More food

27 November

Interesting reports on Rip Off Britain, Food that we have just sat and watched, cover bags for life and on-line shopping. We have been using those bags for ages now anyway and have around twenty of them. All we need to do now is to remember to take them into the store when we need them, if not we have to stand to pack them in the car park after. But what we had never thought of before, was the possibility of cross contamination inside them. To be honest though, we still won’t worry about it now it’s been brought to mind. The reason for this is that whatever we buy is always in disposable bags anyway. Lose fruit and veg and salads are all placed in those bogs; sliced meats on the odd occasion we buy them, along with raw meats are always in sealed packs and put in bags too. There are time when I think that some people live to try to think up new stories to scare others; silly sods.

The other item was the on-line shopping that is gaining popularity. It’s something we have thought about trying but even though we have opened accounts with a couple of them, we

Haven’t used them yet. The point of this report was in used by dates on the fresh products. Some had thought the supermarkets were keeping the longer dated goods for the stores and the on-line shoppers getting the stuff nearer its use by date. Not convinced they tried it and went out and did a fresh food shop to compare with the delivered goods. Overall there didn’t seem to be all that much difference to my mind. A few of the substitutions seemed more than a little odd though, like mushrooms being sent instead of grapes. I would be OK with that but Jan can’t stand mushrooms. Perhaps they should have thought about sending a different fruit rather than mushrooms.

Bananas were also looked at because the pre-packed are more costly than the lose ones. That has got me thinking about the pre-packed fruit I buy, this week it’s pre-packed British Cox’s apples at £1 a bag of six. I don’t remember seeing any lose one though, next I will look properly and try to weigh 600grams of them and see which would work out better value. It’s the same with pairs and oranges, something else to check next time. Of course, buying pre-pack is much more convenient than buy lose, even if it is a bit more expensive. Certainly for us, rushing around and getting home or back to work quickly, isn’t top of our list of priorities.

I very much doubt that there are a lot of people who really do need to rush around as they seem to. Actually, I never have rushed about anyway. I mean, what would I do with the couple of minutes saved? Not much really eh? One of my biggest bugs with army life was their unofficial moto of ‘Hurry up and wait’. I lost count of the time we were got up early and set out for somewhere far too early and end up with us sitting/standing around somewhere making the place look untidy, and once actually taking over a carpark that cause quite a stir.

Another memory comes to mind now; a small group of us stood around on the concourse at Euston station waiting for a train to Liverpool. While we stood there, in our combat uniform and carrying our personal weapons, a man rushes up and gives our officer a parcel, asks him to sign which he did, then the man rushes off. What he couldn’t understand was why we all rushed too, away from him! We were on our way to Ulster at the time. What an easy way to knock of a bunch of squaddies before they got to the Holy Land. When the senior NCO explained it to him, the officer said he wasn’t bothered because he knew they parcel was due and what the man carrying it would look like. Of course, it would have been better if it had been explained to us, then we wouldn’t have moved away quickly and make a large number of civilians look worried! Ah well … … …

This morning I had 16 emails waiting for me on my phone (synced to my mail boxes), with another two arrive I was going through them. Most of them were offers because of this silly Black Friday crap that has made it’s what over here from Yankyland. Those fight and battles shown on telly news last years was enough to stop me going out this year, even if I needed to. Apparently there are traffic jams all around the town today because of it. Where does all the money suddenly come from, or is it all going on credit cards? Whatever, it’s not my idea of fun for a Friday.

I’ve been trying to get clever again by setting up my camera on a tripod and shooting the telly screen reflections which have a nice rainbow effect on it from Jan’s lamp she has clipped to her mini-desk where she sits doing her painting and stuff … 

And this is my first attempt. It’s not bad but not as good as I would like so I’ll have a go again later.

Today’s funny …

A man called his child's doctor, "Hello! My son just snatched my pen when I was writing and swallowed it. What should I do?" The doctor replied, "Until I can come over, write with another pen."