Should Naim (dealers) join Black Friday?

If you keep buying electronic gadgets, that cable fund will be full in no time!

Ahhh, don't be so grumpy. It's a fun night out. I go as a zombie. Parents socialise in the street and the kids have fun. Certain streets go to a lot of trouble to decorate their houses. These streets get 99% of the "business". But even in these streets, houses without decorations or at least a lit pumpkin are pretty much by-passed.

Unfortunately, our kids are getting too old. For our eldest, it is now just a chance to be out with his friends in the evening. Our youngest still made bank, though. He's still working his way through it, with help in the way of "parent tax" levied from the sofa when we notice him rooting through his candy bag.

The iPads were something we were going to buy anyway so I'm not knocking a saving of £100. 

I used to go to a conference in Chicago around Black Friday. There wasn't the huge frenzy seen in the UK yesterday and, with the exchange rate at the time, it was a good time to refresh my wardrobe at Brooke's Brothers etc.

Winky,

You're a more generous parent than me. Once my kids brought home the booty, I had them pick their ten favorites and then they got one a day. The rest of the candy went back to our dentist where he bought it back from the kids paying dollars on the pound (weight). But you're right, Halloween is a fun social night, a chance to keep up with the neighbors and chat briefly with the local kids at the door. And invariably, they all say "Thank you!" for their treat.

I love the idea of the dentist buying candy by the pound! Yeah, we're perhaps bad parents in the way we allow our kids (too much) candy. But neither kid is the slightest bit overweight, and they have no cavities either. We otherwise feed them healthy food.

Trouble is Winky, it's not a "fun night out". It's enforced fun, in which everyone is obliged to participate, whether they want to our not. If they don't they're somehow being "grumpy" or "letting the side down."

It's the equivalent of the loudmouthed "wacky" office joker, or the shrieking girl who tries to drag everyone onto the dancefloor at a party, then berates those unwilling to join her. Hallowe'en is the kind of occasion that fun fascists love.

Here, we have no tradition of Hallowe'en - it was imported about 15 years ago by retailers and confectionery companies. We had a perfectly nice autumn festival, Bonfire Night, which involved explosions and burning effigies of people we dislike (Alex Salmond, the previous Pope, Jeremy Clarkson and Michael Gove were favourites this year, apparently) - much more British than knocking on doors scrounging sweets (or "candy" as you North Americans so charmingly call it).

Hallowe'en, I always go to a gig or sit in a pub with other grumpy old men and moan about Hallowe'en, the government or football.

We were in Florida for Halloween once (2001) staying "off Disney" in a normal housing estate. It seemed much more organised and was generally good fun, met lots of locals and their offspring.

Black Friday much difference to the scenes at New Year Sales in days or yore?

Don't we already celebrate Thanksgiving?

On July 4th?

There is a much earlier precedent to Halloween, and that's the New Year's day celebration of Samhain.

It marks the end of the harvest, the coming of the dark days of winter and, in some traditions, the ascendency of the God over the Goddess or the transition from Mother to Crone.

And yes preserved fruit (cf candied fruit) can be involved in the celebration.

How so?

Trouble is Winky, it's not a "fun night out". It's enforced fun, in which everyone is obliged to participate, whether they want to our not. If they don't they're somehow being "grumpy" or "letting the side down."

 

It's the equivalent of the loudmouthed "wacky" office joker, or the shrieking girl who tries to drag everyone onto the dancefloor at a party, then berates those unwilling to join her. Hallowe'en is the kind of occasion that fun fascists love.

 

 

+1

 

steve

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way ....

The time is gone, the song is over...

Thought I'd something more to say...

In little old New Zealand Black Friday is Friday 13th, this year it was June. As far as I am concerned the less Black Fridays the better. Sounds like another mindless example of consumerism.  

All I can say is that it must be very different where you live. No-one is forced in any material way to participate in Halloween here. If we didn't go looking for it we'd never know it was even on (apart from seeing decorated houses around the general area in the weeks leading up).

But really, the kids know that houses without decoration or lit pumpkins aren't the ones to approach. I've never heard anyone opine that the owners of those houses are"grumpy" or "letting the side down".

OK, if our house was in an area/street where the rest of the street did actively take part by decorating their houses and generally enjoying the whole thing, we might get a few knocks at the door. We actually get zero (I think, but we're out), because our street doesn't do much. Our neighbors leave a pumpkin out, but some years even they get zero kids, except for ours who drop by when we get home.

If Kevin and you do get uninvited kids insisting that you somehow take part, then that is a very different experience to what we see here. 

QED Winky. I express a dislike for Hallowe'en and therefore I'm "grumpy". Nobody is asked whether they want to be called on by sweet-scrounging brats.It's an equivalent to a knock on the door from a salesman, or a cold call, and about as welcome as either.

You can opt out of Hallowe'en by going out but that's it. The thing is, it's not a British tradition, and it has been introduced here by confectionery and fizzy drinks makers, and it's not welcome here as far as I'm concerned. If you want it you can keep it, and I'll send everyone over chez Winky next Hallowe'en.

Black Friday has a whole new meaning in this country. People fighting over TVs what ever next. People in this country need to take a good long hard look at themselves in the mirror nothing to do with an American tradition. 

I have received several promotional emails offering special reductions on cycles and cycle parts and accessories if bought between Friday and Monday.

I assume that the price will be just that little bit more expensive when I do decide to buy cycle parts, at a time of year when there would be some point in doing so.

Bloody silly idea.

ATB from George 

Chaps

Why all the fuss and complaining.

I found it quite entertaining to watch a load of plonkers getting half killed in a scrum, a bit like the Roman gladiator type of thing to be honest. 

 All this for the sake of buying an out of date TV for a few quid less than what it was going for last week.  If people are dumb enough to get suckered into doing this, then it's up to them but it's a free world etc and no one forces anyone to do it.

Jolly good fun all round and quite entertaining and if nothing else, it has given some of you something else to moan about. Let it roll.

Regards

Mick

I noticed the TVs being scrambled over and probably killed for were all on "Which"s "Don't Buy" list.

It's quite easy for the middle classes who can afford a really nice Panasonic (like me) to have a chuckle at people scrambling over TVs that have got to be rubbish - how can you sell a 50" TV for £139? We were at the sailing club at lunchtime (I know, I know, but the beer is £2.20 a pint) and the guy behind the bar was saying that there was fighting in Havant Tesco. It's bonkers!

The thread started off with the question of whether Naim dealers should do Black Friday promotions. You can just imagine the BMWs parked outside as their owners beat the crap out of each other over NDSs selling for £3,000. 

Why is that the "thing"? Would you think differently if it was British?

+1.

Nah. Not cheap enough. 

I think it soon will be