To be shocked at the dickheads in the Black Friday riots.

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

Woke up to lots of videos on my news feed of people actually brawling over tvs. Police men holding on to items while grown adults are trying rip it out of their arms. Men and women actually pulling, pushing and climbing on items with £30 off!

I feel sorry for the shop workers today. What A bunch of animals.

I've just been shopping in Oxford Street. Work colleagues said I was insane, but scrums and riot police were noticeable by their absence - I bought a few things off my list, and a few things for me, got a few bargains, advised a girls in the changing rooms trying on her party dress whether to get the 8 and wear Spanx or the 10 and get it taken in, had a nice chat with the checkout lady in John Lewis and was given a free bottle of Christmas Coke as part of a marketting campaign I didn't understand.

Veneer of civilisation seeming pretty solid to me.

A friend told me the Tesco near her had instigated a queuing system and marked off the area where the bargains were and it was all very civilised. This is how things should be done. They made tannoy announcements if something had sold out to save people queuing further if that was what they had come for.

Personally, I can't be bothered with all this nonsense. The 'bargains' aren't really. They are old stock. You can find the same prices on the internet.

Blimey this is crazy. I must live somewhere too naice and respectable. The only sign of black friday here was in GAP and it was full of people queuing tidily and laughing at how gullible we were (had basket full of 'half price' socks myself, like I ever pay £8 for one pair of average quality socks!!). Biggest problem for the staff was folding all those jumpers.

Hope those big stores have a serious rethink this year and the media concentrates on those behaving badly, not store staff or police.

It's really noticeable that there are numerous tv crews and photographers filming and snapping the scramble for the "bargains". I reckon that the attention given to the bad behaviour of clinging onto the stuff reinforces the attention-seeking behaviour.

Agree with pooka

On the daily mail website there are lots of photos of shoppers being filmed

The camera men tend to look a bit afraid...all that expensive equipment

Consumerism at it's absolute worst. Who are these people though? Does anyone know anyone who would get into a fight or a scrum like that? I would rather do without a bloody new telly then fight and scream and push others like that. It is very depressing.

I think all Black Friday deals should be online. I hope their tellies and X box's blow up on them.

I think the whole concept of "Black Friday" is the last desperate gamble of a High St in its death throes.

It is disgraceful.

I saw an image today of people with their hands stretched out, clamouring for tellies or something from an Asda or Tesco van.

It reminded me, in a horrible way, of the images of refugees desperate for food from an aid van in war torn countries.

Except these people are just hungry for gadgets that mean nothing.

I don't live without luxuries, and I like shopping but I couldn't and wouldn't fight for a bloody laptop.

I think that the retailers bear some culpability in this, and the police have said as much.

That they knew what would happen, as it was the same last year, and they whipped it up the same and didn't have more security etc.

Some things organisers know there is going to be a mob / crush / people getting out of line. That is not good obviously but if it's known that it's likely then organisers need to make suitable arrangements like they do at football matches, concerts, street festivals.....

I think this one is on the retailers. This happened last year, they knew it would happen this year and they did it anyway and didn't put people in place to deal with it. And in the process they put their staff in really stressful environments and in many cases at risk of actual harm.

It's shit.

When Ikea opened in Edmonton someone was killed weren't they?

This isn't a new phenomenon, the retailers know exactly what is going to happen.

I'm feeling a bit pissed off now TBH, expecting retail workers to work as sodding riot police.

I mean this is from nearly 10 years ago the retailers know exactly how it goes

Yanbu. Revolting people. Note that the film crews were at Asda in Wembley, they knew it would kick off round there.

I've been to Merry Hill today and met Dh for lunch in pizza express.. We barely spoke to each other as we were both agog out the window at people fighting over parking spaces

I went to Merry Hill late one sunday afternoon, it was very quiet and people still fought over car parking spaces. I think its a Black Country thing

Note that the film crews were at Asda in Wembley, they knew it would kick off round there.

This ^

And Im not averse to bargains, I was online at midnight replacing my nearly dead laptop with a discounted MacBook air from John Lewis. But if I hadn't have got it, I'd have walked away, and I certainly wouldn't have fought anyone for it in a store.

SevenZark i agree with every word of your post. On the news they said "lessons will be learned"

But they didnt fucking learn them last year did they!

Tobyjugg thats a good point too.

Make the stores pay for policing and the problem will go away as all bargains will only be online.

I hope Black Friday gets banned. It's disgusting in every sense. And anyone involved in the scenes on the news should be utterly ashamed of themselves. They won't be though.

I went shopping today (forgetting all about the Black Friday thing) and it was absolutely fine. Big shopping centre in the midlands, it was busy, with long queues but absolutely none of the scenes being described on here.

Just noticed up thread someone said people were fighting over spaces at Merry Hill...didn't see anything like that, and it's not a 'black country thing'.

Lol wtf its only like £50 for stuff

It was lovely in Waitrose this morning. No, I'm not being smug, but there were no people pushing and shoving for goods.

Sadly, I think a lot of it is due to desperation, and a feeling that by having a certain item, you become a better person. Even if that means behaving like a hungry animal to get it.....

I hope Black Friday gets banned.

It's not 'black Friday' that's the problem, it's the way that sales are promoted and organised. You can't legislate against businesses having sales whenever they want to, but you can impose regulations which require them to go about it in a more responsible manner. That said, it's depressing when we are looking to the managers at Tesco and Asda to provide a physical presence in order to fill the moral vacuum created by people who are so desperate to get their hands on the latest piece of tat that they are prepared to hurt others to do so.

I'm just catching up with this. It's utterly horrendous

Well I wasn't going to participate but I've just noticed that Amazon have Penderyn whisky in their Black Friday sale and I was going to get a bottle in for Christmas anyway.