FRIDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2007 – TROUBLE WITH MY SCREWING

An interesting week this week. My list has been enhanced by the returned one so I had to find some items that I wouldn’t usually buy which took me to areas where no man had boldly not gone before (Captain’s log …). The first item of difficulty was redcurrant jelly. This required a real hunt – I tramped back and forth (breaking the anti-clockwise trolley code) looking in the obvious places like ‘jams and spreads’ but in the end sought assistance from an orange fleeced shelf stacker upper. ‘Aisle 10’ she said without a moment’s hesitation. Impressed, I returned to Aisle 10 to find … no redcurrant jelly. I find it in the end in Aisle 9 lurking amongst sauces. Oh well, now I know for next time. I also had to buy some dressed crab in its shell, much easier as there they were in the fish counter manned by the Captain Birds Eye lookalike. Whilst he was weighing and packing I made a point of looking at the price ticket which said that the crabs had been caught in the North West Atlantic (or was it the North East? No matter) but when he gave the package it said ‘Dressed Cromer Crab’. Now, as you know, I am somewhat geographically challenged but as far as I recall Cromer is in Norfolk which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be in the North Atlantic (West or otherwise). So is this more misleading food labelling? Talking of misleading food labelling, I took a closer look at the ready-made meals this week after my experience with the Sainsbury’s chicken korma, the chickens for which come from Brazil and/or Thailand. Along the bit where the price tickets go there was a banner saying ‘British … British … British’ in a fetching purple colour (nice and regal). Encouraged, I pick up the ‘Lamb in a Pot’ to find that the lamb is from … New Zealand and the pork (??!!) is British. Undeterred I look at the ‘Shepherd’s Pie’ to find that, yes you guessed it, the lamb is again from New Zealand. Of course each pack had ‘Produced in the UK’ on it which may be 'acceptable' but a banner with ‘British’ all over is just not cricket! Anyway, moving on … the wicker trunks have gone (I assume not sold) and have been replaced by bowls & side plates! These are ‘free’ when you buy 5 items with ‘Enjoy a night in’ stickers on them. This must be a new Sainsbury’s promotion. God knows who thinks all this stuff up – why is it all so complicated? After buying my baked beans (pulses) I had a disaster. My glasses fell to pieces – the little screw thing that keeps one of the lenses in had come unscrewed so I had lens, frames, screw etc all over the place. I collected it all up and being an enterprising sort of fellow I looked for a screwdriver equivalent on the shelves to effect a temporary repair. My first idea was to use a nail file – one of those metal ones with a pointed end - but, of course, these were in acres of packaging and completely inaccessible. In the end I happened upon a potato peeler with a pointed end which did the trick! I caused a bit of a queue in the checkout today. I have a habit (wait for it) of sticking the car park ticket in my mouth when I drive into the car park and leaving it there until I’m in the store so, as you can understand, it gets a bit wet. Anyway, I must have overdone it this week as it wouldn’t go in the little machines Sainsbury’s have to let the ticket know you have spent more than £15 so you can park for free. So there was much squeezing and smoothing and shoving and pushing and in the end in it went, much to the relief of the queue behind me. Luckily the lectern was out again today so no doubt the lady manning (womanning?) it was doing a quick reshuffle of the checker outers to relieve the queue I had caused. Am I bothered? Well, 30p is 30p!

Items bought 40

Cost £57.08

Average cost per item £1.42

Checkout number 12

Nectar points 624 (the maths won’t work as I lost last Sunday’s bill. Sorry)