(d) "He didn't gamble, except the once: his £3.3bn ($6bn) takeover * * * of the Safeway chain in 2004. * * * there were good and bad sides to that. A lot of the shops were on their uppers, for a start.
(i)
(A) Safeway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeway
("Safeway Inc, a grocery company in the United States * * * Safeway (UK), a defunct UK supermarket chain, which was a subsidiary of the American company and is now part of Morrisons")
(B) Safeway Inc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeway_Inc.
(is an American supermarket chain founded in 1915 [by Marion Barton Skaggs]'
Quote: "The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis — it did not offer credit, as grocers traditionally had done [ie, extending credit to customers]. It was the 'safe way' to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many families did at the time, especially during the Great Depression).
(ii) on one's uppers
(A) upper
(adj): "higher in physical position, rank, or order <the upper lip> <upper management>
(n): "one that is upper: such as a : the parts of a shoe or boot above the sole"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uppers
(B) on one's uppers: "poor, in reduced circumstances, as in as in The Smiths try to hide the fact that they're on their uppers. First recorded in 1886, this metaphoric term alludes to having worn out the soles of one's shoes so badly that only the top portions remain"
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. 2003
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/on+one's+uppers
(e) "But even trickier was the task of taking a Yorkshire chain down south. He didn't like going there himself, and whenever in London couldn't wait to get back to egg and chips in Bradford. Down south they ate things like salmon and spinach salad, and wouldn't know a black pudding if it hit them on the head. Morrisons by contrast was a temple of the great northern pie: steak and ale, minced beef and onion, rhubarb. A bell rang every time a batch came fresh from the oven, their flavour was proudly stamped round the rim, and in Skipton a man worked full-time to sample them for tastiness."
(i) egg and chips
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_and_chips
(is a popular working-class dish in the United Kingdom, consisting simply of chips [British English for french fries] served with fried eggs)
(ii) Search images.google.com for (salmon and spinach salad) -- no quotation marks.
(iii) black pudding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding
Compare
(a) white pudding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_pudding
(B) hog's pudding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hog's_pudding
(produced in Cornwall and parts of Devon)
(iv) Skipton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipton
(in North Yorkshire)
(f) "The north-versus-south clash got better eventually, when the economic downturn made southerners appreciate a bargain. * * * Jumped-up discounters were offering crazy prices. Tesco and Sainsbury's were racing away with online shopping, small local shops, points cards and all that gimcrackery. He didn't join in. Nothing wrong with being old-fashioned. * * * Forget statistical studies, retail engineering and all that rubbish. Why hire fancy consultants, if you could spot problems yourself? Why appoint a non-executive director, when you could get two hard-working check-out girls for the same money [to work in a store, not in the boardroom]?"
(i) jumped-up (adj): "informal denoting someone who considers themselves to be more important than they really are, or who has suddenly and undeservedly risen in status <‘she's not really a journalist, more a jumped-up PR woman>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/jumped-up
(ii) gimcrackery (n)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gimcrackery
(iii) Non-Executive Director. Investopedia, undated
www.investopedia.com/terms/n/non-executive-director.asp
("Non-executive directors, also known as external directors, independent directors or outside directors, are put in place to challenge the thinking and performance of a company. Since non-executive directors do not hold C-level or managerial positions, they are thought to hold the interests of the company in higher regard than executive directors, who may have an agency problem or conflict of interest between management and stockholders.
(g) "But progress, so-called, beckoned. From 2006 he suffered chief executives to come in from outside, though the first patently wasn't even a retailer, and all of them needed watching, which he did by having fish-and-chip lunches with them on Fridays. * * * he had retired in 2008 to his chateau in Myton-on-Swale."
(i) suffer (vt): "[with object and infinitive] allow (someone) to do something <my conscience would not suffer me to accept any more>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/suffer
(ii) Myton-on-Swale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myton-on-Swale
(in North Yorkshire; on the River Swale) |
发表于 2-17-2017 10:09:02
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