Oakham's "Rip Off" Tesco Supermarket

This weekend I was in the local Tesco supermarket in Oakham and I found an old lady standing round the fresh eggs looking rather bemused and lost. Then I realised why for the eggs she was looking for, as was I, were missing from the shelf and not even a sold out sticker to be found. I talked to her and she said that they had be discontinued in our local store as had many products in the same everyday value range.

 

Living on a low budget the old lady was saying how a lot of the range had disappeared from the store in the last few weeks. She was deciding what eggs she could afford and working out what she food wouldn't be able to buy because of the price of the eggs which she relied on as a food item. With 15 eggs in the everyday value range costing £1.34 the nearest she could get value wise would have been £3.00 for the same number of eggs, and then she would have to buy 20 at a cost of £4.00 because they came in boxes of 10.  That is well over a 100% increase in price!

 

Then I started on a mission to find out if the old lady was right while I did the shopping, and it came as a surprise she was right. Gone had all but one of the value breakfast cereals, not a sign of the value Chocolate Mousses, or the Garlic Baguettes, then there are some of the value Biscuit range missing, in fact a lot of the products in the Everyday Value range on the companies website are absent from the Oakham store, making it more expensive for those on a tight budget to shop, and this table gives you an idea of how much by:

 

Item	Value	Standard	Expense
Chocolate Mousse	4.5p each	15p each	233% more
Eggs	8.9p each	16.6p each	86% more
Single Garlic Baguette	32p	85p	165% more
Rice Snaps	18p per 100g	33p per 100g	83% more
Digestive Biscuits	30p	59p	96% more

 

While I was in the store I managed to ask  one of the staff what had happened to the Everyday value range and I was given an answer I didn't expect from a supermarket whose advertising is "Every Little Helps". Clearly in this case it means every little bit of profit they can squeeze out of the customer by not stocking the value range is more than welcome in the company coffers, even if it means people like that little old lady have to miss a meal or two. The reason I was given was that Okaham is an affluent area and it is the managements view that stocking the value range stops customers coming into the store and by removing it from the shelves and concentrating on the own brand premium products they will attract more customers.  

 

The reality is the poor people in Oakham who have no choice but to shop in the Tesco supermarket are being ripped off by the company. They are being denied food because they can't afford it. Due to the decision to remove value items the poorer people in the area will be eating less this summer. I really hope that the fat bellies that run the company and get massive bonuses are happy to know they are helping to starve the poor of Oakham while they sit and gloat on their profits.

 

Maybe a new slogan for the company is required, along the lines of "Starve the Poor, we feed the Rich". It looks like it is going to be hungry summer of the old and the poor in Oakham this year.

Catherine becomes a Teenager

Another year another birthday for Catherine and this time it was special one, it was her thirteenth birthday. Today she entered her teenage years and she became a real teenager after year of practicing for the role.

She had a great morning opening her cards and discovering the money inside before heading off to school to get more presents from her friends. One of her friends, Kane, stood at the turnstiles at the entrance to the school and got everyone to wish her a happy birthday and they tried to get into the school. After school she went out around the town and came home later for her favourite dinner, a chicken curry, before talking to her friends before bed. We were going to have a cake but with Emily sleeping over it there wasn't really a point, so she had some small cakes just for herself, and not to share.

The day hardly ended as I expected and in fact came as a bit of a shock, and then Catherine didn't get a Birthday card from her little sister Lucy which was rather predictable, but all the same she seemed to have a lovely day.

Staright Teeth

After just a little over a year or wearing braces to straight her teeth today was the big day when they became part of Emily's past. All the pain and the discomfort gone from 12 months of wearing them has paid off and now she has lovely straight teeth.

After they were taken off she was so impressed with the results and her straight teeth that she sent pictures to her friends of her new improved smile. In fact she didn't stop smiling for at lest an hour at everyone she met and in every shop window she passed. While I was having my hair cut as we waited for her retainer to be made she spent the whole half an hour just smiling into the mirror. With the new improved Emily about the boys better look out!

