Canary Wharf
An oasis in the dessert of the clinical, narcissistic world of Canary Wharf, Waitrose shines out like a beacon. The real question though, and this is a question without a proper answer it has to be admitted, is whether this particular Waitrose manages to retain enough of the essence of the brand without allowing it to all seep away, squeezed out under the pressure of the castles of the corporate elites and the temples to vacuous and rampant consumerism. Well, I am here to argue, dear reader, that in this struggle, the light has been all but snuffed out by the darkness...
[ASIDE: There's loads of photos in this one, well five, so if you are daunted by what you have already read then you have the right to just look at the pictures. In all honestly though, if you are feeling daunted, then this right here is not for you and the time I took taking the photos was a waste of said time... in your case. Cease reading and close your browser window...Still here? Good]
...The character and ethos of our beloved, but duely scrutinised, Waitrose lists and buckles under the immense weight it is forced to carry. To float a metaphor, imagine if you will you had a favorite horse (not that I own a horse, let alone enough to choose a fave). This horse had it's rough edges, but it's courage, affection and loyalty forged the strongest of bonds between the two of you. This horse, call him Smokey, is sent off to the big stables, bulked up by Quaker oats and steroids, and set to work winning race after race for some seedy set of well-off owners who see fit to rename him with a ridiculous title like "Nugget of Boron" or "Whet Yer Beek Shortee" (I actually made these up). One day you encounter your horse by chance outside the Plumpton race course. Smokey's being led around by an indifferent stablehand, with one of those horsey jacket things barely concealing his engorged and denatured muscle structure. At first you fail to recognise him, but he comes close enough for the two of you to look at each other, eyeball to eyeball, and you see the faint glimmer of that spark of friendship you once shared. The glimmer quickly fades though, and all you really see is a bastardised shadow of what you once loved. That's what the Canary Wharf Waitrose is like.
One of the key points to raise about the Wharfrose is that it's not merely a Waitrose, it's also essentially a John Lewis as well. Figure A (above) shows the floor plan of this format. I stood looking at this sign, calmly, and then continued not to venture to either the "Home" or the "Fashion" area. As I neither have a 'home' of my own, or any real interest in 'fashion', I saw no need to distract myself with such pointless things. Within the Waitrose Food floor, the layout is not too disimilar from other branches (see Lewes and Balham as examples). However it is what goes on around the periphery of the usual aisle scenario which shows this 'Waitrose' for what it truly is.
It was in the toiletries aisle which I encountered one of life's little cul-de-sacs. As I was in the market for a fresh tub of hair product, I perused the offerings partly shown in Figure B (above). Bypassing the Lynx hair styling range (I know, I was as surprised as you must be!), I wasn't left with much choice manufacturer wise. The only four left were all by the same company and had such non-descript names as "Shaping Dough","Defining Paste" and "Gritty Clay". My somewhat cynical eye was just about tolerant enough of "Grubby Putty" for some reason and I decided to unscrew the lid. Some of you may know that I am a very tactile person, and I like to explore the world with my fingers. Finding nothing to better inform me as to this products qualities with merely my visual sensory data, I dabbed a finger onto the surface of the matter contained in the pot. I gained little more from this dab, but I immediately realised that I had committed myself to this little pot of 'Grubby Putty'. I just wondered what I would have thought if, after unscrewing the lid, I had been faced with an impression of a fingertip similar to the one I had now made. My initial reaction would be disgust at the thought that a total stranger had dabbed the 'putty', a fear of the unknown if you will. But, as a tactile gent, the fact that another tactile sort had dabbed and then disregarded the product as unsuitable would also be a big put off. So I purchased the damn thing okay, with precisely no knowledge of whether it will do what I want it to do, and I'm not at all sure of what I want it to do anyway! The pain I endure for Waitrose!
Yeah you read the sign right! A bloody steak and oyster bar, in a supermarket. This I have never seen before. As I was making my visitation on a Sunday afternoon, I can only imagine the scene I would have encountered on a busy Wednesday Lunctime. Crowds of suited and booted people, bustling about this bar area, steak in one hand, oyster in another, whittling away the meager 30 min lunchbreak they are given between bouts of wealth-hunting. Poor creatures. Needless to say it's just wrong and it sucks.
Equally ridiculous is the Wine Bar they also have just round the corner from it's "Steak and Oyster" cousin. As I saw that they had a 'Wine Bar' I instantly prayed to the creator that there wasn't anyone actually pathetic enough to be sitting there at 5:30pm on a Sunday. There was. Two people with over sized glasses filled with an entirely ordinary amount of red wine. It wouldn't have bothered me as much if they had seemed a bit self-aware or humble, but these two reeked of smuggness. It was hanging from them like a tail of snot from a nose.
Smoothies on crushed ice! Nothing majorly wrong with this, probably the most tolerable innovation I saw on this visitation, but would have looked much better as a central display rather than a standard cabinet. Still keeps the ice-salesmen in the black I guess.
So there we have it. There is clearly new ground being broken at the Wharfrose. There is the Home and Fashion sections, which I couldn't care less about really, but this may make the Wharfrose much more appealing for you. It should be said that this is the largest branch of Waitrose to date. But unfortunately it seems as though the extra square metres of floor space has been filled with nonsense. Was it so much to ask that they just put a bloody big Waitrose in Canary Wharf and left it at that. Is the need for superfluous bullshit so rife in this part of the capital that even things which are exceptional, and at times a bit poncey anyway, are just projected to fit into some corrupted, inhuman vision of the world? I have not been deterred from the journey I set out on all those months and three posts ago, and neither should you. The next installment should, for all our sakes, be one that reaffirms why we are all here. Until then...
