Black Friday

As everyone who watches television or is on the mailing list for any of our major stores will confirm, “Black Friday” has become the longest running commercial extravaganza and celebration in our history. Although its origins are obscure (presumably dreamt up by American salesmen a few years ago), it has now extended itself beyond any one particular Friday and threatens to cover the whole of so-called “Black November” and then to transmogrify into something called “Cyber Monday”.
Such longevity means that it has accordingly replaced Christmas as the premier sales opportunity of the year. Its new status was confirmed to me when we received – alongside the latest news of supposedly wonderful bargains – the salutation “Happy Black Friday!”. In today’s world, we now, it seems, truly worship at the shrine of commerce.