supermarkets

Guerrilla Shopping

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Guerrilla shopping in its purest form means only ever using cash, it is the opposite and perhaps the antidote to the big shop. When you go to Superco and use your plastic, phone or watch to pay and swipe your Happy Superco Shoppers’ card to earn points ‘they’ know exactly what you have bought, how much you have spent and when. In seconds your lifestyle has been assessed by Algo Rithm. We don’t know who he is, but do we want him to know everything about us? He has friends everywhere so anything could happen. When you go to the doctors or clinic to have your diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol etc checked they will frown at you and say

 ‘Hmm, I see you bought a bottle of whisky, two giant Toblerones, a dozen Cadbury Crème Eggs and no fruit or veg last week.’

The guerrilla shopper slips under the radar, using every shop in his neighbourhood and beyond, buying a few items at each, never visiting any location at a regular time or day. There is no record of what he spends, eats or reads.

There are many other reasons for being a guerrilla shopper, apart from being a criminal or paranoid. If you are on a tight budget you can take advantage of the best prices and offers and get your clothes and crockery at charity shops.

If you do not drive and wish to avoid Dearburys’ Delivery knowing exactly where you live as well as what you eat, then you must shop at every opportunity, buying only what you can carry, fit on your bike or clamber onto the bus with.

Adventure is a popular reason for guerrilla shopping, providing excitement without going hunting or to a war zone and fun without going on holiday. Guerrillas do not ‘go shopping’ they go on an expedition to find vital supplies. Will you manage to get enough for dinner, perhaps come back with a surprise bargain from the charity shop?

Even in rural areas the guerrilla should be able to shop; the milk machine at the dairy farm shop where you put your coins in and fill your reusable bottle, the free range eggs with the honesty box at the farm gate in a lonely lane, farmers’ markets and ‘pick your own’ fields…

In Southbourne Grove we have a treasure trove of shops, the only place we’ve lived which has gone up rather than downhill. As well as Sainsbury Local, Tesco Express, CoOp and One Stop, the guerrilla shopper could buy one onion in the greengrocers, a chicken leg at the butchers, a roll at the bakers and brooms and batteries at Southbourne General Store. There are also all the shops you could want for gifts or leisure and plenty of coffee stops. The only thing we and other shopping areas have not got any more are banks…

If you are using cash you still have to get it from somewhere. Cash machines mean you have to use your card; Algo Rithm will know you have been there and a hidden camera will take your photo…

Have you tried guerrilla shopping? ~What are your favourite shops?

Big Shopping

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Doing a Big Shop is the nadir of modern life and of married life. While wars rage and the planet hovers on the brink of destruction, couples argue in the aisle about which loaf of bread to get or which size washing powder to buy.

The inane conversations start in the car park as a partner or elderly parent in the passenger seat passes comments such as

‘Why didn’t you just park there?’

Once inside, the question of tonight’s dinner arises; ‘seeing what they’ve got’ is never going to work in a huge store packed with everything. Perhaps this reminder of how lucky they are to have a choice of food will start another banal conversation.

‘Shall we get a tin of baked beans to put in the food bank box?’

‘How can you be so patronizing, they probably live on baked beans, let’s get something decent.’

‘What then?’

‘Not sure…’

Of course there may be dramas to alleviate the boredom of trailing round every aisle, such as meeting your neighbour who tells you all about their colonoscopy or an announcement on the tannoy…

‘Cleaner to aisle 67…’

At aisle 67 you have the excitement of negotiating a spreading pool of blood, which turns out to be the economy size jar of blackcurrants dropped out of the trolley by a bored toddler. The parents didn’t notice as they were busy reading the ingredients to compare a Heinz tin with supermarket own brand.

At the checkouts there will be the regular discussion as to which checkout to use; self service or real person on the conveyor belt. Whichever is chosen will be the wrong choice. The computer won’t let the fifty year old shopper buy a bottle of wine without human approval, while at the human checkout our shoppers are stuck behind someone who has saved up a hundred vouchers. Whatever goes wrong it will be the other  partner’s fault and a reminder that one of them wanted to go to a different supermarket in the first place.

As they wheel their heavily laden trolley with the wonky wheel … 

‘I told you not to get that trolley’

…they pass the food bank box half full with tins of baked beans and bags of pasta.

‘Oh no, we forgot to get something for the food bank.’

If you want to avoid the banality of shopping why not try the excitement of  Guerrilla shopping? Find out how in the next blog.

Silly Saturday – Essentially Essential

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In Wales a two week ‘firebreak lockdown’ has started and only essential shops are allowed to open with the essential idea that these essential shops are only allowed to sell essential items, so as not to cheat on the non-essential shops who are not allowed to open. For example, you may not buy an electric kettle at Tesco, because Dai Jones the Electric in Pontypandy has been selling only electrical goods in his shop since 1937.

How are customers and supermarket managers to decide what is essential? Essential for survival or for Covid Comfort?

Tick which of the following you will buy over this weekend as the clocks go back and winter nights draw in. Chocolate of course, chocolate biscuits, bread, wine, potatoes, warm fluffy slippers, rice, cosy pyjamas, bunch of carrots, bunch of flowers, cabbage, boxed set of old black and white films, pork chops, celebrity magazine, cheese, pot plant, milk, Lego set, a free range chicken, new underwear, shredded wheat, paperback book, cocoa pops.

If you ticked more than ten ( 8 if you are vegetarian, 6 if you are vegan ) you are being self indulgent and breaking the spirit of the new rules. Now imagine the task of staff who have to police the supermarket customers.

