but as bags go, they are a snobby bunch.
There is an air of bitterness about them as well, a feeling I have encountered
time and again amongst my friends who work in retail. Sadly, plastic bags are
no longer the preferred mode of carrying purchases. At supermarkets there is
the option of buying a bag for life. (For those of you who are unsure about
what a bag for life is – it is a plastic bag with handles that regular plastic
bags can only dream of having). Also in most retail outlets, paper
bags are now preferred, with more upmarket retail shops preferring elaborately
decorated, card bags. These lucky bags can expect to be used many times after
the initial purchase. These are middle class bags!
What? You ask. Class? You ask. Despite our cosmopolitan
society, bags indeed have class. I was created for use on a Market stand, and
from that initial purchase, didn’t ever expect to be used again. If I was lucky
I might have been used to pick up dog poo; a fate that so many of my friends
have endured. Luckily I was employed for greater purpose and I am now one of
the few bags who have broken away from my working class roots. Not that I am
ashamed about where I came from, it’s just bags can all too easily slip through
the system and end up like these forgotten souls, sprawled across the green
at Euston Station.
Unfortunately, it is these layabouts that give the rest of
us bags a bad name...rubbish!
However, it is the paper usurpers that really make me angry.
So often good plastic bags have been replaced by a paper counterpart, only to
be brought out from the store room during the sales! The indignity! Keep an eye out for an
interview I have lined up with one of these paper bags. Let it never be said
that Blue the blue bag doesn’t give all bags a voice!
N.b The National Convention of Blue Bags is actually held on the first Saturday in August
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