Fri 23rd Jan 2009

After the disappointment of Monday’s dinner, I decided to prepare my own sandwiches for work today. At least I would only have myself to blame if they were horrible.

Luckily they weren’t. Though the only problem with sarnies, is that you sit at your work desk all morning eagerly anticipating dinnertime, then the lot seem to get devoured in a matter of seconds. At least with the Scotch Broth, one has to wait for the soup to cool down, thus allowing a more lengthier appreciation of dinner. After wolfing the sarnies, I simply didn’t feel sated, and was promptly heading over to Tesco Metro for a packet of Snack-A-Jacks. In case you are unfamiliar with Snack-a-Jacks, they are little circles of puffed rice that look like polystyrene and are only ever purchased as a desperate effort to stave off hunger in a manner which avoids the calorific guilt associated with real crisps.

To my delight, the supermarket had a multi-buy offer on. The Snack-a-Jacks were 44p per packet, or £1 for three. Even though I only really wanted one, it was a impossible not to recognize that at that price you’re almost getting a packet completely free! And no one was forcing me to eat all three bags in one day (why would they? I am not at school anymore).

They sold three different varieties; salt & vinegar, barbeque and caramel. I am not too keen on the latter as I consider Snack-a-jacks to be a savoury product so the thought of caramel flavor always seems a bit weird. Yet there also seemed a sensible logic to getting one of each flavor; if only as a means to swiftly resolve the dilemma of whether I preferred an extra bag of salt and vinegar or an extra bag of barbeque. I didn’t really have the time to stand around having a debate with myself over such trivialities.

Grabbing one of each, I headed to those self-service check-outs where you scan the product in yourself. Where possible, I will always try to use these, because it means I can avoid any awkward social interactions with check-out staff who probably hate me; because they associate any customer with the drudgery of being at work. I never really feel inclined to impose myself upon someone who disliked me by such virtue of my default consumer relationship. Which may seem paranoid, but even if they don’t happen to hate me, it’s still not a very appealing aspiration where the best to hope for is that someone merely feels numbing ambivalence. Consequently, the only time I tend to use the staffed check-out is when I am buying any alcoholic products. This is because I once tried scan a four pack on the manual checkouts, and a big light above the checkout suddenly started flashing a piercing red. The purpose of this blazing beacon was to attract the attention of one of the shop assistants, to verify whether I am old enough for booze. This is undeniably a necessary and understandable policy to employ, but I still felt it a little indiscreet. It’s not so bad if you shop in the evening, but what would the rest of the shoppers think about the sort of person buys alcohol in the daytime? Once again, maybe I’m paranoid, but I never much fancy a public accusation of a steady problem with alcoholism.

I scanned the Snack-a-Jacks through and was already holding my pound coin out in the anticipation of payment. However, I was alarmed to see that when the screen tallied up my bill, the machine seemed to have made a mistake. No offer deduction had gone through, and it expected the full 44p payment for each of the bags! I am not a very confrontational character, so my default reaction was to just put the extra money in and leave it be. It didn’t seem worth the hassle just for 31p.

But then why should I? The only reason I’d bought three bags was to get take advantage of the offer! When I had entered Tesco’s, I didn’t even intend to buy three bags! This wasn’t just about puffy rice circles anymore – there was a bigger principal at stake. If I were to let this lie, it would be the 2nd time in a fortnight I’d been ripped off by rogue offers from evil corporations! When I look back over a previous entry I wrote about PC World, I can’t help notice how badly it reads. You kind of get the sense that I so angry whilst reporting the incident, I was actually hammering at the keys. And my God, didn’t it go on and on?! I was not willing to let this happen again. For the first time ever, it was me calling a shop assistant to the checkout machines, rather than the checkout machine calling shop assistants to me.

Upon her arrival, the woman looked at the screen and then studied the Snack-A-Jacks. She turned to me, saying “Ah yes you see, the offer only includes the 30 gram bags, but this one here is actually a 35 gram bag.”

Incidentally, the rogue 35 gram bag she was referring to was the Caramel flavor - trust the caramel ones to causing all this sodding trouble.

“That’s why the offer didn’t work y’see. Different bag sizes.” she continued, before kindly enquiring, “Would you like me to change them for you?”

“Yes please” I replied, resigning myself to the bosom of her maternal charm.

I really didn’t want to inconvenience this nice lady with this petty matter any further. But equally I didn’t want to effectively pay 30-odd pence for an extra 5 grams. That would be consumer madness. I mean, 5 grams is at most, 2 puffy rice circles. And in any case, they were 5 grams of caramel flavored puffy rice circles- my least favourite flavor!

'Ooh I feel like such a pedant squabbling over the 31p.’ I self-consciously announced whilst following her back to the isle of Snack-A-Jacks. It was true; the amount of money was so insignificant that I probably wouldn’t even go to the effort of zipping the reclaimed shrapnel safely back my wallet. It would just end up swinging loose in my trouser pocket, till each piece of change finally fell out unspent.

"Oh don’t worry love. It's a good job you pointed it out now. Otherwise other people would have just complained later."
I strongly suspect she was only trying to make me feel better. Even if anyone did ever go to the effort of pointing out the misleading display, I’d imagine she’d much prefer it if it happened when it wasn’t on a shift she was working.

Nevertheless, I don’t mind admitting that I feel slightly proud for standing up to Tesco and their confusing Snack-A-Jack arrangement. The puffy rice may soon be devoured, but I can forever cherish the receipt. It will be a permanent souvenir of the day I finally became equipped to look after myself better in the frenzied jungle of retail. It’s a massive personal achievement for me. I suppose you might call it Retail Therapy.

