Why don't we, the people, go on strike?

Wandering around the supermarket recently, I discovered something not earth shattering but just fucking annoying. Razor blades cost more than the razors. Or rather, the razor blades for MY razor cost more than my razor, a Quattro. This is very annoying because it is forcing me to rethink once again my strategy on shaving. Don't get me wrong, I'm not considering a beard, or half a beard so I can offer the world two different profiles, but it might mean switching back to disposable razors, which are not very good when it comes to achieving the perfect shave.

To be fair to the disposable razor, I've been using them for some time and they're cheap, but I never get a smooth shave and my face always feels rough afterwards – you get what you pay for, never forget that. 

Whatever happened to those razors with the double-edged blades? You know the ones, they used to open up like a trap door in Thunderbirds and you simply placed the Wilkinson Sword or Gillette razor blade in the razor and then screwed it back up again. My dad always had a razor like that and a shaving brush and Ingram shaving 'lather', none of that foam rubbish you get these days. I think dad switched to disposables too.

It's weird having a situation where the razor blades are more expensive than the razor, like if bullets were more expensive than the gun. Perhaps they are, but it all comes down to something the media call 'shrinkflation' – basically the fact that these days we often get less for more. It's been publicised a lot recently, with crisp (potato chip) manufacturers putting less in a bag and then charging the same price or more. Famously, Toblerone increased the size of the gap between the triangular blocks of chocolate, something that doesn't bother me because I don't like Toblerone, although many people do; it's become a big 'international' brand, seen at most airports around the world. But what about Cadbury's Creme Eggs? No longer Cadbury, of course, they're now owned by an American company who, it is reported in the media, are using inferior quality chocolate but, again, still charging either the same money or more. I think Chocolate Orange is the same: either there's less segments or inferior quality chocolate or both.

Never mind 'no trains', how about no customers?

Everything is shrinking in size but costing us more and it's a result of pure greed. What always annoys me is that people simply accept it, nobody says they're not going to buy the products anymore, they just keep paying the money, pandering to the capitalists when all they have to do – en masse – is no longer buy the products the media tells us are shrinking. Just stop buying them!

I'm all for bringing these people to their knees. If we could all simply agree, millions of us, to simply stop shopping, if you like we could go on strike and, say, stop shopping for just one day, all of us, stop consuming, stop going to work by train or bus or anything that means paying a capitalist money – it would be fantastic. I wonder when they would start pleading with us, reducing their prices, putting back the value for money they've taken out?

How would we work it? Perhaps more than one day is needed and regularly. How about some kind of commercial fasting? Let's say the first weekend of every month, nobody uses public transport, nobody visits any shop or pays for any service. Imagine that! Every month for one year and why not step it up, perhaps two weekends. We don't drink in pubs, we don't eat in restaurants, we don't take trains, visit supermarkets, anywhere. In short we give them a dose of their own medicine. We announce the days like ASLEF and Southern Railway announce their strikes and then, after a year we review our success. I think this would have to be a long-term project, we'd need the time to recruit people to the cause, but gradually it might start to work and sooner or later, as I said earlier, they, the capitalists,  the clothes retailers, people like Philip Green, would get very worried. Prices would come down, quality would go up and we would be the winners.

There is, of course, a problem: gullibility. We're all too accepting of what is put in front of us; yes, we'll moan for a bit, but we all now accept inferior quality chocolate, less potato chips in a bag, fewer segments of Chocolate Orange and so forth. When the price of a Lotto ticket rose by 100% to £2 per line, I stopped doing the lottery. Who was I kidding? I wasn't going to be a millionaire, the chances were something like 14 million to one, but sadly there are desperate, gullible people willing to stump up the cash.

Gullibility is the issue and 'they' know it. If everybody stop being so gullible, the world would be a better place.

At Montreal airport...

I arrived at the airport far too early at 11am, having checked in on-line from my hotel room. Why so early? Well, I got up early, had some breakfast followed by a one-hour walk (30 minutes each way) along Sherbrooke.

