The Big Smoke

I am feeling uneasy. Feeling uneasy in the discount supermarket at the bottom of the hill. I don’t associate this supermarket with feeling uneasy; I associate it with a half-decent rosé at £4.10 a bottle and special offers on fruit. Because, really, you can’t eat too much fruit.

However, the woman behind the till is taking a new line. Usually it’s a curt ‘I can’t weigh that orange at this counter.’ To which I reply, as I hold up the single orange (because, actually, you can eat too much fruit), ‘That’s okay, this orange is individually priced. Look, it’s 12 pence.’ I like this routine; in the rosé season I set my week by it.

This time she weighs the orange happily, which is odd and unnecessary as, like previous oranges, it is individually priced. Then she says:

'Do you want a “bag for life”?’ And I say: ‘How much does it cost?’ And she says: ‘Forty pence.’ And I say: ‘No thanks, I’m just going up the hill.’ Then she says: ‘A lot of our customers are choosing them – they like to do their bit.’

‘Do their bit?’

‘Come on, I haven’t got all day.’ That last remark isn’t the woman behind the till or me; it comes from the queue that has built up behind me. I turn to look at the queue which comprises, as usual, several wide-eyed customers who are keen to do their bit by drinking the own-brand vodkas and litre-and-a-half bottles of Lambrusco clutched in their red-knuckled fists, plus one small child who is sicking up half a packet of HobNobs into the empty shopping baskets stacked below the chewing-gum display. The queue is the thing that is unnerving me, and though I’d rather have my usual free plastic bags, in this mood it is not to be messed with. Feature continues

‘All right,’ I say, ‘I’ll take the “bag for life”.’ The woman behind the till puts my two bottles of rosé and the orange in a large bag which is decorated garishly and bears an eco-friendly slogan.

I am 40p down but still have a fiver in my pocket. It is not a disaster. I leave. ‘About fucking time,’ the queue calls after me as the kid continues to vomit.

Outside, I set off up the hill, stepping over the Kurdish woman who sells The Big Issue from a horizontal position. ‘Big Issue, sir?’ she asks as I clear her triple-stockinged, be-wellington’d legs. As I pause to get the fiver out, the ‘bag for life’ lets out an audible ‘phut’ and the bottom opens.

The two bottles of rosé fall to the ground and smash, flooding some adjacent dog shit in a pink slick. The orange rolls inexorably down the hill towards the pet shop. The Kurdish woman, who doesn’t get to have much fun, laughs.

Although I am aghast at the portents of this unexpected event – if this is my ‘bag for life’ and it lasted 37 seconds, just how long will I live? – my main feeling is resentment at being taken for a ride by the eco lobby.

I am not alone: all Londoners are regularly tricked out of their money and time in the name of green stuff, whether it’s paying for ‘bags for life’ that don’t have one or spending Sunday morning recycling the week’s supply of bottles, tins and plastic in the foolhardy belief it will make any difference as long as the Chinese continue to open an old-style coal-fired power station every seven seconds.

But this stuff is just irritating, it’s not annoying. What is annoying is when green nincompoops attempt to stop Kingsnorth coal-fired power station opening just outside London. Not only will this power station keep London’s pensioners warm, it will – because it is pioneering new, clean coal technology that we can sell to the Chinese – help save the world. Not that (if my bag is to be believed) I will be around to enjoy it when we do. And yes, I did buy another bottle of rosé instead of a copy of The Big Issue.