Move over Susan Boyle.

I think that, by now, most of you will have seen the YouTube video of a horde of shoppers descending on a Lidl supermarket in the early hours of Monday morning in order to take advantage of a BBQ selling for the ludicrously low price of e20. (If you are possibly the only person in Malta who hasn’t seen it, just go to www.youtube.com and search for Lidl Malta).

I had heard the stories of what goes on when there is a special offer but thought that people were perhaps embellishing and exaggerating for dramatic effect, as sometimes happens. It turns out that all the stories were true.

The reactions to the video have been predictable, as viewers cringe, wince and gasp in shock and embarrassment at the sight of bargain hunters stampeding to get their hands on the precious BBQs. What is not that straightforward is what it really means in the context of the current economic climate. Are all these people with fists of cash in hand simply proving that the recession has blissfully passed us all by? Or should we give this a completely different interpretation – that the spectacle of people willing to wake up at the crack of dawn to save money is dire proof of just how bad things are?

Let’s be honest – Lm8.60 (in old money) is a pretty good price for a BBQ, although the quality of the item still has to be determined. And while this is a non-essential item, from what I’ve heard, rugby-style tackles at Lidl have also been witnessed when the hapless staff rolls out heavily discounted food items.

Many people love a good bargain – I was tempted to write “us Maltese” but on second thoughts I know that this is really a universal human trait. Discount shops thrive on the psychology of this, seducing us with their “buy 2 get one 1 free” offers, and we fall for it, even though we don’t really need three cans of kunserva.

The phenomenon of sales works on a similar level. The knowledge that we have purchased something at a fraction of the price gives us a thrill of accomplishment and achievement. We pat ourselves on the back because we have not been conned into paying full price, and there is, let’s admit it, a feeling of satisfaction knowing that in the process we have deprived the retailer from pocketing a fat chunk of profit at our expense.

The herd instinct is also common to all countries. If there is a queue, we reason that there must be a good reason to join it. It would take someone completely devoid of any curiosity not to stop and ask what the queue is for. Since watching that video I have often wondered how many people waiting in line actually needed a BBQ. Perhaps they simply queued because other people were doing it, in the belief that, as we like to say in our quaint Maltese-English, “vera worth it”.

The unsavoury spectacle of the bedlam, which broke out when the shop opened, has made a lot of people curl their lips in a disapproving sneer – qisna mejtin bil-guh (it’s like we’re dying of hunger) was a frequent comment. It’s embarrassment by association – we don’t like to be identified with that stampede because it jars uncomfortably with our own self-image of a sophisticated “European” nation that has everything it could wish for in the way of merchandise. Many people were unhappily reminded of the Mintoff years when going on a holiday meant stocking up on precious never-before-seen items not available here. The video annoyed them because they could not understand why there were still people who acted like backwards country folk when Malta has patently moved on since then.

The answer to all this is that, despite its smallness, Malta has several sub-cultures and in response to this, different shops have sprouted up to cater for different niches in the market.

I guess it all boils down to what you expect from your shopping experience. The popularity of shops such as Lidl, Tal-Lira (now Tal-Ewro) and a myriad of other discount stores have to be juxtaposed with the wide range of upmarket shops offering top of the range quality with prices to match. Malta, it seems to me, has been split into two types of shoppers – there are those for whom money is no object and who will pay through the nose for what they perceive to be “the best” (even if it means they will be drowning in debt).

Then there are those who will hunt high and low for bargains and deals, whether it is for their grocery shopping or underwear from the local flea market (monti).

Of course, there are also those who present the ultimate paradox – they will think nothing of installing the most expensive bathroom available, but will then scrimp and save when it comes to the type of food they put on the table for the family’s dinner. Priorities vary according to the sub-culture, and it is not always easy to fathom who gives importance to what. Working class families will sometimes astonish you on how much they spend on groceries, while some middle class families buy the bare minimum. The thinking behind certain purchases is not always rational – in fact, sometimes it’s downright skewed. Why, for example, spend money on a BBQ (even at a cheap price) if you don’t have enough money to pay your bills?

Finally, the Lidl video has definitely opened our eyes, not simply because it shows human behaviour at its worst, but because it shows that there is a strata of Maltese society for whom every euro counts. We are lucky so far in that the recession has not turned people out into the streets, but that does not mean that there aren’t people out there who count every penny.

Some comparison

When Lisa Gatt returned from her misadventures in Cambodia, where she was involved in a traffic accident because of the poor state of the roads, she tried to make light of her plight by saying that at least our roads are not that bad.

You know things have really reached the pits when we console ourselves by comparing the size of our potholes to that of a Third World country.

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