Category Archives: Let’s Go Shopping

Protector of the Ring

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So I finally got round to getting a proper wedding ring. I was hoping the perfect ring would come to me in a dream, delivered on a velvet cloud. But in the end it involved getting off my arse and going to the shops on a crowded Saturday afternoon, ensuring maximum flusteredness. I chose a simple white gold band just to get it over with.

The sales assistant with the pimples and gelled spikes seemed disappointed at the swiftness of my purchase. He had to act fast. “Did you know for only £6.99 I can give you Ring Protection Insurance? You’ll be covered for theft or damage for two years!”

“Ummm. Ummm.” As soon as someone tries to sell me anything, my face burns red and I lose the ability to form sentences.

“We’ll replace the ring right away with one exactly the same, or one of equal value! It’s a great deal!”

“Ummm!” Panic closed in. Ring Protection Insurance? What the hell did I want with Ring Protection Insurance for such a boring, inexpensive loop of metal? What kind of moron did he take me for?

I looked at the floor, I looked at Gareth; I riffled through my handbag as if my brain lurked there beside the scrunched up tissues and Breathmints of Yesteryear. “What do you think, Gareth?”

“Well I dunno,” he replied helpfully.

“Only £6.99 and we’ll renew the policy once the two years up if you’re still married.”

My brain finally piped up. You don’t need bloody Ring Protection Insurance. We have contents insurance! And it’s a plain wedding band, not the freaking Crown Jewels! But the words spewed forth regardless. “Okay! Okay! I’ll take it!”

“Excellent choice, ma’am.”

Back out on the street, I clenched my Ring Protection Insurance Policy in one fist and waved the other wildly in the air. I was spluttering with indignant, white-hot rage; the most infuriating kind because you know it’s your own stupid fault and you can’t pin it on anyone else.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t try.

“WHAT the hell happened in there?”

“Yeah, how come you got that Insurance? We have contents insurance.”

“I KNOW!”

“And it’s just a plain wedding ring. And how will anyone steal it when you never take it off?”

“I KNOW! I KNOW!”

“I bet he literally shat his pants on the spot,” Gareth grinned, “From sheer shock that someone actually took that policy.”

“Arrrgh!”

“He will be Employee of the Month for sure.”

“This is all YOUR fault!” I squeaked. “You were supposed to stop me! You were meant to speak up! You know I am rubbish in these situations. As soon as someone puts on the hard sell I crumble like a block of feta. CRUMBLE!”

“But I didn’t think anyone could actually say yes to a Ring Protection Policy.”

“You have FAILED!” I cried as I stomped down the street, “You have FAILED the first test of our marriage!”

Later I poured over the wretched document and realised the policy had a 20-day cooling off period. But it meant I’d have to go back to the shop and say, “Hello, I am a buffoon. Gimme back my seven quid.” I calculated that I had wasted almost $25 Australian on this escapade. Whenever I do something stupid with money I always convert it back to Australian dollars, so I can intensify the humiliation and prolong the pointless rage.

This sort of thing happens to me all the time – me handing over money to strangers on autopilot, not fully comprehending until I look down at an empty purse and scream, “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”. Just last weekend a dreadlocked woman approached me and told me she was a nun, and did I want to buy a CD of some crazy music? Only £7. I immediately opened my purse and told her I only had £2. She said that was more than enough to buy one of her books. So now I am the proud owner of some Hare Krishna meditation tome with no English text whatsoever.

And a few months before that I was walking home, huddled beneath my headphones. A surly teenage chick with a sidekick boyfriend stopped me and started babbling. I turned down the volume and finally heard, “We’ve got no money for the bus, can you loan us a couple quid?”. Ten seconds later I’d handed over all my change and apologised for being so rude with my headphones and all. She looked at coins in her hand, blinking in disbelief.

“Cold today, innit?” said the sidekick boyfriend.

And then they disappeared into the shop next door. Even with my headphones back on I could still hear their laughter. The bus hurtled by, spraying a mucky puddle over my shoes.

“So what does this policy cover you for?” Gareth asked.

“Umm. Theft. And stuff. IF it’s in our house.”

“Well. For just £6.99 you have bought piece of mind. If there’s a freak flood or stealthy burglar, or if a magpie flies in the window in the middle of the night and bites your finger off, we’re totally covered.”

