Take your coffee and Buck off!!!

The economic downturn has claimed many victims, and threatens to claim many more into the New Year, but this week saw a local council take a stand against the true embodiment of American capitalism that has the potential to ruin us all.

Brighton & Hove City Council have ordered the Starbucks cafe on St James Street to stop operating as a "drink-in" cafe. The coffee shop opened in May, fragrantly ignoring the fact that they had yet to receive planning permission from the city council to operate as a cafe or a restaurant. The ruling means that the Starbucks can only sell takeaway sandwiches and coffees and the American giant faces the very real prosprect of having to rip out their tables and chairs to adhere to an English bureaucratic system, very unamerican.

This isn't a tirade against the nature of American capitalism, indeed globalisation has lead to the choices that British consumers have being increased exponentially. Microsoft, Nike, Budweiser and Ford are examples of brands that have migrated from the States and have been enveloped within British culture. Indeed, the alleged "special relationship" between our nations has seemingly manifested itself in recent years more in commercial opportunities than in any sense of shared political orientation.

However, this relatively low level protest could be symobilc of the broader struggle that we find ourselves in the midst of in December 2008. Brighton & Hove Council are to be admired for standing for the independent retailer, when arguably another American brand would bring more revenue into St. James Street in these times of recession. As a resident of the Greater Brighton & Hove area outside term time, Brighton has always been a bastion of cultural resistance, holding onto the traditions and cultures that were mockingly discarded by the masses years ago. The fact that the council seem to have absorbed this spirit is encouraging and perhaps Brighton & Hove City Council embody a future where the corporate giants no longer ride roughshot over legislative procedures.

Merry Christmas ...what will Santa bring the economy

So, it's the first of December and as the first door of advent calendars are opened across the country, will this Christmas be a tad different from any other my generation can recall? 16 years of unprecedented economic growth has been curtailed and we now face the first Christmas in a recession than any of us can probably remember. The economic downturn was evidenced by the lass than festive news that the pound lost the most value against the dollar in one day since 1992. Yet amidst all the doom and gloom and the 20% day sales that the likes of Beales and Marks and Spencers have used in the last week, could tightening our belts be a good thing?

People my age have grown up surrounded by unlimited material desires. As a child, if it wasn't a Playstation it was a Go-Kart and if it wasn't a go kart, it was the latest pair of football boots. But, could this economic downturn lead to people beginning to re-connect with the true spirit of Christmas, and not be blinded by a proliferation of flashing gizmos and glittering bows. Don't misconstrue this as religous fanatiscism that is extolling the virtues of midnight mass, but I do feel the true meaning of the festive season has been somewhat clouded. Could this Xmas be the beginning of the end of the rat race of consumerism that has come to embody the festive season?