Tesco in the toilet

Trebuchet.

Bless you.

A trebuchet is a siege engine.  That is, it is a bloody huge wooden tower with a weighted throwing arm, designed to throw heavy objects against or over castle walls, from a distance further away than the longest ranged weapon available to the castle inhabitants.

That’s right, like in LOTR.

Trebuchets were the heavy artillery of the age of castles and siege warfare, and lasted right up until the arrival of the sapper, a bloke with a beard and a spade and some stuff he called gunpowder, who explained how he could tunnel under the castle walls and explode the gunpowder.

Two obvious points before we move on, why couldn’t the hirsute little sod keep digging, like a Medieval Manic Miner, for a few more yards and so make a tunnel into the castle enabling troop deployment into the Keep?  Also, why did none of these idiots ever think of attacking the castle through the weakest point; the gift shop.

Imagine though, having something like a trebuchet.  A tall tower with a throwing arm like Ian Botham on a good day.  And these things were made out of wood, not Lego.  Essentially, you took a tree, which had been withstanding gales and gusts for decades, then strengthened it with all sorts of fastening and, oh I don’t know, elastic bands or whatever, then you pulled the bugger back and then…TWANG!

I love trebuchets.

What I love about them, is their versatility.

Previously, I may have remarked that I have something of an antipathy for the popular chain store and tenth circle of Hell, Tesco.  This is based on a number of factors, such as the way they abuse their suppliers, and the way their customers abuse one another when in their stores.  I stopped shopping at Tesco after witnessing an argument between a couple who were pensioners.  I had previously thought that they were just an argumentative pair who shopped at Tesco and who, after 60 years of married life, enjoyed a public bicker.  Now I am more inclined to think that they are a loving pair who, after 60 years of married life, only ever argue in Tesco because of its conducive atmosphere.  I was also not a fan of the way that my local petrol station had a ‘Tiny Tesco’ or whatever the fuck they are called, and that they were convenient and open late when I needed wine.  Yes, I did see people shopping there in their pyjamas.  No, I never did.

So after the curious incident of the guide dog in the Tesco, I was researching how to build a trebuchet, thinking I might contact a farmer, buy a large quantity of manure, then fling the mess at my nearest store (having stocked up on wine beforehand, obviously).  This seemed the only way in which such a callous commercial monster might be wounded.

Then I turned on the radio.

Turns out, Tesco are in the shit.

So this is a company that makes a fortune, right?  A success story, right?  They post profits and then go and rub themselves against trees or something, right?

Apparently not.

Apparently, somebody has now queried the company accounts and the problem is that what was reported as ‘Finest’ is actually rather more ‘Value’, and either quite a lot of people forgot to carry the decimal point, or there has been a gross (or net, I’m not quite there with the accounting terms) misstatement of the amount of money that the company makes.

The enjoyment of the misfortune of others is a concept so alien to most civilized societies that only the Germans have a word for it.

What an absolute bunch of arseholes.

I mean, it’s not as if you had any ethical credibility, or were an outstanding employer, or your food was that good or your stores were a pleasure to visit.  All you had was that you made shedloads of money, and also possibly that you had the good grace to keep your shops that were attached to garages open late so that people who fancied something red and cheeky of an evening didn’t have trek the extra five minutes along the road to Sainsbury’s.

Every little yelps

In a week where Sainsbury’s ejected a couple from their store for kissing, Tesco proved that when it comes to corporate fuck-ups, they’re still the nation’s number one, by behaving like number twos.  Tesco is changing its business model, from constructing the sort of out of town gigasouks that suck all commerce from the nation’s charming high streets to forsaken industrial centres on the edge of town, to opening shops on formally charming high streets.  This allows them to sell crisps at artificially low prices, and so unfairly compete with the local shops, and put them all out of business that way. 

This includes opening stores in petrol stations.

This is handy for two reasons.

Firstly, it is the law to buy fruit and nut whenever you fill up. 

But secondly and far more importantly, the proximity of Tesco and a plentiful supply of four-star is very convenient as, after hearing a news story about Tesco this week, I no longer wanted to boycott Tesco (a normal reaction for the usual reasons; that it is a social evil, and that the sort of people who shop there go there to shout at their kids or have marital disputes), I wanted to burn every fucking store to the ground.

So, what was it that made me want to turn that purveyor of tampons and Pot Noodle into a barbeque pit?

Well, apparently, a woman with a guide dog was ejected from a Tesco store this week, because the staff objected to her dog being in the store.

Her. Guide dog.

And apparently, while this trio of twats were harassing a blind woman, another customer was pointing out, er, actually, you can’t really do that.

That is one of the three acceptable reactions of a bystander.  The other is to use the distraction to shoplift as much confectionery as possible.  The third is to pop out, and return a short time later with a sloshing jerrycan and a Zippo.

So let’s examine just how fucking utterly detestable this Tesco staff were.  You might want to simply punch a Tesco member of staff hard in the face when they ask you for the millionth time if you have a Club Card, but witnessing them hassling a blind woman would, I think, send any right thinking Englishman running to aisle three (sporting goods), to return with a cricket bat, in each hand.

But wait, let’s be fair.  Maybe it was an isolated incident with some staff newly arrived from…another fucking dimension I presume, if they have managed to go through life without encountering guide dogs.  I mean, did they not bother with any training?  Lesson twelve, dogs: if a skinny man with lots of tattoos, no shirt and few teeth comes into the shop to buy Rizzla and has a snarling weapon dog, not on a lead, with him, then politely ask him to tether his dog outside (go on, do just that, and please note that when the nurse gives you your tetanus shot, she doesn’t ask if you’ve got a fucking Club Card). 

