Wednesday 7 October 2009

Some things really cheese me off


My lengthy hospital stay has caused me to suffer a certain amount of social isolation. Television and the internet keep me in touch with what’s going on in the outside world, but only up to a point. What I miss is being able to chew the fat with friends over a glass of wine and discuss the news of the day. The longer you stay out of touch in this way, the more the world begins to look like a giant loony bin.

I’ll give you an example… it’s been at least nine months since last I was in a supermarket. During that relatively short space of time it appears that these places no longer just sell food. Now it seems they’ve become the moral guardians of the nation, dispensing plenty of nannying advice and implementing moronic regulations. They seem more interested in bossing their customers around than they do in selling food.

First I read that a pensioner was refused permission to buy a teaspoon in a Tesco store because she was unable to prove she was over 18. What the hell did the checkout assistant think she was going to do with a teaspoon? Launch a frenzied attack on another shopper and scoop their eyes out with it? What sort of cretin would ask an elderly woman for ID before letting her buy a teaspoon? I know supermarkets don’t always employ the brightest types but you’d have to have the IQ of a lobotomised baboon not be able to tell the difference between a teenager and a pensioner. I’m surprised they’ve got sufficient intelligence to remember to draw breath on a regular basis.

ANd then this week I heard of another piece of supermarket madness. A Sainsbury’s employee told a pregnant woman that she couldn’t buy a piece of cheese as she was expecting. The knucklehead was of the opinion that the cheddar would harm the woman’s unborn child. Since when were cheesemongers qualified to hand out medical advice? I know supermarkets do more than just sell food, but this is extreme mission creep.

The pregnant woman was told that the cheddar she’d asked for was made from unpasteurised milk and was simply too dangerous for her to be allowed to buy it. Ignoring the fact that it was none of the imbecile’s business, the advice was completely false. Soft cheese such as Brie or Camembert may have a case to answer but not cheddar. Anyway, the woman might have been buying it for a neighbour or perhaps she was playing Russian roulette with a cheeseboard chock-full of killer cheeses. It was nobody else’s business.

So why are supermarket workers getting so above themselves? Personally, I blame the Government. It’s spent the past ten years or so spying on us; encouraging neighbours to snitch on each other and even urging children to spy on their parents by reporting environmental crimes like leaving a tap running or not turning off a light. The Government now pokes it’s nose into every nook and cranny of our lives in a way that would make a Stasi officer blush – and now it’s spreading to the private sector.

The more I hear about this sort of crap going on in the outside world, the less inclined I am to leave hospital. Apart from the old woman in the next room, no one in here is mad or stupid. If it weren’t for the food I think I’d set up home!

UPDATE: Barbara, this blog's delightful Austrian correspondent, tells me that the naughty person attempting to buy the lethal teaspoon was in fact only 21 years old. Quite correct to ask for her passport in that case. Obviously, as a journalist I never allow facts to get in the way of a good story. Even so... a teaspoon? It's total madness and it's catching. How much longer before the hospital starts using plastic cutlery?

24 comments:

  1. Now Now Tm .... remember you have breakfast to look forward to ;-)

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  2. I was forgetting. It will be here in a minute.

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  3. Hmm - you are becoming institutionalised. It happens when you spend too long in places like hospitals, prisons etc. Staff in these places have the same problem. We are no longer employable in the real world. Escape now, get some decent food inside you and everything will return to normal. Whatever normal may be.

    From she who must remain anonymous - at least for the next 576 days

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  4. I think those supermarket employees are being trained to go on to higher things like working as Doctors Receptionists or EVEN Library staff!

    Ruth

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  5. Hahahahaha! Being slightly pissed on fine scotch and reading this is the best thing! Kudos to you TM for keeping your sense of humour and proportion; Good God, is there anyone out there who ISN'T afraid of being sued in this ridiculous era?

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  6. Have one for me, Ian. Cheers ;-)

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  7. Ah well! It is official! Big Brother rules! No not the TV programme! 1984 is coming true. They have spies everywhere. No one can be trusted. Not even the morons staffing the cheese counter!

