Читать книгу We’re British, Innit: An Irreverent A to Z of All Things British - Iain Aitch - Страница 49

No British community is complete without its corner shop. The shop need not actually be situated on the corner of a street to be considered a corner shop, but it should provide the focus for a community by providing overpriced items that you may have forgotten to pick up from the out-of-town superstore. Principal among these items are Pringles, bourbon biscuits, cigarettes, pornographic magazines and bizarre cakes you never see anywhere but in corner shops. Often run by Asian immigrants and their families, some corner shops are still known as ‘Paki shops’ by those locals whose knuckles drag along the pavement as they walk. This tendency towards casual racism and the linking of Asian families to these stores was acknowledged by British-Asian band Cornershop in their choice of name. The band’s tour rider consisted mostly of firelighters, out-of-date boxes of Milk Tray chocolates and Lemsip.