Calling Dr Rorschach

It's recently been brought to my attention that a mother from Ashland, Kentucky has had her knickers in a twist over a packet of fun-shaped straws that she bought for her three-year-old girl.

The little girl chose a heart-shaped straw for her drink, which is just lovely. However, her mum was not at all impressed by the next ones to come out of the packet. Wal-Mart are on record as saying that they are clearly supposed to be rocket ships.

What do you think?

I need to ask because I've seen a number of messages posted on forums suggesting that this mother clearly has a depraved and filthy mind, and needs to take a good look at herself. But I can say with some certainty that she's not alone.

So - innocent space rocket, or phallic filth? Answers to the usual comments box please, I'm off to wash my depraved and filthy mind out.

Underhand Marketing Tactics 3

...the bastards nearly had me as well...

Whilst in the grips of raging PMT yesterday afternoon, I popped into my local Tesco Metro. I was suffering from that sensation of 'if I don't eat a huge quantity of chocolate right now I am going to do some serious damage to something.'

Anyway, there was a HUGE yellow sign right underneath my favourite chocolate bars, saying 'SPECIAL OFFER - 3 for £1.00'. 'Fantastic', I thought, grabbing at them like a deranged pigeon dancing on a discarded pile of chips. 'That ought to keep me going until teatime...'

Hang on a minute though...what does that little white sign poking out from underneath the HUGE yellow one say?

32p each, you say...

Dirty, thieving bastards. And yes, I did complain. The signs are now gone.

Underhand Marketing Tactics 1

I have many a bee in my bonnet, but the one with the loudest buzz of all concerns what I believe to be underhand marketing or advertising methods. It's the cause of many a debate between The Husband and I, as he's an entrepreneur who genuinely believes that all's fair in love, war and sales tactics.

It's really hard to draw a line between 'fair' and 'underhand' promotional tactics, and I realise I've got a long way to go with my thinking on the subject. But as I'm here and I haven't posted for a couple of days, here are two examples I have spotted or been told about.

Mothercare - will not be getting a visit from me any time soon after a verbal report from my friend ChiefBoobyMum. She says that they are currently employing tactics based on Pester Power to boost sales of this year's Must Have Christmas present; a large, dancing Iggle Piggle toy. They have put the big display of the toys right next to the tills, and the sales assistant encouraged her to buy the toy as her three-year-old was practically crying for it by the time she got served. She has more sense, thankfully, but still felt like a miserable old ratbag of a mother for standing firm.

Sainsbury's - are having a laugh if they think I can't spot Vanity Sizing when I see it. I am well aware of what size the old bootylicious can be squeezed into on a good day, and in my opinion, those knickers were a good 2 sizes bigger than the size stated on the label. Am I supposed to think 'I know, I'm going to do all my shopping at Sainsbury's in future, because just walking through their doors magically makes my arse shrink'?

Bastards.

UPDATE: I saw the Iggle Piggle toy on a child-free shopping trip this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to examine and play with it. It is complete and utter crap.

For the same amount of money you can get a laughing Elmo toy which is much more useful. Another friend of mine has one, and her little girl is so scared of it that she can put it in the doorway of any room she doesn't want her going into, and it immediately becomes a little, menacing, furry bouncer. Now that's what I call value for money.

Tesco Organic Veg Box

Today, I saw that Tesco are selling Organic Veg Boxes. Right there, amongst all the other organic veg that they sell and that you can pick out for yourself.

There's so much wrong with this picture, that I don't even know where to start. Give me time, there's a great rant to be had, I promise. But right now I need to sleep.

Also, you have my solemn promise that when I have a just a little bit more time and money, and when the area in which I live catches up a bit on the organic produce front, I will no longer go to Tesco. It makes me feel dirty, and not in a good way.

The Price of Milk

I had a letter this morning from the very large organisation that employs my milkman saying that the price of milk is going up. Amongst the usual platitudinous CRM-based nonsense was this paragraph:

"The main reason for this increase is a world shortage of milk, which is affecting the price of all milk and dairy products. This comes at a time when the British dairy industry is also experiencing significant change. The soaring cost of animal feed and poor weather over the summer has led to lower amounts of milk being produced and some real difficulties for many of our farmers."

Oh come off it. I'm no investigative journalist, and I don't have the time to present a watertight case here, but this smells of something else to me. It's been several years since we first started hearing that UK dairy farmers were going out of business at an alarming rate due to the aggressive purchasing tactics of the major retailers. More recently we've heard the allegations of price-fixing of milk and cheese. And now we're short of milk, and it's going to cost us more money.

Did no-one else see this coming? I predict that it's time to start looking very hard at our budgets and what we consider important. I have a feeling that our current fixation with cheap commodities is going to prove itself unsustainable and consumers are going to get a good hard bite in the arse in the next few years. Milk is only the start.