Chains will be strung across the sweet aisle, padlocks put on the ice cream cabinets and  constant patrols to remove flagrant non-essentials from the shelves. As staff must socially distance they cannot grab that bottle of whisky out of your hands so there will be announcements over the PA system.

Will the lady in the lurid pink coat put down the packet of chocolate digestives and raise her hands in the air… now take a packet of plain digestives.

Customers are reminded they must produce their child’s birth certificate if they wish to purchase birthday candles and cake decorations.

Pet owners with a certificate from their vet may purchase one bag of pet food, but not a squeaky mouse toy.

On the ball managers may have already set up deafening alarms to beep if you pick up a box of hair colouring and there would be greater embarrassment if you have braved the medical aisle and got as far as the intimate products…

Perhaps within a few days harassed supermarket staff will allow you no further than the till where you will be handed one basket of  food essentials.

Silly Saturday on Sunday – Supermarket Slash

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Do you envy your mother or grandmother who just had to plan what to have for dinner that would be nourishing for her family? In that mythical time people talk about on Facebook – ‘I’m glad I grew up in the fifties, forties, thirties, 1890s etc.’ When everybody was happy and knew what they were having for dinner; roast on Sunday and the other six days a regular weekly roster that surely included a hearty stew and bangers and mash. We still have to eat, but the happiness of our families is the least of our worries.

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Do you dare to take part in Supermarket Slash? It’s the same as Supermarket Dash only you have to put as little as possible in your trolley.

First Stop meat aisle. If you are a vegetarian go straight to the next aisle.

If you are a carnivore have you got a good reason to be one?

FOR: We know humans are omnivorous and can eat anything, that is why they live all over the world and over the millennia have tried every diet going from blood to berries.

AGAINST: In a recent documentary viewers were shocked to discover that meat actually comes from killed animals; one person’s pet is another person’s dinner.

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Still going down the meat aisle? Is that chicken free range, was that pig outdoor reared before he was chopped. You have found a nice free range chicken and some Scottish beef, but how is it wrapped? Can that packaging be recycled?

Take your empty trolley and catch up with the vegetarians on the dairy aisle. Feel smug because scientists told us we were misinformed for decades about margarine – it’s bad, natural is better. But is that milk organic, does it come in a plastic bottle? Cheese omelette for dinner, but what about the hens, were they battery operated?

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Catch up with the vegans in grains and pulses aisle. Can’t go wrong here, or can you? How much precious water does it take to grow rice? Go straight to tofu, but how many acres of lush dairy pasture or verdant forest have to be ploughed up to grow enough tofu? Jams and spreads, what could go wrong here, a peanut butter sandwich would be filling, but read the ingredients – palm oil is OUT, put the jar back and search for 100% peanuts.

How many items do you have in your trolley, don’t go to the checkout yet, have you scrutinised the ingredients on every packet and tin for hidden sugar and dodgy additives?

If you have anything left there is one more consideration. How did all the food get to the supermarket? In big diesel guzzling trucks…

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You are out of the game, go home and start all over again. Follow the recent advice from the Chief Medical Officer on combating childhood obesity; eat only that which you have killed or grown yourself; in certain circumstances it is acceptable to pick up road kill. If going out hunting is not really your scene you could rescue some chickens from a battery farm; you would still have to kill them when their laying days were over, but it will not be so hard to catch them.

Let us know how you get on.

Friday Flash Fiction 500 – Biodegradable

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Cauldrons bubbled, paddles stirred, pumps rose and fell. The dye selector scurried along seeking indigo and sunflower to make that special shade of green for Familyfresh.

Malcolm Rust loved machinery and money, in that order. Childhood visits to industrial museums had given him a love of pistons and presses. The only history he was interested in at school was of Victorian valleys filled with furnaces and engineering entrepreneurs making a mint, so they could build great houses on top of hills looking down on their wealth. His weekends as a teenager had been spent scouring the country for redundant factory equipment and thinking of money making projects to fund his hobby.

He had no interest in the environment, except as the provider of water courses to power mills, until he met Melissa. She worked with his mother at the new Veganarium that had replaced the cheese and bacon shop. His mother needed a job, but for Melisa it was her whole way of life.

As far as Malcolm was concerned food was fuel, the same as coal, wood and diesel for his beloved machines. But as Melissa chattered on about recipes for allergen free biscuits and biodegradable wrappers, he thought he might find a way to her heart. Why not make the biscuits and packets with the same recipe? It was time to investigate corn starch and fructose.

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Now he was no longer Mr Rust, but Mr Green, inventor of the edible carrier bag and three days ago Melissa had become Mrs. Green. Channel Four was making a documentary about their plans for a perfect Ecohouse with living walls.

But no sooner had the carrier bags become familiar in every supermarket than the first criticisms began to appear on social media. Members of the public no longer had to feel guilty about plastic or litter; discarded sweet wrappers, takeaway boxes and shopping bags would all be eaten by wildlife, from snails to deer. In fact the carrier bags were so delicious, passing dogs were liable to take a bite out of your shopping.

Then came the first news story from the Familyfresh Fairtrade supermarket. Overnight, all the bundles of new carrier bags had disappeared from the store room. The first clue to the mystery came when three large rats scampered across the feet of the store manager. He ran out into the main store, only to see several more rats slip away from the checkouts. The second clue was the remnant of a carrier bag hanging limply, serrated with huge teeth marks.

A meeting of COBRA * was called after pest exterminators made urgent reports of supersized rats, gardeners posted pictures on Facebook of giant snails and a photograph appeared on breakfast television of a fox the size of a deer hound. Malcolm was summoned to reveal the ingredients of his carrier bags…

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*Cobra stands for Cabinet Office briefing room A. Cobra meetings are held in Downing Street to plan government responses in times of emergency.