Sunday, December 19, 2010
Is Tesco slipping?
Some time in the first part of October we had a problem with red lentils in that some rather dodgy looking black bits were floating to the surface as the soup simmered. Some of which looked rather like small flies - but one could not be sure without a magnifying glass - which we have, but I did not think to use. We thought that they might well be flies on the grounds that insects can infest peas and beans while they are in the pod, laying eggs for hatching later. Not visible from the outside. Same sort of general idea as the weevils in the ships' biscuit in Hornblower. So we thought we would test the Tesco after sales service and send them an email about this important problem. I got a reply the same day - which was a Sunday so impressive - which explained that the proper drill was to take the lentils back to the place of purchase where they would issue a refund and complete a form 123abc(z) to accompany the lentils back to HQ for analysis. All sounded very efficient. A couple of days later, on the 19th October, we make it back down to the Tesco in question, at Leatherhead. The customer service place was also the place where they do fags and lottery and was manned by an efficient young lady who was perfectly happy to go through form 123abc(z), not appearing to be the least troubled by those waiting for their fags. She swiped BH's reward card through the form to ensure that it knew who to report back to, after which we left thinking how terribly efficient Tesco's were. The only catch is that we have heard nothing since.
That was the first slip. Then we get a leaflet through our door about the Tesco Express opening on the edge of town on the edge of one of the redeveloped mental hospital sites; see 4th October for previous thoughts on the subject. The only catch was that the leaflet, a lightly customised version of a national form, put the new shop in the wrong place. Maybe half a mile or more from where it actually was.
Then for the last slip. This same Tesco Express was due to have a grand opening on Wednesday 15 December. I march up there on the Thursday to see if their lentils are any better than those at Leatherhead, hoping they would be new stock, only to find that due to circumstances beyond their control they were unable to open as planned on Wednesday but were now hoping for Friday. Would they be able to reschedule the mayor in time? Would they be able to pay off the crèche he was supposed to grace with his presence on that day? Sadly we were unable to attend to find out on Friday. Or to collect whatever freebies might have been going. And today, I thought that marching up there to buy potatoes was too high risk. We need to hoard potatoes against the Christmas festivities and one could not be sure that the Tesco would either be open or that it would sell potatoes. And I would not want to walk back to Waitrose, so settled for walking to Waitrose in the first place, from where I have now procured 10kg of the finest King Edward potatoes. And one of those sticks of brussels sprouts which are all the thing this year.
This trip being the third outing in 24 hours for the new snow shoes. That is to say the black rubber nets festooned with spirals of wire which one stretches onto the underside of one's shoes. Rubber quite like the stuff you might find in a catapult. Spirals of wire intended to give one grip on packed snow and ice. £17.50 or so from the south street hearty shop - and sold by a fit looking chap who might actually do hearty things on mountains and made, guess where, in China. Prompted to buy them by our first bout of snow a few weeks ago and they have now given very satisfactory service in the second. Fine grip on the packed snow which is now covering the roads near us. The only catch is that they do bad things to wooden floors and quarry tile floors do bad things to them. That is to say that one is very apt to fall. No grip at all. Minor issue in TB where the gents has such a floor, often wet which makes things even worse.
Luckily there is a reasonable supply of benches in Epsom, so having got there through the snow, one can sit down to remove the snow shoes to tackle the slush and shops with naked trainers. Back not good for changing trainers off-bench these days. Even if they do come from Nike.
# posted by Jim @ 7:39 AM 