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This Is A Lighthearted Letter

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One of the joys of British supermarkets is the Supermarket Magazine. Free with any purchase, they have all the features found in normal trashy magazines like fashion shoots, recipes and sycophantic reader letters. Sure, all the clothes are from the store and all the recipes are painfully rubbish (Example: Take one slice of OUR BRAND Ham and one slice of OUR BRAND Cheese and place between two slices of OUR BRAND White Sandwich Loaf) but it's free, and there's coupons in the back for 20p off OUR BRAND Instant Coffee.

The Reader Letters are particularly entertaining. There's a lot of people out there who'll say anything for a £20 Tesco voucher or perhaps their lives really were changed by a supermarket. The prize-winning letter in this month's Somerfield magazine was from Mrs C Barker of Hampshire, who sent in a photo of her dog Jack who is apparently fond of bringing in the shopping 'tween his slobbering jaws.

star_letter.jpg

But then in a bizarre twist, this piece of paper been stapled to the page, apparently a last minute addition after the magazine had been printed.

April 2005 Edition – Somerfield Magazine – Star Letter £20 Winner
The star letter on page 15 of the April edition of Somerfield Magazine shows a dog carrying in food for it's owner. This is a lighthearted letter.
Somerfield do not recommend allowing any pet to carry food or to have access to food at any time for hygiene reasons. Pets should be excluded from your kitchen and all work surfaces cleaned before food preparation.

So people, take that ten kilo bag of spuds from Fifi's fangs, tell Patches to spit out the loo roll. Dogs of the world must know their place and stick to fetching newspapers and slippers. Has the world gone bloody mad?

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The People That You Meet

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The Woolworths supermarket was the main attraction of my hometown, the beating heart of a rural metropolis. It was the modern equivalent of a town square, the place to meet and greet and catch up on local news. You'd go in for bread and milk and come out with the latest on hip operations, infidelity scandals and corruption on the local council.

"You'll never guess who I ran into at Woolies the other day," The Mothership would say in our weekly phone calls. She never saw people, she always ran into them. I'd always picture a violent collision of shopping trolleys, her half-price loaves of bread flying into the air and knocking down small children; escapee apples rolling down the aisle. Mum always chose the most fabulous verbs, even the most banal story became action-packed. "On Wednesday or was it Thursday, at 7 o'clock or was it 7.30, I jumped out of bed then dived into the shower, then I ducked down the street, dashed into the post office then zapped into Woolies…"

In a small town like ours there was about a 95% chance you'd run into someone down the aisles. "This will just be A Quick Trip To Woolies!" Mum would promise as my sister and I whined, "So you'll not be waiting in the car, you're coming in with me!" But there was no such thing as a Quick Trip To Woolies. It quite often started in the dairy section with Mum deeply absorbed in raking through what she called the Chuck-Out Bin, a place where marked-down near-death cheeses and yogurts lurked. To her an expiration date was not a recommendation but a challenge.

"Look at this, a six pack of Ski Fruit of the Forrest for only 99 cents!"

"Muuuu-um!"

"There's nothing wrong with them!"

And then suddenly there'd be a tap her on the shoulder, followed by a chirping voice, "Hello Sharon!"

The Mothership would spin around in a flash, a welcoming smile automatically pasted on her face. She was used to this. It could be a neighbour, a colleague, a relative you didn't like very much, or often in Mum's case, the parent of one of the kids she taught. They always had something to say and didn't mind taking half an hour to say it. They barricaded her in with their trolleys so she couldn't escape.

Sometimes it was someone interesting that you'd genuinely want to catch up with, but it was more fun to watch when it wasn't. She'd nod and smile at their scintillating stories with her arsenal of phrases like "Oh really", "You're joking" and "That's terrible!". It looked like she had their undivided attention but she was actually busy stopping our attempts to replace Chuck-Out Bin Yogurt with chocolate bars.

She could get stopped half a dozen times in one shop. Tap tap tap… Hello Sharon! Spin, smile, story time! Over and over again. It was incredibly tiresome for a couple of kids who were huuuun-gry and just wanted to go hooome. Rhi and I would amuse ourselves by spying on other people's trolleys and making snap judgements on their contents, a habit we never grew out of. Ooh look, they've got Neopolitan icecream and topside steak. And it's not Home Brand Neopolitan either, the bastards!

Even when I grew up into a post-university sullen and unemployed bum, The Mothership would still drag me into Woolies; apparently I still wasn't old enough to wait in the car. These expeditions filled me with terror. I didn't have Mum's diplomacy skills. Who would we run into today? What would they ask me? How much of an idiot would I look like? What if I saw one of my old teachers and they found out their swotty student has amounted to naught? There was nothing worse than being confronted with people from the past when the present and future are looking rather shoddy.

