Marks and Spencer Jersey - 125th Birthday Redux

A while ago I blogged about M&S in Jersey failing completely to honour the 125th birthday promotions in the rest of the chain.

One of the bosses was quoted as saying that this was because they hadn't been open for the full 125 years.

Having been shopping there the other day (sadly they are the only shop in town who seem to sell nice chinos which fit me really well so I can't boycott them completely) - I noticed that despite this, they have no problem in using "Celebrating 125 years" carrier bags.

Nobbers!

Marks and Spencer Jersey - Birthday Failure!

Yup. M&S here have irritated me again. Not that I shop there anyway, but still.

Despite the widely publicised 125th birthday 'penny bazaar' promotion, they won't be doing in here in Jersey. As with all the Marks + Sparks special offers (well almost all), we get to miss out again.

Why?

According to Channel 103, bosses say it's because they've only been here for 42 years. I think it's because they're a bunch of tight fisted b______s.

But I might be extra grumpy, because I haven't had enough coffee yet.

A world gone mad!

Truly. A world gone mad.

Amongst tonights purchases from Asda (affectionately known as "The Hell Hole"), were some fresh custard and some peanuts.

I am so glad that these items warned me of their nefarious, hazardous contents.

"Warning: Contains Milk" - on the custard. Well. F*** Me. Custard. Made with MILK. Personally I prefer to use crushed beetles and left over pieces of brick.

You can guess what was written on the peanuts. I can only conclude from my continued survival that I indeed do NOT have a nut allergy.

Good Grief.

The road to hell..

I shall not bore you with all of the gory details relating to tonights brief trip through hell, err, I mean Asda. Instead, I'll point out the chief annoyances, and also a tiny anecdote which suggests that we are indeed deemed to become a nation of idiots. Soon.

I paid the wrong price for a Sweet Potato in Asda tonight. Because after a couple of minutes examining "The big book of fruit and veg", the woman on the check-out decided it reminded her most of a parsnip, and opted to put it through asuch. Perhaps she didn't notice that it's a completely different colour and shape.

Other things which wind me up about supermarkets in general (and Asda in particular) include:

People trying to pay with string (you know what I mean - "Oh, wait a moment, I know that I have £17.56 in pennies somewhere on my person, and there are only three thousand people in the queue behind me - I'll just search all of my body cavities to find the exact change..").

Automated check-outs. These would be great IF inbetween every single item being scanned they didn't blurt out "Please ask for assistance." or the dreaded "Unexpected item in bagging area".

Combine that with the fact that old men seem to think the way to make the queue move faster is to repeatedly nudge the person in front in the legs with their basket, and you've got a thoroughly grumpy shopping trip in store. One day someone is going to end up having a lurid green plastic shopping basket surgically removed from somewhere painful..

At Asda, It's Christmas time

The daily visit to Asda was a joy as usual. In addition to the christmas music echoing overhead (it's only the 9th of December for gods sake), the place was rammed, and some genius had opted to close four of the remaining checkouts.

I say remaining, because at least two have already been replaced by automated "fast lane" checkouts, which take at least three times as long to use - primarily because they spend most of their time screeching "Unexpected item in bagging area" at you.

Couple that with the usual plethora of idiots who either park their length-ways in the middle of busy aisles, stop suddenly in front of you, or decide to stand in the middle of the aisle as if stunned, and yay. Thoroughly enraging.