Montreal is an amazing city and one of the great things about it is the lack of traffic. The roads are virtually empty, like they used to be in the UK back in the seventies. Sherbrooke is an interesting road too. Nearer the centre of town it's where you'll find the Hilton and the Holiday Inn and a few others, the Opus being another, not forgetting the Ritz Carlton, but if you venture out and, as I did, turn left out of the Holiday Inn heading in the direction of the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the landscape changes dramatically. The office blocks disappear and suddenly you find yourself in an exclusive and very peaceful environment. Not only no cars – seriously, hardly any – but there are quiet suburban streets and elegant apartment blocks.

After walking for 30 minutes, I turned left and found myself in a street full of boutiques and coffee shops. I was tempted to linger awhile and perhaps I should have as I ended up taking a cab to the airport and now here I am, eating a chicken sandwich with fries and drinking tea. I could have left it at least another two hours, but I'm here now.

This hangs from one of the ceilings in the public
area of Montreal Airport.

The sun's shining, the skies are blue, with a few clouds dotted here and there and I'm about to drink some broken Orange Pekoe (for the first time since 1987 while in India). It's a black tea, basically, just like English breakfast. Anyway, my flight leaves at 1525hrs and – much to my delight – the flight duration is only two hours and 49 minutes. I've got a window seat too, which is good.

On the cycling front, I'm not holding out much hope of a ride around Atlanta, but I might be pleasantly surprised. Yesterday we cycled around Montreal on the Bixi bikes, I was reminded of David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries, which have been mentioned on this blog before. Byrne takes a foldable bike with him whenever he travels or tours with his band and he always gets around the cities he visits using pedal power. I'll have to check out what he has to say about Montreal and whether it tallies with my experiences – except that Montreal isn't covered by Byrne. Perhaps he's considering a follow-up book of further adventures.

Airports are funny places, they're always so sparsely populated and grey. There's something very calming about an airport: rows of empty seats and deserted thoroughfares with occasional flurries of activity around foodservice outlets, like Houston's, where I'm sitting now having finished that chicken sandwich and fries. I had beef soup as a starter, which turned out to be a meal in itself – a stew no less –and now I'm writing this post and sipping on my aforementioned Orange Pekoe tea.

Chicken sandwich with fries at Houston's on Montreal 

Airport – beyond passport control.

Airports, of course, are the hubs of the international world where brands like Toblerone rule supreme. What is it about the international world that's so weird? It's a world of its own in a sense, that exists between security and the departures gate. All the merchandise is tacky, but ubiquitous, and I'm sure that there are people who try to capitalise on this strange and transient world. Whenever I find myself in the international world, there's always Toblerone and then in a brochure in the hotel room, perhaps, an advertisement for the Blue Man Group, a band of baldmen who have painted themselves blue and do something, I know not what, but they've managed to gain similar status to Toblerone and other 'international' brands, like U2, Apple and many others. In the same way that all countries have a central bank and a national airline, perhaps there's some rule that says all nations must have a Blue Man Group – or do the original band simply tour a lot? It just seems to me that whenever I'm in a hotel room, anywhere in the world, flicking through the free entertainment guide, the Blue Man Group are virtually guaranteed to be playing somewhere. Perhaps there's a prize for anybody who turns up to a Blue Man Group gig with a Toblerone, a U2 CD and an iPod.

The international world disappears while you're in the air – unless you take a glance at the in-flight magazine's duty free brochure where all those horrible international brands can be found again, except, perhaps, the Blue Man Group, although if there is just one Blue Man Group, perhaps they'll be travelling to another country. They only disappear when you're back on terra firma, in your own country, where they seem to keep their distance, apart from occasional reminders from those 'international' entertainment brands, like Dame Edna and, more recently, Sacha Baron Cohen who is well and truly gunning for Toblerone status.

I'm rambling now, because I've got nothing else to do, although it's neary 2pm so I'd better go look for my plane to Atlanta. I've just discovered that it won't depart until 1605hrs.