Most times we shopped late at night – for me it meant less chance we'd see someone we knew, for Mum it meant a greater chance the BBQ chickens would be reduced to half price. I'd still send her out in front of me, like a canary down a coal mine. But despite hiding behind cornflake displays or towers of oranges I'd soon enough feel the inevitable tap tap tap and perky greeting, Hello Shauna!

I'd do a feeble Spin and Grin. "Why helloooo!"

The questions were always the same. "So I hear you've finished your degree! What have you been up to?"

Oh plenty! I rise at noon to pull the blinds down so no one thinks I'm home, then I eat lots of ice cream and watch Days Of Our Lives. And then I curl up in a nest of rejection letters and cry great self-indulgent sobs, then it's naptime until Walker: Texas Ranger comes on.

"Oh, not much."

"So have you got a MAN yet?"

"Oh, not yet."

"Well dear, it will happen when you least expect it!" Sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "And same goes for your job situation, I'm sure!"

And then I'd wallow in self-pity and paranoia, thinking they'd rush home and tell their families, "That Shauna, she peaked way too early."

My fondest Woolies memory is the day Rhiannon abandoned Mum at the Chuck-Out Bin. She stalked her at a distance for about twenty minutes, waiting for the perfect moment. She tip-toed up behind as Mum examined a two-pack of garlic bread.

Tap tap tap. "HELLO SHARON!"

"Hellooooo!" The Mothership wheeled around, cheesy smile in place. Her face was thundercloud dark when she saw who it was. Rhiannon cackled and danced in the dairy aisle.

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Are You Talkin’ To Me?

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"Hey lady!"

"Me? Hello!"

"Do you like bubble baths?"

"Yeah?"

"Well if you ever wanna take someone home for a bubble bath, I like candles! And rose petals!"

It was strange being in America, the place where strangers talk to you on the street. In our two weeks we encountered so many people who were nice, helpful or just plain chatty for no good reason at all. At first we'd almost jump a foot in the air everytime someone spoke, or glared with great suspicion. What do you want? Why are you talking to me? What are you trying to sell? I don't have any money! Take him, he's older!

You don't seem to get as much random interaction in Britain. If you're out for a walk it's rare to even make eye contact with a stranger, let alone score a nod or smile. This used to baffle me, but as soon as my first Scottish winter came I noticed I'd become more insular, preferring to brood beneath my beanie. I didn't realise how much so until we were at the Grand Canyon and a tall man suddenly approached us. I gripped my camera extra tight and decided I was prepared to knee him in the goolies if necessary.

"Hello! Would you like me to take a photo of the happy couple together?"

"What? Ohh! Sure. Thanks very much!"

After Vegas we headed back to San Francisco for a week. We got the BART into town then Gareth had the fantastic idea of walking ten blocks uphill to our hotel. I was lucky enough to have wheeled luggage but he had an ancient suitcase that weighed a tonne – those kilts are heavy bastards. After a few blocks I could see his arms shaking and face turning beetroot. As we waited at an intersection I wondered whether or not three days of marriage was long enough for me to spew forth my first I Told You So, and did I really want to establish myself as a nagging bint so early in the game? Cars whizzed by in all directions and it dawned on us there were no pedestrian lights and we didn't know when to cross the street.

"Well!" I sniffed, "Isn't this just a DANDY honeymoon?"

Just as the veins began to bulge on Gareth's forearms, a woman whizzed past on rollerblades and sang out in bemused tones, "Pedestrians have right of way in California, guys! You can cross now!"

It was a bit of a culture shock to hear people speak to you out of the blue. All week strangers appeared to help when we looked lost, offered to take photos or just struck up conversations about the weather.

On our last day in San Francisco, after walking past the Bubble Bath Guy, a lady with a wee baby and a bottle of OJ stopped me outside the hotel, pointing at my shopping bags.

"Hey! That looks like an Old Navy bag. There's Old Navy here?"

"Oh yeah, it's just a few blocks that way."

"That is good news! Do you like Old Navy? What you got there?"

I showed her my bargain nightwear.

"Well, damn! I love Old Navy. I'm gonna go there right now. Thank YOU!"

What is in the water over there, you Americans? Maybe it was just the newlywed glow or all the excess glucose I'd consumed, but all that unexpected human interaction felt warmer than the California sunshine.

MEGA GULL
Gull With Fresh Droppings
One in a series of approximately 457 gull photos Gareth took at Fisherman's Wharf.

