Here's a thing, last night some twat over on facebook said "all these people getting their tenner off their tacky chain restaurant, lunch costs £35-45 anyway" So before blocking him I called him out for being a cunt but it did get me thinking about the whole #shoplocal thing

Anyway, what got me thinking was this, we're always told to support local business, but what classes as a local business? Up the road from me there is a takeaway, a pub and a convenience store, there is also a bookies and mechanics but we'll ignore them. The wee shop and takeaway

Well, the takeaway is a family run business, all of whom live miles away, the wee shop is the same although they do employ two locals, so are these really local businesses? Let's move up to the Fort shall we? Up the Fort there are loads of big retail shops.

All the bosses and owners of these shops live miles away too, just like the takeaway owner and the shop owner, but al these shops up The Fort are indeed providing jobs for the local community. Moving away from the Fort I can think of loads of wee shops where the owners...

live nowhere near the communities they serve so what makes me want to give money to the independent takeaway which takes all it's money back to Bearsden or Milgavnie rather than going to Greggs which at least provides jobs? The answer is nothing.

I don't want just a couple of huge companies providing everything to everyone but neither do I think a shop has some special privilege because it's independently run.