I visited a Woolworths store in Leeds last week.I didn't even know that we had a Woolworths store in Leeds anymore, but we have.
It was pleasing to note that it still sells crap and that it hasn't lost any of its reputation for cramming as much crap with as much variation of crap into its floorspace as possible, aisles are only twelve inches wide and the crap falls off the shelves on top of you as you walk past, its a retail phenomenon that could not work anywhere else but Woolworths.
It was also pleasing to note that FW Woolworth have not lost sight of their original mission statement, that is to employ the ugliest, most miserable women in the city and clad them in tabards so that they look like school dinner ladies causing us to revert to the worst of our primitive childhood phobias and fear them deeply.
Its almost as if all of the Job Centres in the city gather together their chubbiest, ugliest, and most miserable of women seeking retail employment, garner together the ones who will not (for obvious reasons) ever find themselves seeking an honest days pay behind the makeup counter in Harvey Nichols or Debenhams (for no makeup is that good) and when they have a brace or two then phone up FW Woolworth and ask the Personnel Director to make an offer for them,
"Two ugly miserable ones willing to work for minimum wage, make us a bid"
"How ugly are they ?"
"Really ugly, we've had to keep them in a separate room from the rest of the jobseekers"
"How miserable ?"
"They haven't stopped complaining since childhood"
"We'll take them, minimum wage, let me know when you get some more"
The above quick sketch that I did of the Woolworths women that served me last week is not a cartoon stylee, its almost photographic in its representation, they really do look like that and they really were as miserable as their pictorial countenances appear to be.
The Woolworths Ladies, captured by my pen on 13th December 2007, all rights reserved, FW Woolworth.
8 comments:
I had no idea that store, assuming it's the same we had in the states, still existed at all.
It sounds the same.
The drawing almost has a Ralph Steadman quality about it.
Thanks for the compliment, I love Ralph Steadman's work.
Unfortunately I've lost my "proper" art pen and I've looked everywhere for the same sort of dipping pen that Steadman uses to get his "ink blots and all" stylee, I've had to make do with a set of architects mapping pens but they don't give much freestyle and are a bit too controlled for proper drawing with.
Still, theres another one tomorrow...
Woolworths have gone bankrupt in every country apart from England. I haven't researched that at all, but i'm pretty sure it's right.
I thought they'd closed in Leeds ages ago but they just moved it to the Merrion Centre - the shopping mall that time forgot - then on Saturday we went to Otley and they've got a bloody Woolworths too - with ugly women.
You are Cruel, I'm gonna report you to POCTWE
I don't remember sitting for that picture!
Do Woolies have shelves nowadays and not the assistants with counters on four sides of them like a skirt?
Woolies now have more shelves per square foot than the wholesalers that sell them the shelves, you've never seen so many aisles in a shop and you've never seen so much junk crammed into a shop before.
Love it. I think the one on the left is my Aunt - I guess she must have picked up the wrong name badge in the morning...
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