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You’ve Got Sex

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Without Rhiannon in the house it's become painfully aware that I have nothing in common with my roomies. Especially not Morph who gave me a Christmas card that said, Santa isn't real, but Jesus is

There's suddenly a vast expanse of time in the evening that I used to spend ranting and raving to Rhi about the latest pile of unwashed dishes or Mysterious Pubic Hair, because a pube shared is pube halved. But now we speak on the phone a few times a week and I'm reminded how alarming fast things are changing at the moment, our lives branching off in all sorts of crazy directions.

I'm getting the hang of Solo Shopping. If I plan ahead and put my debit card in my coat pocket I can whip it out quickly, avoiding purse-rummaging and cashier eye-rolling. It occurred to me tonight when I noticed that I'd once again filled the trolley with yogurt and ingredients for vegie chilli, that I could get even more efficient with the grocery shop if I just bought the same thing every week. Then I could just cook the same thing every week. I could live off the motherload of chilli for days on end! And with well-timed dashes to the microwave, I'd be able to avoid getting trapped in dreary kitchen conversations.

Tonight's shop was slowed down a little by the Rhiannon Memorial Coat. She didn't want it anymore so I snaffled it, even thought it's a size too small, particularly snug in the arms. It's white with a fluffy collar, so imagine a furry, partially immobile marshmellow. It's very warm though, and as long as I have a good approach it's not overly hard for me to sit down while wearing it. I didn't take it off while shopping, coz then I'd have to waste time wrestling back into it. So I just had to make sure not to buy anything on a high shelf.

As I was shuffling out with my shopping I passed a harrassed looking mother with two little boys. One of them had just learned a new word and was determined to say it as much as possible even though he didn't know what it meant.

"You've got SEX!" he cackled to his brother. "SEX!"

He tugged his mothers hand, "You've got SEX!". He said it gleefully like it was a terrible disease.

He stopped right in front and peered up at me, "YOU'VE got SEX!"

"Ha! Fat chance in this coat."

On the bus home a bunch of students got on at the university campus, looking very young and serious. Why do university students look so serious? I guess it's so you use up all your seriousness quota then, so in later years when you wind up doing apparently serious things like getting married, all you're able to do is laugh hysterically.

My ponderings were interrupted when the bus driver suddenly slammed on the brakes, sending one of my shopping bags flying off the seat. I was powerless to stop it, bereft of movable arms in the Rhiannon Memorial Coat. A pot of yogurt landed SPLAT in the middle of the aisle and exploded everywhere.

"WHOA!" I said very loudly, just like Keanu Reeves.

The students all stared at me as I slowly slid off my seat and tried to manoeuver myself low enough to pick up the pot with robot arms. What possessed me to say WHOA? Was it to convince these kids I was just as cool as them? What would their generation know about Keanu anyway?

As I kneeled in the aisle and swatted at the mess with tissues, I couldn't move my hand quick enough to stop the word popping out again, "WHOA!". It's time to start buying groceries online.

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A Mighty Wind

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Edinburgh is sometimes known as The Windy City, this website told me so. I also discovered this while ploughing my way to work today. It wasn't a day to be wearing a kilt. Not that I was wearing a kilt, but I was thinking, if only some hunky Scotsman happened along just now, wearing a kilt.

This wind was more powerful than velcro. It rrrrrripped open the velcro flap on my bag and threatened to steal my lunch. I always thought velcro was an all-powerful substance. I remember in the 80s when all the kids in my class had velcro sneakers. Thick, sticky fingers wrapped around their foot like a claw — it seemed to me the greatest innovation since the Old El Paso Taco Kit. And truth be told, I'd always struggled with shoelace-tying. I begged The Mothership for velcro shoes, but she deemed them "sheer bloody laziness".

Tonight the breeze propelled us into Tesco, up and down the aisles, and all the way to the dimwit at the checkout. No matter how carefully Rhi and I choose our Checkout Dudes, we always wind up with the most stoned kid in the shop. We had never witnessed such excruciatingly slow scanning of groceries. He stared up at the ceiling and groped absently at the conveyor belt. It look five minutes to scan five little yogurt pots. He lifted a lettuce, peered at it for a long moment, then let it drift across the scanner. His mind was in the clouds but the body thought it was still in the thick of the gale.

I was filled with an irrational rage. After polite coughing and foot-tapping proved fruitless, I resorted to snatching each item from his hand mid-air and stuff it into the shopping bag.

SHAUNA: Take it up a gear, buddy!

