This week in Shanghaiist
From Caddy's email to us:
I own two business in Lyme Regis, Dorset called Rock Point Inn and Cobb Gate fish bar. These properties are unique. One is a pub and the other is a fish n' chip shop. I have owned them for 23 years. They are sited at a river mouth and also the sea. My properties have been copied by the developers in this new town. They have called them the same names, although Cobb is missing one 'B'. They have also copied the same structure and sited them with the Yangtze river behind.
I have been in touch with the Press Officer, Ben Thompson from Atkins, but have not really had any sense out of them as to how my properties have been copied.
Yes, it is very flattering but feel some sort of explanation could have been given, also permission to copy them. ...
Apparently, there is nothing I can do in the UK regarding copyright but it can be done in China.
Copyright? In China? Ummmmm.
We have no idea what the legalities are concerning this matter, but we do know simple manners say Caddy should have at least been notified of the copies. It would also be nice if the Shanghai versions included prominently displayed information about the original structures in Lyme Regis. It just seems like the proper thing to do, and we would hope Thames Town visitors would appreciate such knowledge ... although we doubt anyone who chooses to live in a place called Thames Town in Shanghai is worried much about authenticity. (Have any Shanghaiist readers been to Thames Town? Is it as scary as we imagine it to be?)
The photos above were all provided by Caddy. The top one is of the original Rock Point Inn and Cobb Gate Fish Bar, the bottom two pics were taken in Thames Town. The similarities don't seem to be coincidental.
The Daily Star recently ran a short story on this topic. Iain Burchell, who works for the paper, was nice enough to email us a version of the story. Here it is:
CHINESE TOOK AWAY MY PUB AND CHIPPY
A shameless Chinese takeaway has left Gail Caddy seeing double - her pub and chip shop have been nicked.
The picturesque pair of buildings have been recreated in Shanghai's own Little Britain.
Stunned Gail thought her businesses had been moved 6,000 miles when she saw China's replica British town in yesterday's Daily Star.
Thames Town's pub and chip shop are almost identical copies of her 256year-old boozer and chippy in Lyme Regis, Dorset. They even have the same names - the Rock Point Inn and Cobb Gate Fish Bar.
But those behind the project never told Gail, 53, they had added her businesses to their takeaway menu.
She said yesterday: "I couldn't believe it when I saw the pictures. The only difference is that my chip shop is called Cobb Gate with an extra 'B'. I just wish I'd been told about it."
Gail was waiting for an explanation from developers behind the project. She added: "They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so in a way I'm taking it as a compliment.
"My staff are all joking that I'll have to take them all out to Shanghai to see what it's like. But if the Chinese really want an authentic English experience, they should come to Lyme Regis."
Thames Town has been constructed as a new suburb of Shanghai. It is due to open in October.
This all has us wondering ... who serves the best fish 'n chips in town?
Also on Shanghaiist
Take a walk through Shanghai's 'Wee Britain' 'Thames Town'
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The original town is much cleaner, same for the fish and chips...much cleaner. Too bad China can't copy that feature.
Thames Town is totally scary - a real ghost town! I really wonder when people are going to move in and open the first pub - right now all there is is one wedding shop. That one runs quite well though, as you can imagine.
Oh my, it really sucks!
Calm down, guys! It's all storm in that cup of Lobsang Rampa Slimming Tea mate! We haven't copied our own proverb 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. We should rejoice when we get copied - lets face it how many would want to copy us the sad state Blighty is in today (in fact decades ago). The Japanese copied us and now made cars we would die to drive in and die on the roads in. The Chiense copied our lousy 'cuisine' and now make run the best chippies in Albion. We all go to the Indians to wash our lousy beers down with a curry.
'Thames Town' may be 'dead' at the moment but with the buyers deliberately depressing the market there presently the moment the price is right the buyers would rush in and buy the whole town up (probably with cash). Then the owner of Shanghai Chips would come over here to buy up the real McLyme and turn it into an upmarket McShanghai serving proper food, of course - what can be so wrong with that, I ask? So don't panic guys, the Chinese word for calamity has the element of opportunity written into it (so says the pomps anyway...) do see it as a good thing the Chinese whom you huff and poof over, and belittle can come over one day to bless you.
There is copyright law in China (yes, they have running water, telephones and faster internet too) but it is a grey area this business of having a shopfront cloned - three nails in the right place can render the copy a new/original version in itself. So don't choke on your chips guys enjoy the fact that McLyme has a face that launches a thousand chips and that others want to copy. Getting indigestion over your chips over this kind of thing ain't healthy. With our blessed Eton and others scrambling over to have themselves copied in China, a copy of McLyme can't be all that bad, eh?
Let's face it, again - we are in 'dinosaur country' (in fact Lyme is) we can only recount the 'good old days' when we wuz pirates out to plunder and pillage the world over and now we ain't got no more loot to keep us afloat. We have even become 'running dogs' to the Yanks a position no one anywhere is dying for. And only the Chinese, Russians and the Poles are our salvation - the first two spend heavily to keep us paying our mortgage for our uncopied council houses and the Poles are keeping our loos flushing properly something we can't do ourselves...
Now keep huffing and poofing and going red in the face, fellas - we would be a dead proper Jurassic specie if we cannot adapt and keep up with the more creative, the more enterprising, in this world. On the other hand, we can sit back and wait for Shanghai Jim to colonise and civilise us - how about that as chips for thought?
Now let's all count our blessings and fall off the Cobb, the 'real' chips from the real McLyme in hand!
Cannae agree more with last post! The non-copy Chinese fish n chips outfits in UK are doing better than our local-born and bred Costa's originals. Normally, they, (as the Japanese do with pubs) buy our outfits off lock stock and barrel and then rebuild them in Japan. The Shanghainese probably knew better and can get away with a shack at half the price and no health inspectors they can bribe.
Just why should we get so uptight when we get copied?
When we saved enough money from our black markets and back-of-lorries, all of us rush off the next flight to the East to buy their imitation Rolexes, Cartiers, and Omegas... and their imitation Prada, Burberry etc handbags. We simply can't afford our originals and we love their imitations, so what's the problem? If them easterners stop making all those copies that keep us at the standards we are accustomed to we would be finished.
And think about that - if the Chinese took to copying our football hooligans they would have a better army the next day!
And then, the world would be their oikster!