2004-02-15
... ? undercurrent: November 2003 ArchivesLIDL's uk outlets are part car-boot sale, part eastern-bloc theme park, part 70s simstim. It?s an extraordinary place that goes against every rule of the cutting-edge supermarket. You know how in Goodbye Lenin Alexander has to go out and get the old east-german pickles for his mum and finds the supermarket transformed into a cornucopia of glossy overpackaged goods from all over the planet? Going to LIDL is like that, in reverse. Other chains can be pleasingly parochial (at the Somerfield I went to in London there was a small section of an aisle signposted as 'foreign foods', including that rare exotic creature, pasta). But LIDL tops them all for making no effort. Semiologically, it's neither hot nor cool, it's colder than Iceland, it's where lifestyles go to die.