Thu 22nd Jan 2009

Do you believe in fate?

I’ve been looking to put on a Quiz Night in the town centre. There used to be one which was rather popular amongst students in the local Varsity pub. It ceased about nine years ago, and I’ve recently been looking to resurrect the concept. The only problem is that I’ve been unable to find anyone who’d be willing to act as a quizmaster. I’d do the job myself, but when I was in my late-teens, I had a crack at chairing the aforementioned quiz on behalf of Pottsy, the usual host who was taking a week’s holiday. It seemed a simple enough task, all I had to do was read - he’d even kindly prepared the questions for me. But in the event, I’d never anticipated the level of exception to which my incorrect but innocently naive pronunciation of the Polish currency was to be taken. I can still recall some of the complaints; ranging from the snipe: “You’re no Bob Holness are you son?” to the haunting vision of the man inadvertently firing shards of angry spittle at me from behind his wall of bared teeth, as I was personally blamed for all his personal failures. It felt as if everyone in the room hated me. With the possible exception of the team that won; who only complimented me with mere ambivalence.

As I was leaving the gym today, I clapped eyes on a vaguely familiar face coming toward me from the other side of the turnstile. It appeared that my face was familiar to him too, since he stopped me at the entrance. “Where do I know you from?” he asked. My mind raced desperately to locate this person’s identity through my mind’s database, before finally recognising him as Pottsy, the old quizmaster from ten years ago!

Could it really be? Given my current desire to start a quiz night being hindered only by a lack of a quizmaster, to now see this vintage quizmaster’s face appear before me seemed a tremendous co-incidence.
“Was it from The Varsity?” I asked.
“Yeah that must be it” he nodded.
Obviously, the opportunity seemed too good to pass, so I chanced my arm, “Are you still doing any quizzes”
“Nah” he replied.
“Why’s that? Is it a lack of time or inclination or something?”
“Er.. well, both really”
I was disappointed, but wondered if I’d be able to re-ignite some enthusiasm by announcing my new project.
“It’s just I was thinking of doing a quiz in town, and I wondered whether you’d be interested in it”.
He gave me a strange, kind of slightly indignant look, before politely but efficiently replying, “No, not really. Anyway, better crack on, nice to see you, I’m sure we’ll see each other soon”.

And with that, we parted. I was disappointed that such a strange and aptly timed meeting with this old acquaintance had not ended with the conclusion that I’d wished for. As I walked across the car park, I considered that if fate did indeed exist, it seemed cruel for it to have engineered such a situation, only for its possibilities to be so abruptly dismissed.

But then another, more pressing realisation swept over me. That man hadn’t actually been Pottsy at all. I suddenly recalled that it was in fact someone I used to wash dishes with at a kitchen I worked at as a student. The whole exchange had been a case of mistaken identity. It had all been a big lie.

I felt a bit embarrassed. Wondering what I must have looked to him, my first inevitable reaction was to run back through the contents of conversation that had just taken place.

The haste in which the conversation was ended certainly gave an air of discomfort.
I had been working with the pre-conceived notion which assumed he was a man who used to host quizzes. Due to the fact that he was not aware of ever hosting quizzes, nor even actually didn’t have much interest in quizzes, I guess I must have appeared rather lonely and presumptive man. A man so bereft of friends, that he would invite anyone who looked only
vaguely familiar, to assist him in forming a quiz team.. What sort of a person would go around asking barely recognisable acquintances to go out sit with them for the duration of a whole evening of quiz? Probably someone rather lonely, who rarely goes out and spends a lot of time alone in front of a computer. It would be a rather amusing stereotype if only it didn’t fit me so well.

So the question remains – does fate exist? To be honest I’m not really sure, but I’d certainly prefer to believe it doesn’t. Because if it did, this would mean that I am forever fated to engineer all of my social interactions (whether they be a one-to-one exchange or addressing a room full of people during an otherwise light-hearted general knowledge game), like a graceless, half-witted twat. And if this is the case, I might as well just save time and give up all this ‘talking to people’ stuff right now.

If I’ve run off to live in a monastery somewhere by the time you read this, you’ll know what I finally decided upon.

Wed 21st Jan 2009

Sometimes there are webpages that simply need to be shared.

This is one of them.

Tue 20th Jan 2009

There was a bit of excitement at work today, when an NUS Conference suddenly got disrupted by some “Free Palastine” protesters. The usurpers had invaded the stage, and even though the candidates were on a tight deadline wanting to finish in time to see the inaugauration of Obama, the disgruntled activists refused to leave the before being heard out by, erm… the NUS.

Although it is impossible to criticize the sentiment (it’s always great to see any sort of protest in these times of such political lethargy), I also cannot help but question the real consequential value of this protest at such a forum. The NUS are the only group to hire the hall and insist a ban on the sales of all Nestle products. They are the only venue hirers who have one of the toilets labeled up for “Gender Nuetral” use only.

With such a sympathetic nature in mind, I reckon it is highly unlikely that many candidates actually had secret desires to ensure the repression of Palastine. Frankly, it is a wasted opportunity. Especially when Roy Chubby Brown is scheduled to perform in the same venue later in the year. He’s famed for hating any interruptions. He’d have been off in the stage seconds, making way for a clear forum for the protesters.

You’d assume an audience of dogs, who’d been panting in anticipation for a fat man to come and swear at them, would be in much greater need of political enlightenment than a load of students. If the protesters had managed to arouse mass political action from THAT crowd, it would be a remarkable protest indeed!

Incidentally - if anyone from the NUS is reading this, please let me assure you that I only ever compose this blog using recycled webpages.