The children aren't even off yet. Shops need to put the back-to-school merch away

Emer McLysaght Author and journalist

In Nobody Needs This, a new series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad.

I HATED THE Rose of Tralee as a child.

Obviously, I watched it religiously (like I had much choice in a house with two channels and one telly) and probably dreamed about one day becoming a Lovely Girl myself, singing Báidín Fheilimí while grown men dabbed at their eyes with hankies, or whipping off the long skirt of my formal gown to reveal a shorter version in which to do an impressive jig.

However, glamour of the Rose festival aside, its broadcast in late August always signalled the end of summer and therefore the dreaded return to school. Along with blackberries on the bushes, hay bales in the meadows and school uniforms in the shops, the Rose of Tralee completed the line up of the four horsemen of the new term apocalypse.

It’s no wonder then that I nearly crashed my trolley this week when my eyes fell upon the back-to-school merchandise in the supermarkets, before the children had even been let loose for their summer holidays. Is nothing sacred? Don’t they deserve even a few weeks of joy before being reminded that time is marching ever forward at a rapid pace and it’s wearing a pale blue shirt, grey slacks and a tie on an elastic band?

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Every year stores begin their seasonal campaigns earlier than the last. We see Easter in January, Halloween in July and Christmas in August. In May of this year, I was almost felled by the sight of a ‘cosy season’ jumper a friend had spotted in Penneys and posted to her Instagram stories. ‘Pumpkin spiced latte served daily’ it read in tones of orange and brown. Excuse me, Penneys? We hadn’t even had the first 99 of the season, and you’re trying to push the pumpkin slop on us!

This extension of shopping seasons is part of ever-evolving retailer strategies to win the price wars and keep customers loyal and spending. Stocking the tins of Roses in August acts as subliminal advertising and reminds shoppers where these items will be for the next few months, as well as triggering a scarcity mindset: ‘Well, if I don’t buy them now they’ll be gone when Christmas rolls around and I’ll have nothing to produce as an emergency gift if the poshos from across the road decide to grace us with their presence’. Of course, the Roses will hardly survive a week in the house or at the very least will become the treats at the door for the Halloween parade of children. You’ll notice in the past few years that’s exactly what’s been happening. The traditional festive tins of Heroes and Celebrations have quickly become traditional October tins.

Stocking the shelves with school uniforms from mid-June leads parents to believe they’re getting ahead of their jobs and making an excellent fist of the budgeting. And look, maybe some of them are, especially with the modern-day stress of providing activities and camps and supervision for every second of the summer holidays.
But for the sake of the children’s sanity, can we ban the phrase ‘back to school’ until they’ve at least been off for a month?

Not to be too ‘I remember when all this was fields’ about it, but there was something magical about being allowed to forget about functional, black Velcro runners or a ten pack of Aisling copybooks for a couple of months every year and to vanish for eight hours a day on bikes and through streams. There wasn’t a phone to be seen, just a vague hope on the part of our parents that we hadn’t been bundled into a white van and would be home that evening to see the Wicklow Rose recite a poem where she’d rhyme ‘Manor Kilbride’ with ‘Daddy’s pride’. Those were the days.

Popping off in the freezer

One of the delights of being an adult with free will is realising you can just go to Lidl and buy a freezer drawer-full of ice-pops. I favour Lidl for my frozen treat needs because they carry the elite Sun Lolly range, which reappears every year around May or June. Raspberry and strawberry are the superior juicy flavours, but cola also has a strong showing.

Great news for those with ears

Irish pop princess Morgana (also of Saint Sister) has finally announced details of her debut album. The Whole Thing Was Very Very Emotional will be released on 25 September and it’s available to pre-order now. Sidekick, Morgana’s first single from the album is already out while her songs I’ll Cry When I’m Dead and Nothing Kills a Party Like a Song were in the Top 5 of my Spotify Wrapped last year.

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Things are looking up in the Netflix romcom universe

Maybe watching Voicemails for Isabelle will help to scrub the memory of the scutter that is Office Romance from my brain. The former is the charming new Netflix rom-com starring Zoey Deutch (you know her from Set It Up) and Nick Robinson (you know him from Love, Simon), the latter is the excruciating recent J-Lo/Brett Goldstein rubbish.

Voicemails for Isabelle isn’t perfect or without its clichés but it’s very watchable. For what it’s worth, my favourite rom-coms of the past decade or so are Palm Springs, Rye Lane, Plus One and Obvious Child.

Emer will be back next Friday morning with more recommendations. 

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