To ask: What do you boycott?

[Vagabond]

I boycott Starbucks (bad coffee, too ubiquitous), and any film with Scientologists in it. Tom Cruise, you're dead meat!

What do you boycott?

Goodness jasmine, a proper opt-out then. Madness about the prescription.

I'm with the OP on the scientology thing. I have some experience of them (acts mysterious) and will never watch a film with Tom Cruise in - I know what it's providing money for.

Burger King in Havant - they clamped my disabled brother in law for crossing the road to get cash even though he came straight back over the road to eat in Burger King and showed his disabled badge. The clampers were literally waiting in the van to pounce the moment you left the car and were very abusive and rude to a very obviously disabled man. It was about 2 years ago and they must have lost far more business than the money they made as neither I nor any of my family have ever eaten in there again, out of principle, nor will I.

Would be interesting if everyone presented their reasons for the boycots. Not buying something because you don't like it, or have no nead for it is hardly a boycot.

An not not patronising Starbucks because the shops are 'too ubiquitous' is rather po-faced and pretentious.

BGT, x factor and reality tv shite and soaps.

Nestle and I have for 11 years as for reason well I suggest you start with the babymilk action website.. info.babymilkaction.org/

But surely the Nestle thing has long been established as utter bollocks years ago. It seems a weird reason to boycott something. All of the things I hate are things that affect me or my life in some way. I guess it's impressive to sacrifice for your beliefs but I wouldn't bother. Especially because you believe people should have to do something that quite a lot of people would never want to do. I include myself in that, never have and never would and that is MY choice and I don't need a lot of lefty farty pants to try and stop me being exposed to adverts.

The thing is that Nestle are easy to boycott because no-one really needs a kitkat. You could argue that some other companies are more unethical, but more of a PITA to boycott (e.g. petroleum companies, electronics, etc)

Exactly. When my house is empty I let people live there rent free rather than have to pay council tax. I guess I am lucky to be able to afford to do this but I still lose £700 a month. I work for a petroleum company so I can't imagine not liking the oil and gas industry except, of course, for BP.

I beg to differ the bride some if us do NEED kitkats!

I boycott The Sun as I'm a Liverpool fan, but then I wouldn't buy it anyway so it's irrelevant really.

Lush, because of their cynical exploitation of animal rights links for profit (and because their stuff is more like mush than lush).

And KFC/MacDonalds/Burger King because I just can't stand the stuff.

Theres a lot of shops/products I don't use, because I don't like them

thats not quite the same as boycotting them though

Nijinsky, thank you for reminding me about bloody LUSH!! When they sponsored the whole Plane Stupid raid on the airport I went into the LUSH store in Doha (3,000 miles away from Poole) and asked them if the products are made locally. Oh no they proudly proclaim, everything is hand made in Dorset. Well, ok then, how did it get here then, flown on the backs of migrating birds??? No arseholes, it comes as air freight that's how. Hypocritical bastards and their stuff stinks anyway.

Hmm, not sure they would send low value, non-perishable bath salts or whatever it is by air freight. It probably goes by sea.

I don't shop there or anything though, it's just overpriced soap, innit?

They do send it air freight, I know that for sure. I asked them. I'm glad it didn't come in the same cargo plane as my freight. One lush bathbomb is enough to stink out a whole building.

And anyway, as far as I know ships don't run on chip fat do they? Why export at all if you have such high principles? And before you go to their website and see that they have worldwide factories, I promise you that the crap they sell in Qatar is made in Poole. It says so on the packaging which is illegal if untrue.

Boots
Artificial Colours/Sweeteners
KFC
Tesco

What is your gripe with Boots? I love that shop.

Ooh!

Forgot to mention Comet - bastards in customer service, after sales, the lot. Washing machine broke down when DD was two months old and it took them 4 MONTHS not to fix it - endless call outs, endless repeat breakdowns, callout times always two weeks from the time you called them. The machine was just a gnat's whisker over a year old and they refused to refund it unless it was on one of their store gift cards, so the replacement we got is still under their care :(

The Daily Mail - Aside from the obvious reasons, I frequent a photoshopping/humour website that will produce a lot of very very funny material, a lot of which you've probably seen in viral emails. The DM comes onto the site every so often and just rips off a page's worth of pictures, crops off all the 'watermarks' (showing who originally made it) and publishes it as their own work. We (as a site) challenged them about it from a legal point of view (intellectual property theft) and basically they just said 'well you published it online you must have wanted it to be seen.' The usual creators of the really good stuff (not me I must add!) have now taken to putting their watermarks in the middle of the image...

In the Bloody Sodding Night Bloody Garden - Niece loves it, when DD started to pay attention to the tv I put an episode on for her. Utter tripe, I couldn't believe how awful it was. Won't put it on now, DD would much rather watch Tom & Jerry anyway. Which brings me to...

'Fake' Tom & Jerry - by which I mean ANY T&J not made by Hanna & Barbera. The Chuck Jones-era ones were bad enough, but the T&J Tales tripe will NEVER be shown in this house, nor any of the movies.

Also anything involving Ricky Gervais, can't stand the smug git

Hm, I feel strangely better now...

anything associated with turkey, because of the ILLEGAL occupation of n.cyprus (my birth place)

anything eco friendly or similar because the obsession with global warming has damaged the finances of this country.

daily express / daily mail/ the sun because of their xenophobic anti europe stance

Lelli Kelly Shoes - the adverts are so smarmy it makes me want to puke!
Tesco - coz they are taking over the world and don't give a monkeys who they stand on to do it

mx5hairddresser, I agree there. I do wish Turkey would back out of North Cyprus. I still can't find any justification for it.

Animal products
Non-organic food/toiletries/textiles (unless clothes are secondhand)
Supermarkets
Most high street chains/multi-nationals

Nestle.
Non free range or organic meat, except lamb.
Israeli goods.
Primark.
Battery eggs. I didn't know about the Happy Eggs thing, one more for the list. The Daily Mail and trashy papers in general. And the Telegraph.

I don't really boycot as such, its not to do with principles or a sense of what is morally right so much as not liking something or thinking its a waste of money.

So I never have any kind of "extended warranty" - I exercise my rights under the Sale of Goods Act if something goes wrong. I always go back to the retailer and don't let them fob me off with the manufacturer.

I will never buy another Ericson phone after they wouldn't replace the flip bit on a phone I had when I was 20 years old because they said I must have dropped it. I didn't drop it. I guess that is a boycott. I've had about 10 phones since then, maybe more. Silly them. That flip must have cost about £5 to fix.

At the end of the day its whether or not it suits me as to whether I shop there. I should really boycott Next Directory as they gave me a hell of a time last year with a return I made that the courier company stole lost - it took them so long to credit me for it, I had proof that I'd handed it over to the courier so couldn't give a tuppenny fuck if they lost money or had to investigate. But I dont boycott them. Why? Because they are convenient. Their clothing fits my daughter well, and they deliver the next day without fail. I'd be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

That's why I don't boycott Nestle etc. Yes, what they did was very very wrong. But me not buying it won't change that. If it makes you feel better, great, but I just can't get too bothered about it. All this Nespresso coffee must have dampened the receptors to my give a shit centre. (Perhaps there's something in the coffee?)