CHECKOUT DUDE: You got a Tesco Club Card?

S: I got a bus to catch.

CD: Mmm.

RHI: They let them sit down, that's where they go wrong.

There's no chairs for checkout kids where I come from. I'm going to round up every space cadet Tesco employee in Britain and take them to WOOLWORTHS BOOT CAMP back in Australia and show them how it's done! Speed! Precision! Chop chop!

CHECKOUT DUDE: Are you collecting coupons for the school kids?

S: I don't give a shit about the school kids!

We almost missed the bus, but luckily the breeze was at our backs.

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We Are Sorry For Your Loss

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I caught the Orgasmatron to work today. The #12 route is served by only the oldest, noisiest, rattling heap of shit buses. The brakes wheeze and the windows shudder, the seats are cracked and creaky. But after awhile you discover the mechanical shortcomings of these vehicles can lead to a most exquisite side-effect. Especially when one sits on the lower deck during peak-hour, ideally on a Friday afternoon when the bus has to wait at traffic lights for long periods, rumble rumble rumbling. Soon enough you're praying for a three car pile-up so you'll be stuck at this spot for just a little… bit… longer!

But no time for cheap thrills today, this was Friday morning and I was running late. I sat upstairs and squinted into shop windows as the bus inched along. There's squillions of charity shops in Edinburgh, and they all seem to have a copy of Naomi Campbell's Swan on their bookstands.

I worry about the little shops. I look at the dinky hairdresser with photos of Duran Duran-esque hairdos on the wall and wonder just who's going get their hair cut there? And the empty fishmonger, what's going happen to all that unsold fish? Does anyone ever go into that tiny cafe? I've kept a concerned eye on a little gift shop for the past six months. I've never seen a single customer in that whole time. What will become of the gift shop guy? Even if we could get one person to buy one card per hour, how's he going to live off that?

Sometimes you see people preparing to open a new business. They're proud and optimistic as they watch a dude on a ladder paint the shop name above the window. I fret about how much money they've sunk into this, if they'll get any customers. It's depressing near my house — first the ice cream place closed down, then the framing shop, the scooter shop and now the shoe shop that only opened six months ago. If the bagpipe shop goes next I will cry!

The #12 wobbled to a halt near a funeral parlour. Dozens of squealing school kids piled on. I watched a lady swatting a display of headstones with a feather duster. She looked around the shop and checked her watch, then she must have sighed heavily because her bangs drifted up and down. She came to the front of the shop and leaned against the door frame, lips pursed tightly.

Imagine having your livelihood dependent on someone elses deadlihood. She looked so anxious, twirling the duster in her hands, waiting for someone to kick the bucket. It wasn't exactly the biggest or fanciest funeral joint I'd seen, I hope she made enough to get by.

I considered getting up and shoving one of the kiddies down the stairs to boost her profits, but I was just getting comfy in my seat.

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Eat Your Words

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When Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly was having a bad day, she went to Tiffanys to calm her down. I go to Marks & Spencer Simply Food.

Instead of a croissant and a Givenchy gown, I belch over a can of Fanta in ill-fitting trackpants, but it has the same soothing effect. Shopping in Princes Street always fills me with an irrational rage. The baffling multi-level shops, the dawdling tourists stopping every five metres to take another photo of Edinburgh Castle, the old folk and prams and beggars cluttering up the pavement like abandoned cars; all conspiring to piss me off.

So I take refuge in M&S. For those unfamiliar with Simply Food, they describe it as a "meals solution store for busy people". They have all manner of ready meals and pre-packaged products so you can pay maximum price for the minimal effort dinner. There's something so relaxing about being there, bathed in fluorescent light, watching wee old ladies select their individual Steak & Kidney pies and singletons frowning at nutrition information panels.

M&S are truly the masters of the ready-meal universe. While their meals are of superior quality to your Iceland Chili Con Carne, they're still trying to flog pre-packaged processed preservative-laden stuff. But they make you want it bad by giving their products the most beautifully overblown names and descriptions. I spend ages wandering up and down the aisles, dreamy and content, just reading the labels. They plump up nouns and roll them in succulent verbs so skillfully that they could make a plate of gravel sound like Michelin-star dining.

Witness how they sex up a humble BLT: Combining the spirit of America and Italy; maple cured bacon with gorgonzola cheese dressing, sliced tomatoes, lettuce leaves, mayonnaise and red onions on pumpkin seed bread.

