Mccoll’s

I have bad news for Sam… They’ve obviously put the prices up since you were last in here. Despite already being ridiculous, it is in fact possible to charge even more for the most basic essentials.
I made the (somewhat recurrent) mistake of overinduldging slightly the night beore my parents came to visit during my final term of uni, so on the way to meet them the next morning I was in dire need of something cold, fizzy and devoid of any semblance of booze. So imagine how pleased I was to look up and see the sign for this shop just ahead of me; I could almost taste my Diet Coke already. Maybe I’ll get two, I thought, just to really make sure it sorts me out.
Except then I get to the counter and the woman wants £2.40 for the two cans. When I stared at her in a mix of utter disbelief and panic at the thought that I might have to part with one of my lovely cans, the girl in the shop just laughed and said «Aye, a ken pet, it’s a lot ey?».
Er, yes shop lady, it is. It’s ridiculous.

It’s round about this McColls that you can tell you’re leaving touristville and treading water into the real Edinburgh, where grinning foreigners with bumbags are make way for shifty looking youngsters, and trustafarian students share breathing space with the drunken tramps that appear to live on the benches in Nicholson Square.
It’s probably the best McColls I’ve been in, which may not be saying much, but they do go that extra mile with their stock, selling hot dogs and even (possibly) fresh cakes.
On the flipside, on my past two visits here I’ve seen both an old woman try to pay with a fake 20, and a guy in a wheelchair buy a bottle of vodka. At 12pm.
Welcome to Scotland.

I can neatly sum this establishment up with one minor observation: The price of a can of Coca Cola is £1.05p. That’s nearly double what you would expect from any other convenience shop and frankly is extortionate. Indeed McColls sells everything you would expect from a convenience store: papers, snacks, soft drinks etc. It’s just as a student I tend to avoid exorbitant mark up prices like the plague, and I intend to keep avoiding these too.