Funny way
Meadowhall is an iconic shopping centre in Sheffield. It is one of the UK’s first huge American-style shopping malls and needless to say it closed a lot of shops in the city centre just like every other one of them. Thanks a lot, the 1990s!
Of course, time heals all wounds and now Meadowhall is part of the South Yorkshire fabric, like bus drivers calling you “love”. It even appeared as Self Esteem’s bra at Glastonbury. Quite the moment.
There’s a little New Zealand reference in today’s comic that I hope someone will spot.
Poor guy, self medicating his depression with trampoline. He’ll wind up in the hospital if he keeps this up.
“Sir, I think you’ve had enough.”
“I’ll (BOUNCE) Tell (BOUNCE) You (BOUNCE) When I’ve (BOUNCE) Had (BOUNCE) Enough!!!”
“GIRB”?
Charlotte got him a jumper with his name on it.
And now he’s a jumper wearing a jumper.
Green Is Really Blue, a shirt objecting against the blue-green distinction in language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language
Is Glerm finding it to be a crowded house, or at least half a one? Does he feel doomed to forever be a sidekick, a Tim (Drake) to Charlotte’s Bruce Wayne, a Finn to her Sawyer? But he was just waiting in life’s station by track 6 before and after he met her he stands a better chance of working things out?
His hair has split ends?
He’s up in the air like a Flying Nun?
I’m guessing the socks but I’ll be damned if I know why
“I’d be darned” was sitting right there
That’s great!
A bit too high up on the shelf for my English, I fear
“A bit too high up on the shelf” is my favourite expression of the week.
Trampoline World is actively recruiting. If they don’t have enough employees, then the schedules for the existing staff must really be up in the air.
They’re hoping to hire other stores’ newly-laid-off employees on the rebound.
“hopping” was right there!
Welcome to the trampoline army, new recruit! I am your drill instructor! When I say “jump”, you say “how high”! That is going to come up a LOT!
I avoid shopping centers, specifically for the existential crisis part. But I would love to go in one with a Trampoline world inside. Glenn is more and more interesting.
I am feeling very ashamed for not getting the New Zealand reference. I how someone else will point it out!
It could be the red socks (associated with Team New Zealand and Sir Peter Blake) but I always think of those red socks as just plain ones.
*HOPE someone will point it out
The shop names, from left to right. Put the whole thing in quotes in google, and the significance of today’s page title will become clear.
(trying to be a little obscure to let others guess but I dropped a lot more hints in my comment above)
I would never have picked it up without help! Thanks
John A has a funny way of slipping in those sly references! Keeps me on my toes!
It’s strange the way you google it and it works, but the same search yields zero results when I tried it with the in-universe dominant search engine.
kiwi clock?
What is in the red box the youngsters are looking at so intently? I have to know.
I’m guessing illicit designer clocks that all the young delinquent types are getting into these days.
Hope.
Ever since Pandora, boxes have been opened wishing for there to be, snuggled behind the main contents, hope.
No? Maybe next one, then.
“Question Everything Escape Room” looks tailored for someone like Lottie.
America doesn’t have huge American-style shopping malls anymore. They’re being driven out of business by even huger American big-box stores, which are themselves probably going to succumb to Amazon before long.
Most of the malls are bankrupt with empty anchor stores and half empty store fronts here in the USA.
Some in my burg have homeless camps.
It’s not the big box stores what drove them out of business imo, it was that we hugely overbuilt commercial real estate and businesses hugely overexpanded. Malls were the most vulnerable to a contraction since they require huge concentrations of people just shopping around to function. Big box stores are somewhat vulnerable to this as well, but aren’t going out of business because of Amazon – Amazon isn’t profitable as a standalone business (EC2 is their profitable arm) and relies hugely on its Marketplace (other businesses selling via Amazon) for revenue.
Meanwhile the last thing I ordered from amazon was a book – two books, actually, and before that one thing last year. It is useful as a way to look up what items a given business might have, though! (Don’t buy them on Amazon, it’s more expensive.)
I went to New Zealand. My biggest culture shock was that shopping carts were called “trundlers”
Like, written down in print and all.
Nah, we call them trolleys. There’s one supermarket chain that calls them trundlers on the signs in the car park, but I’ve only ever heard them called trolleys. Now I’ve thought too much about it and both names seem wrong. Maybe the Aussies call them trundlers? The chain that calls them trundlers is Australian.
There’s as many trundlers over this side of the pond as there are jandles.
Australia: trundlers
NZ: trollies
Gibraltar: wally-whackers
Sri Lanka: bastard boxes
Isle of Man: empty horses
UK: wheel o’baskets
Eire: little donkeys
American Southeast: buggies
empty horses sounds bleak and slightly sinister, which is exactly how I imagine the Isle of Man.
American midwest: this thing needs a front end alignment
Ankh-Morpork: mall larvae
I guess it must’ve been “that” supermarket chain, I just never encountered it in Australia and only saw their parking lot in New Zealand. Another example of Australian imperialism!
When I first saw the signs, I thought they were just using “trundler” so that they wouldn’t sound like the other supermarket chain, but then I decided it must be Australian imperialism (although I didn’t have a name for it) 😆
Some folks here in New England (USA) call them “carriages”, which always sounds delightfully genteel to me
For non-locals. the shopping centre is pronounced “Medderall”
That is the new designer drug adderall-type drug used by the CEO of FTX.
It’s used to visualize the NFT blockchain market in a pyramid shape.
Big in The City right now.
As opposed to most shopping malls in North America these days, which have Buggerall.
Having recenyly moved to Sheffield, your comics are even more of a delight than they were before. About 20% more of the delight.
Always Added Value with Allison. (TM)
For future Kiwi Easter eggs, please bear in mind that kiwi eggs are bloody enormous.
Isn’t it rather that the Kiwi is a small bird and the eggs are not reasonably sized in relation to them??
Beh. Glemm is one of those people who, even when he’s depressed, self-medicates with healthy things.
One my local record stores in Northampton (Massachusetts) is For the Record.
Well, there is a Sheffield in Massachusetts…
Aw c’mon!
That Tim Finn song came out in 1993 – and it wasn’t exactly popular (like ‘Persuasion’) – so that’s a pretty obscure connection..
Oh boo hoo hoo. And may I add, boo hoo hoo FOR YOU
You’ve got a fuuuunny way
of showing that you care
it’s strange, the way you go about it
Absolutely love that song!