If the dog is a Labrador, has a harness on and is being held on to by a blind person, you approach and ask if you can offer any assistance.

It’s good to see that the fuck-wittage of Tesco floor staff and training staff is actually outshone by the cack-handed stupidity of their customer service staff because, after the woman rightly complained about the incident, Tesco offered her a twenty quid voucher.

Two things here.  Firstly, twenty quid is an insult and, er, why in the name of a blue and white striped fuck would the lady in question ever shop at Tesco again?

Then, apparently, somebody said something to somebody and suddenly the story was all over the papers (rightly trumping the other commercial clangers of the week).  This is possibly because people like to have a go at the heartless giant that is Tesco, but mainly because this is a total fucking outrage.

Apparently Tesco have promised to make a sizable donation to a charity of the woman’s choice.

Presumably the staff have been sent for ‘reeducation’.

This sort of thing would never happen at Waitrose.

Norfolk notes - Sheringham

Sheringham continues to get posher. This is the town that did the near impossible; in the sort of act of a hero overcoming a monster that one normally associates with Greek myth, Sheringham saw off Tesco and instead of getting a shop in the centre of their town that would bugger the economy of every surrounding shops forevermore, have decided to go with a Waitrose placed out of town. This protects the local economy because of its geographic placing, and also because no bugger can afford to shop there.

Having said that, I notice that Sainsbury's local has snuck onto the high street. Though if the one in Sheringham is anything like the one near me, deciding to price everything as if it had just been announced on telly that the apocalypse was imminent and now is the time to panic buy and hoard will ensure that the local shops keep going.

Sheringham has also connected to the rest of the world in rather a special way. Sheringham is home to the North Norfolk Railway, a railway run by enthusiasts that runs form Sheringham to Holt. This means that you can catch a steam train and ride in style for about twenty minutes, then turn round. Great fun and they do Santa specials, dinner specials and so on.


Essentially all any railway needs to make it great is to be steam powered and run by enthusiasts. And now, it's connected to the main line thanks to tracks that run across the main road. This is, without doubt, a great idea. More, it begs the question why more enthusiast run railroads are not connected to the national network, even those ones running little trains that chuff chuff you round parks or, in the case of nearby Wells-Next-The-Sea, from the town down to the beach. OK so there is the question of gauge to be considered but surely there has to be scope for improving the day of frequent rail travellers beyond measure by replacing their commuter service with a tiny tourist train where the carriages are like benches. One would turn up at one's destination covered in soot, bandy legged and terrified - but strangely exhilarated.

The town was busy, the good weather having brought out middle aged men who seem to think that having leathers that match the paint job on their motorbikes means that nobody will notice their paunch. Still managed to get a table at the pub on the seafront however and took on coffee to sustain us on the short walk back to the car where the picnic and more flask tea awaited.

Other, posher, sorts had gone for the pub lunch option and very nice it looked too. At the table next to us the obviously untrained visitors had left some of their chips (I know!) which attracted the attention of a jaunty little bird who hopped and frolicked on the table, pecking at the leftovers.


Amusing as it was to see a bird so apparently unafraid of humans, like some sort of Disney tramp bird scavenging leftovers, it did occur that while one bird hopping, tweeting and gobbling chips was interesting, a flock of the bloody things doing the same would have been a different proposition entirely. That's the things that one must never forget about nature; it outnumbers us.

Not so super

Spin the random wheel o’ news to generate a story – klik klik klik global warming klik klik extremism klik Supermarkets! Great.

Apparently the Competition Commission reckon that there should be more competition between supermarkets, or something. I dunno, I didn’t bother to read the story, I already know that Tesco and Asda are evil – look, you see a guy dressed in a grubby clown suit standing at the railings of a primary school rubbing a dead badger over his crotch, you don’t need to know where he lives or what his middle name is to know it’s wrong, right? Just as I don’t need all the facts in order to spout off.

I think the basic idea was that it’s been recognised, yet again, that supermarkets >gasp< screw their suppliers and >shock< build up land banks to stop rivals building near them. Years of study and lots of tea and biscuits later comes a report that this is wrong. Que some ex-director of Asda saying that the suggestions (some bloody moderation at least) would be harmful.

Supermarkets in general are grim, but Asda and Tesco are the worst. Tesco is the place you go to see parents hit their kids but Asda, Asda is the place to visit if you want to see morbidly obese people hunched over their reinforced trollys wandering the aisles like the souls of the damned.

These are battery shoppers. Just as industrialised farming has given us chickens that live in horrendous conditions under bright lights that are, as a result, tasteless and artificially plumped up with liquids, so they have taken the same principals and plied them to the customer. That’s why you get fat tasteless shoppers in Asda, bloated on coke.

Local grocers do exist. You can still visit a shop where you have to scrape the mud off your carrots rather than the pesticides. One of the biggest complains about supermarkets, especially the big ones, is that there’s no interaction. Well, that’s easy to fix. Arrange for you and your friends to all visit the same supermarket on the same day. Spread out your visits but all make sure you use the same check-out person. And, talk to him/her. Ask about their family, their school, their holiday plans. Have a conversation. Then tell your friend about it so that they can come in and start the conversation with ‘how’s little Jenny? Bet she’s really looking forward to that visit to her Nan’s this weekend huh?’.

Do it, better than that, mobilise MyFace – all you consumers with your 10,000 ‘friends’, have a day of action where we all talk to the check-out staff. Our supermarkets will hum with conversation and become true community centres. Maybe.