Let's wash that down with some lemon cordial, your basic nasty cocktail of glucose and E numbers. But no! M&S call it Mediterranean Lemon and Mexican Lime High Juice. Now that's what I call fusion cookin'.

You could spend an hour looking at the yogurts alone. How to decide? The Greek-Style English Strawberry and Cornish Clotted Cream Yogurt made with Channel Island Milk? Or the Champagne Rhubarb and Madagascan Vanilla? I swear I'm not making that up.

(But how I wish I could. Where does one apply to become a copywriter for M&S?)

The produce section drives me wild, because it's really just like any other produce section, but they make me question my fundamental beliefs about fruit. When is an orange not an orange? I stood there one afternoon, frowning at the orange cupped in my hand, thinking it must surely be worth 70p and taste better than every other orange that had previously passed my lips because it had been Bathed In The Florida Sun.

I'm sure we're all being watched. There must be men in white coats behind a two-way mirror, watching the shoppers and making frantic notes. Can the shoppers resist the Irresistible Choc Caramel Mini Bites Oozing With Buttercream? Are they unwrapping the Hoisin Duck wraps with their eyes? Is anyone getting a boner over the Boneless Pork Loin Joints Decorated With Bramley Apple Puree?

Then perhaps the Head of Marketing barges in and screams, "We're not shifting the Scottish Cod Loin Fillets! Not good enough! I want the aisles puddled with drool! I want to get out the DANGER WET FLOOR signs!". The hapless copywriters are handed a thesaurus and a stack of Barbara Cartland novels then chained to their desks until they come up with something sexier.

Meanwhile, back in the shop, after half an hour of label-reading you tend to get whipped up into quite a state. The mind swirls with bloated adjectives and tantalising verbs and your fingers ache to open your wallet. Must buy something, something… but what?

A few months back I found the mother of all magniloquent products: a cereal called Deliciously Nutty Crunch:

Go nuts! A sumptuously sweet blend of delicious toffee-flavoured crunch with almonds, brazils and tasty pecans!

So I spent the equivalent of AU $10 on Deliciously Nutty Crunch, a cereal so lacking in nutritional value I'd be better off eating a tub of lard. But what fun to eat something so ridiculously titled. Remind me to put that on my epitaph:

Here lies Miss Shauny
1977 -
Deliciously Nutty To The End

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Healthy Living

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Some time ago, UK supermarkets and other food retailers recognised that not all Brits were content to live on chips and lager alone. To cater to this sliver of society, they each introduced a house brand of healthier options. Now discerning customers can buy their favourite foods from their most trusted brands, safe in the knowledge that evil fats have been replaced by friendly sugars, artificial flavours or ground cockroaches. And to make these product ranges even more appealing, they gave them wacky names…

ASDA Good For You!
It's the exclamation mark that puts the delightfully sneering tone into this brand. Imagine your neighbour has just leaned over the fence to tell you he won £10 million in the Lotto. Of course you will spit right back, "Well, good for YOU!"

Safeway Eat Smart
The alternative is to Eat Stupid and pour lard on your cornflakes.

Boots Shapers
Dear Boots,
I am writing in regards to your Shapers range of products. To me the word Shapers suggests transformation or sculpting, like control-top pantyhose, corsets or mumsy foundation garments. With this definition in mind, I recently purchased one of your pre-packaged Shapers sandwiches. When I applied said sandwich to my thunderous thighs, I noticed no real difference in their shape, apart from a slight thickening due to congealed mayonnaise. Could you kindly refund me the £2.19 and deduct 2.19 points from my Boots Advantage Card?

Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself
… Go Buy A Vibrator.

Tesco Healthy Living
If they can't be arsed to give it a more imaginative name, then I can’t be arsed to buy it.

Marks & Spencer Count On Us
Dear Mr. Marks & Mr. Spencer,
I have been an enthusiastic consumer of your Count On Us range of products, including the Voluptuous Vanilla Iced Dessert and the Rancher's Chicken Flatbread. After awhile, one comes to think of Count On Us as a name one can trust. However, recently I found myself having a very bad day indeed; I missed the bus and my boss yelled at me. I was disheartened to discover that I could not count on Count On Us in my time of need. Why didn't the Chargrilled Vegetable Pizza call me a taxi so I wasn't late? Why didn't a gang of Thai Curry Flavour Curls come round and beat up my boss? If you are going to name your products so boldly, there needs to be some sort of warning label on the packet, Not Suitable For Those With Co-Dependent Tendencies. Otherwise I suggest you rename it to something like We Won't Be There For You At All.

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