The New York Times does Dollar Store

Courtsey of Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
What every human seeks is companionship, the feeling that among all the billions of people on this planet of ours there is at least one person that can see you for who you are and shares common beliefs.
I am not alone.
The New York Times journalist, Henry Alford, has ventured [...]

Sign Language

The peeps at the extinct Bad Gas website did what no-one else has been bored enough to do and collected photos of pound shop signs. Here’s a selection (all following text and pictures courtsey of © Bad Gas 2003-2007)
The pound coin; the word “pound”; the £ symbol. They stimulate a Pavlovian buying reflex in poor [...]

Dinner Party from (Pound Shop) Hell

Remains of Will’s Hansel and Gretel Cake
“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”
- W. Somerset Maugham
The great writer would have been sorely disappointed if he had arrived at my pound shop dinner party on that chilly November evening. My guests certainly did not [...]

99 Cent

99 Cent by Andreas Gursky
© Andreas Gursky/Courtesy Phillips de Pury & Company
It makes my heart do flip-flops. Gursky has found beauty in the banal . Maybe I could sent him on a photographic assignment to north London. I think even he’d be hard pressed to find the beautiful in my little pound shop.
I was also [...]

Day….oh 148 – I’m Back!

Spring has sprung and all around us are the joys of nature that a new season brings.
Last week in the countryside I leaned on a wooden fence to gaze at the lambs bouncing merrily across a daffodil strewn field and thought “Finally, you are mine for the eating”.
The Pound Shop bet is over and I can [...]

Day 23 – A dog’s dinner

If you’ve had sleepness nights wondering what kind of horrors I’ve been eating, wonder no more. This is the thing of true nightmares. Tinned meat. Its unique quality is that it manages not to look or taste like meat at all. And no, of course I didn’t eat this…it went straight into the bin and [...]

Day 22 – Postcards from the Edge

Outside of Camden 99p store

London streets are so clean….

Soon to come – photos of the goings on of the pound shop from the inside Ooooooo

Day 21 – Dumpster Diving

It was my brother, Chris who set me this pound shop challenge. And it is my brother Chris who is already plotting the next bet. This time he wants me to become a freegan. ‘What’s a freegan?’, I hear you cry. For those who don’t know here’s the blurb from Wiki:
Freeganism is an anti-consumerism lifestyle [...]

Day 20 – Pound shop risotto

 My Italian Grandfather would be turning in his grave…
Normally, arborio or carnaroli rice would be used to make risotto. This is because both rices are high in starch which is gradually released as you slowly cook the rice giving it a nice creamy texture.
Well I tried it for this blog and can report that ordinary [...]

Day 19 – Ode to a vegetable

Oh carrot when raw you’re a tasty treat
In the form of a cake you’re hard to beat
At the end of a stick you’re such a tease
Grated in salad you’re so quick to please
And as a juice you’re pretty drink-able
Smothered in butter you’re equally sink-able
But as a hair colour you’re pretty unthinkable
Because no-one wants to be ginger.