I know that it is holiday time, so many people are away, but the supermarkets have been noticeably quiet (in the early evening, the time I usually go in) for several weeks now.
Not just fewer people, emptier carparks, but somehow less exuberance, a more serious sober atmosphere. Far fewer trolleys packed to the gunwales.
And this year I didn’t notice any groups of young men buying cases of beer to celebrate the end of exams, or indeed of their educational career.
The latest baby boomers are going to grow up in a much more thrifty atmosphere than the one experienced by their older brothers & sisters who managed to be surrounded by an awful lot of ‘stuff’ from the minute they were born.
