Bargain hunters

Once it was a mystifying example of the determination of human beings to claim a bargain, no matter how demanding the ordeal, or sated their consumer instincts by Christmas. Now, however, the Boxing Day sales have come to represent something else: the enduring allure of the shop in defiance of the remorseless march of online commerce. These days, crowds queuing all night to be first through the doors of department stores no longer appear oddities, so much as plucky rebels against the machine, refusing to give in to the ease of one-click purchasing. They may have to brave the dark, the wind and the rain, and the crush of their discount-hunting rivals, but there is community and fellowship there. To them, it is those who sit, surf and buy alone who have truly lost out.