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Shopping
The majority of shops in the UK are only open 9/9:30 - 6. Some close earlier, at 5 or 5:30 (normally in the smaller towns), some close later, but normally only in the big towns and even then it's often only the shopping centres and big chains - and then you should be so lucky. Some don't open on Mondays (best example being the John Lewis chain of department stores), some don't open on Thursdays. Very few are open on national holidays, especially Bank Holidays. Though it's increasing. Most have organic sections, or organic food mixed in with the normal stuff and marked as such.
Supermarkets
Being a quick guide to supermarkets across the land. Some individual branches of Sainsburys, Asda and Tescos are 24-hour, but very few of these. Also, supermarkets tend to have the longest opening hours, approx 8am-8pm, some as late as 11pm. M & S, Tescos and Sainsburys have also expanded food-only branches into large stations.
| Asda | Think Walmart. They're the people who own it, and this is the one closest to American supermarkets in terms of product. Makes the average person that actually likes food cringe. Though the small individual ones do vary a bit. |
| Co-op | A supermarket. Decent prices. Most likely to be Fairtrade. |
| Iceland | Originally based on frozen food, and somewhere near the bottom of the market, often cheaper. |
| Kwik Save | :shudders: Cheap, terrible quality, dingy as hell. |
| Morrisons | Good supermarkets. Located in the north, most likely to find odd but interesting products you can't find anywhere else, like certain wines or mead. Cheap as chips. Worship their bread section. Worship, I tell you. |
| Safeways | Known for being cheap-ish, but never that nice. Often smells faintly of ready meals. |
| Sainsburys | Good quality, nice prices. No clothes or gardening stuff section. (and yes, the Sainsburys wing in the National Gallery was made possible by the family that owns this chain) |
| Tescos | About the same as Sainsburys, but with the clothes etc. |
| Waitrose | Based in the South-East, chances of finding one anywhere in the north low, even though they're owned by John Lewis (department store chain with stores in most large towns across the country). One of the most expensive, but normally known for best quality and being the most deli-like and poncy. Most likely to pride themselves on local sourcing of food. Don't stock such things as tvs and gardening products. |
Shops in general
| Chemists | Drugstores. Prescriptions, vitamins, hair products, skin stuff, toothpaste, makeup, nappies, tampax etc. Boots is the big chain, Superdrug the closest follow-up. You tend to find Vantage and indepedent ones in small towns and villages. |
| Newsagents | I have no idea what the equivalent of this is in the US. Normally fairly small, every community of any size has them. Newspapers, magazines, sweets, stationery, fags, sometimes food. There's also the stall equivalent, but these sell pretty much identical. The stalls are also one of the best places for directions. |
| WHSmiths | Newsagents that sometime in the distant past expanded to include books, DVDs and videos, and every type of stationery you could possibly want. Found everywhere. If you have a yen for a really obscure magazine and can't find it in one of the larger branches, it doesn't bloody exist. However, you're unlikely to find the American style of comics in here, unless it's the collected editions they release for the UK/European market. Kiddie ones like the Beano and 2000 AD only. |
| Bookshops | Waterstones, WHSmiths, Books Etc, Blackwells and Borders. Waterstones and Borders are the most likely to have coffee shops within, though WHSmiths is starting to introduce it. |
| Record/DVD/Video/Games | Some independent ones, but these are most likely to be specialist - white label stuff, dance, rap, second hand. Market dominated by HMV and Virgin Megastores. There used to be Our Price as well, but they were taken over and're now called Sanity. There's also GAME for video games. |
| Coffee Shops | Understand that for the most part, coffee in the UK bears more of a resemblance to Italian coffee, being stronger, since they got to us first, and most will have a large amount of Italian wordage in their decor. On the menu of most places you will normally find the 'Americano', which is coffee with added hot water. Falling into a coffee shop is almost as easy as falling into a pub on many high streets; some will even have three branches of the same chain within five minutes of each other. Most close at either 6 or 8, chances of finding one that opens later, you have to be in London, during christmas shopping season.
The list :
Costa, Aroma, Caffé Nero, Coffee Republic, AMT (stands in railway stations, no actual sit-down premises) and :shudder: Starbucks are the most likely. Plenty of indie cafés too. |
| Comics (american style ones) | Only really sold in specialist comic shops (though most bookstores have a graphic novels section in their Sci-Fi/Fantasy area), and those are few and far between. Big towns only, and even then only if you're lucky. The most famous, with about 4 branches, is Forbidden Planet. Some newsagents sell them, but they're three months late, badly treated, a very small and eclectic selection, with a bloody great price sticker on the front. Comics here tends to mean kiddy stuff like the Beano, Bunty, Eagle or 2000 AD (the main Sci-Fi/Fantasy one, where most of the big Brit writers and artists started their career - Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, etc. Much nastier and more hard-hitting than the US mature readers stuff.) and they're A4 in size. |
| Shopping Centres | malls. |
| Sunday trading | Shops are only allowed to be open for a maximum of six hours on sundays, normally 10-4 or 11-5. Small ones like newsagents can open any time they like. And not all shops are open on Sundays - often only the chains, and in some small towns not even those open, and they've only been allowed to open in the last ten or so years. |
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