Fathers Day

Another fathers day, and another without all my girls. It been so long since I had all my children together on this day, or in fact together at all.

To say I miss the joy of being a father to them all is an understatment, I greave the loss of my family at times, for you never forget the people you love.

Thankfully the two daughters I have made the morning special in their way, but it doesn't stop you missing the one that seems so far away. To my daughters I love you all.

Big Brother 2013

Well the summer must be officially here with the start of the new series of Big Brother on Channel 5. This will be 14th series of the show in the UK which frist started way back in the year 2000 on rival Channel 4.
 

 
Having watched for so so many years, when I stumbled Big Brother 1 on Channel 4, I find myself still looking forward to the start of each new series and quickly find myself watching the series night on night until it ends. It seems this year will be no different for me and I'm sure I will get grpped as I have in previous years.

I know people have had a go at Channel 5 for changing the format of the show slightly, changing the voting system and the lack of live feed, but overal I think they have done a grand job in keeping the show alive. If it wasn't for them we would have no show at all.

Britians Got Talent Final 2013

In what I thought was one of the best finals on Britain’s got Talent since I first started watching the programme, the Hungarian act Attraction won the show. Tipped by The Sun newspaper to win the show by a landside there final performance was a bit of a let down and they nearly lost out to the young talent that is comedian Jack Caroll.

The act that impressed me most was Steve Hewlett, the wild card for the final, who if it wasn't for the egg thrower would have, I felt, been third in tonight’s show, without the sympathy vote that must have went to Richard and Adam. In fact in terms audience reaction, and laughs ,he did far better that the runner up Jack Carroll. He had the audience in the palm of his hand and he was side splittingly funny. I just hope someone sees this and gives him the spotlight he deserves.

So below is the final voting for the final in this years show. What I find surprising was that Francine Lewis who won the forth semi final only just managed to avoid coming last, but may be that was more of a problem with that semi final with her fellow semi finalist coming just behind her in last place. Anyway here are the final voting percentages :

1. Attraction 27% (Semi Final 5 - 1st)
2. Jack Carroll 20.1% (Semi Final 2 - 1st)
3. Richard and Adam 15.4% (Semi Final 1 - 1st)
4. Steve Hewlett 14.7% (Wild Card - Semi Final 5 - 3rd)
5. Luminites 6.8% (Semi Final 3 - 1st)
6. Jordan O’Keefe 3.7% (Semi Final 5 - 2nd)
7. Gabz Gardiner 3.6% (Semi Final 3 - 2nd)
8. Arisxandra Libantino 2.9% (Semi Fianl 1 - 2nd)
9. Pre-Skool 2.8% (Semi Final 3 - 2nd)
10. Francine Lewis 2.0% (Semi Final 4 - 1st)
11. Asanda Jezile 1.2% (Semi Final 4 - 2nd)

Based on tonight’s show there are a number or people to watch for in the future, these include Jack Carrol, Steve Hewlett, The Luminites, Gabz Gardiner as well as the two young female singers who I’m sure we will be hearing of again. It was a wonderful show and long may it continue to show case the talnet that is out there waiting to be found.

Finally one last word for the winners, Attraction, don’t do what you did in the final for the Royal Command Performance, it was good but it was the biggest let down in the history of the show for me as a final performance what they had done up to that point. Do what you have do best and grab at those heart strings and pull and amaze us again.

The Last Time

Some time ago I published a post about a very special lady, not the sort of lady that you see walking down the street but a aircraft, a Avro Vulcan, XH558. She is the last flying example in the world and today she made a reappearance over Rutland and maybe for the last time.

With the closing of RAF Cottesmore we have seen less of her but her flying days are coming to the end with the end of her engine life. Hopefully they will find away to keep her going but this could be the last summer she is in the air. It will be a great shame to she her go and I will miss her familiar and distinctive shape in our skies as much as I miss the Harriers that once flew from RAF Cottesmore.