Ben shared some email exchanges he
had with M&S last week. He popped into their Hedge End store to buy a few
bits and pieces for a soon to be holiday, all clothes. Even with problems finding
stock of the right size he and Sue managed to spend £50. He was surprised at
the till to find that clothes still don’t get a bag unless you buy one. Most
people want new clothes in pristine condition to carry them home and the carriers we all use for groceries are pretty tatty. Ben raised
the possibility of recyclable paper bags if M&S are so concerned about the
planet. After all, buying a plastic bag doesn’t reduce usage and we don't buy clothes very often. Their response that paper
bags would increase their carbon footprint may be valid, but they buried it
with a final sentence. ‘We are however looking to bring in a new
free bag which we will provide for customers who spend over £100 on clothes’.
Global warming, what global warming, if you spend over a ton.
We’ve renamed David Cameron, Don Quixote.
He tilts at more windmills than the legendary Don and with a similar success rate.
His ‘negotiations’ in Brussels are descending into farce. He’s asking for very
little and seems ready to settle for less. To take the pressure off he simply
selects another windmill and hopes the headline it generates will divert us. The
latest windmill is a classic. He says that if you’re black you’re more likely
to be in prison than at a top university. Without doing the analysis we’re
betting the same applies if you’re white and only measure blue chip university
intakes. We tend to associate prison sentences with serious crime so unless
those banged up are there for other reasons we’re not sure what point he is
making. At least it gives him a headline that doesn’t involve Google’s tax or
the EU.
A 14-year old girl in Croydon has been jailed
for four months for punching an 87-year old woman on a bus. It makes us long
for the old days. The return of the birch might have a more lasting effect. The
old lady will never forget the attack while her attacker will wear it as a badge of honour when back with her friends. As W.S.Gilbert wrote in The
Mikado, ‘to make the punishment fit the crime’ has a lot to recommend it. Give pain to those who inflict it!
At last an interesting survey, and a touch
of validity about the findings due to the way the figures are produced. NHS
patients in Blackpool had the highest average spending per head on
antidepressants last year. £10.46/person, equivalent to a three-month course,
is based on the population of the town. If you had a tough year in 2015, we
would recommend a holiday in Blackpool this year. You’ll feel a lot better once
you’ve mixed with some really depressed locals. And you’ll soon get used to the
safety harness on the big wheel. They’re not taking any chances!
Aldi in Australia have recently come up
with a high-risk marketing strategy. They posted a ‘fill in the blank’ message
on the internet. How about this for taking a punt?
I became an Aldi lover when I tasted
------------ for the first time.
You can insert your own
words since most of ours were unprintable, particularly the one regarding the
lady on the Delhi counter. Enough said.
Blatchington Mill School in Brighton set an interesting homework the
other day. They circulated a survey released by the Children’s Commissioner for
England, Anne Longfield asking them to define their gender from a list of more
than 20 different terms. Girl and boy seemed pretty straightforward but we
began to struggle with ‘gender fluid’. Sam was convinced it related to
discharge released by both boys and girls in moments of erotic excitement,
therefore making them ‘gender common’. His scientific background excludes him
from most discussions. We gave up in hysterics as we discussed Genderqueer,
Non-binary, Androgynous, Intersex, Not sure and Rather Not say. But it is good
to know our Children’s Commissioner is focused on the critical issues for kids
in the UK.
Has the Trump bubble burst in Iowa. Maybe
the result is similar to the last election in the UK where pollsters forecast
one result and the electorate delivered another. Answering a pollster requires
less thought than registering your vote. Before you place your cross, you
probably take a much harder look at the character of those shouting for it. Time to try an alternative hairstyle Donald.
No comments:
Post a Comment