Yesterdays shopping:-

1 x Litre semi-skimmed milk
1 x Sauvignon Blanc
1 x Olive ciabatta loaf
1 x Chocolate coated Viennese biscuits
1 x Lurpak unsalted butter
1 x Chicken flavour Pot Noodle
4 x Packets of Angel Delight
1 x Multi-pack Pepperami Hot
2 x Pepperonata & chile pizza
1 x Packet indigestion tablets
1 x La Vache Qui Rit (8 pcs)

I’m so ashamed of myself - it’s no wonder I’m fat. So to make up I’m having a very unappetizing salad for lunch – chick peas, kidney beans, butter beans, sweetcorn, potatoes, onion, green beans. Hello and welcome to yawn city, although I have got a pear for later. Woo hoo. Actually the butter beans are delicious – I love them. It’s the potatoes that are the super dull bit, and probably the least healthy bit, maybe, after the sweetcorn. Are onions good for you in anyway or do they just add flavour with a zero calorie payback? Who knows. And frankly – who cares.

The above shopping was performed at the temple of consumerism that is Safeway, where the people who work there wear badges that disclaim : "Safeway. The Friendliest Store in Town. My Name is EUGENE"

So there are 3 statements here:

1) The store is called Safeway. Check!

2) The employee’s name is Eugene. Can’t tell but we’ll take it on faith.

3) Safeway is the friendliest store in town. Oh hold on . . .

I guess that is one of those meaningless advertising slogans – there is no really qualitative way of ascertaining whether it is a true statement or not, and even if you could it would be impossible to prove that it caused a competitive advantage to the store at the expense of its competitors. It makes you wonder why they bother using it at all – it’s so depressing. In fact I’ll pose a little quiz. Is Safeway :-

a) An oversized supermarket, shrouded in semi gloom with its hanger heighted roof, its aisles crawled by the barely ambulant and the barely sane, shelves loaded with Christmas Fayre (by Nov 3rd) and the checkouts disordered rummage bins with Safeway Whisky at £10.50 / litre.

b) The Friendliest Store in Town.

Come on guys – just tell it like it is and no-one will respect you less, in fact they’ll respect you a lot more. It may be a bloody miserable place to shop but it’s fucking cheap.