FRIDAY 6 OCTOBER - MY FOWL IS FOUL...

First, I have to report a quality problem! The chicken I bought last Friday had a sticker on it saying ‘Use by 5 Oct’. Not sure what ‘use’ means – the mind boggles! Anyway, I kept it in my fridge and opened it on 3 October and…….. what a terrible smell! Clearly it had gone right off and was unfit for human (or my) consumption. So it was despatched to my hungry brown friend outside the back door and Sainsbury’s owe me £2.79. Interestingly I think the man in the street would say that ‘Use by 5 Oct’ meant use by midnight on 5 October. And he would be right! ‘By’ is defined in the dictionary as ‘Of time – not after’ so the proverbial man is correct. But is that what Sainsbury’s mean it to mean I wonder? Do they really mean ‘Use by no later than 4 October’? If so, their labelling is wrong. Whatever, my chicken would still have been off! Anyway, on to today’s visit. I had to go at lunchtime (as I had nothing for lunch) and I was expecting a huge crowd but it was surprisingly quiet. I bought a piece of ‘pork and egg cutting pie’ from the cheese and ham counter. The last time I bought a piece it was called ‘gala pie' and in fact before that I recall it was known as ‘veal, ham and egg pie’. I can understand that ‘veal’ is not politically correct any more and there was probably no ham in it anyway so that title had to change. But what was wrong with ‘gala pie’? Nice and anonymous and not as unhealthy sounding as ‘pork and egg cutting pie’. Mind you, I suspect it is somewhat unhealthy so Sainsbury’s might as well be honest and call it like it is. No sign of my friend the fencer today, I wonder where all those young men went. Are they butchering behind the scenes somewhere? At the check out the (what I will from now on call) cashier (a much better name than check out girl, don’t you think?) asked me if I wanted to have my Nectar points deducted from my bill or carried forward. ‘How much?’ I ask. '£7.50' she replies. So, with this information I can work out how much these dreaded Nectar points are worth. So, here goes... First, 2 Nectar points are awarded for every qualifiying pound spent. My balance after today’s purchases is 1844 points which would have therefore cost £922. And for this huge amount of money I have earned the princely sum of £7.50, a mere 0.8%. What a complete waste of time Sainsbury’s – scrap the scheme immediately and knock off 1% from everybody’s bill at the checkout and be done with it! I’m surprised though that 1844 points equates to £7.50 because that means that every point is worth a very odd fraction of a pence, .4067245p to be precise. This is the kind of figure that the Inland Revenue would dream up not a commercial organisation like Sainsbury’s. I’ll check my balance again next week – I may have misheard the cashier. The car park ticket machine and the barrier are both working this week. Hurrah! The tarmac on the ramps is getting worse though – the down side is now coming off and it won’t be long before it is a skid run when it’s wet. I committed the cardinal sin when I came in the car park – I actually stopped and backed up to go into a free parking space. The worm has turned!

Items bought 21

Cost £31.44

Cost per item £1.49 (better!)

Checkout number 14

Nectar Points balance 1844