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  8. Hi TM! I could not believe these stories. That one with the spoon I found to be slightly different in that the customer was 21 years old and hence not visibly elderly; but even so I cannot understand why anyone should be obliged to show a passport when buying a spoon, even a child could do it. As for the lady who wanted to buy cheddar: it's plain weird. What next, will they forbid her to buy parsley or celery? Besides she might well have been shopping for her family; and pregnant women usually are well capable of looking after themselves on their own. It's a different thing when an employer refuses to put a pregnant employee into a work environment without smoke; it's ok for legislation to intervene in that case, because after all they enforce the will of the woman and not go against it. Hope you get a nice bite of cheese from time to time! Greetings from Barbara

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  9. I live in quite a rough area. The teenagers are running around stabbing each other with teaspoons... You can't be too careful ;-)

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  10. Whatever you do Traction Man, do not go looking for the news articles about the plan to have CCTV images streamed into peoples homes so that they can watch for crimes being committed .. .. .. .. you may end up needing medication for high blood pressure

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  11. NNOOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOO!!!


    Hang on though .. .. .. patients like you that have to be in front of a screen .. .. ..

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  12. So you have finally realised that it is your ability to "stomach" the food that determines your discharge date. When you cease to complain you're out

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  13. Someone will be along shortly to confiscate that photo of a knife, and to charge you with being in possession of a photo of a knife.

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  14. High IQ Dating
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    And this relates to cheese and spoons how? Oh I see... its about the intelligence of supermarket staff.

    Great google ads. Not only does your blog give us a great laugh but so do the ads.

    Light,Love and Healing to you

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  15. An off-duty paramedic in our local Tesco store was refused alcohol because of a policy they have. It's on the Surrey Herald website. May cheer you up!

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  16. i cant tell you how worried i am for you , between the isolation , the inadequete food and the distance from home and family being able to call its a wonder you havent started naming your socks and dribbling . not to mention the fact that your country seems to be going insane in itself .come on , really now . whats the danger with spoon? i can understand forbidding teens from buying knives , but spoons? i dont know what to tell you hun , i just hope that running this blog is distracting you somewhat.but if not , you have my permission to name one of your socks after me :-)


    rhonda, usa

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  17. Hi TM, Don't these ridiculous stories just make you want to scream out loud! I read about the spoons and the cheese and others previous. One about an ambulance worker who went into one of the big chain supermarkets on his way home to buy a bottle of wine for him and his wife to have with dinner. They refused to sell it him because he was in uniform and might drink on duty. They still wouldn’t sell it to him when he said he was off duty so he went into the car park, stripped down to his undies and said ‘now can I buy it?’ (or words to that effect I would suggest). Another where they wouldn’t sell wine to a guy because his 14 year old son was with him at the check out and he might give him some! Oh and the old guy (obviously a pensioner) who was asked for his ID in a fishing shop to buy fishing hooks – apparently at 75 the assistant didn’t believe he was over 18! And last but not least the 21 year old who went into a wool shop to buy some knitting needles, yes you need to be over 18 to knit these days!

    God just thinking about it all makes my blood boil – whatever next?

    Linda Tenerife x

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  18. But I think the grocery clerks are not dilegent enough as they miss these lethal products.

    Bags of ice. Dangers- hypothermia, blunt force trauma, slip and fall from melting cubes, encouraging the underage drinking of frozen margaritas and daquiris.

    Frozen meats. Dangers- Roald Dahl's "Lamb To The Slaughter" sums them up very nicely.

    Carrots, Danger- long object with pointy end. Is the threat of vision loss or worse anything to trifle with?

    Think of the poor dear who while fixing dinner runs to answer a ringing phone with a carrot in her hand. Sadly an ice cube is melting on the floor. And she, tipsy from a frozen maragrita slips in the icy puddle, landing eye first on the deadly carrot. In pain, blind and near mad with panic she crawls to the kitchen counter and pulls herself up.

    But there is no safety for she has grabbed a teaspoon. No innocent teaspoon this for it holds a serving of raw milk soft cheese. It jettisons into her mouth and is caught in her trachea. As she chokes struggling for breath,the alert CCTV dials 911. The drunken paramedic barely gets her to the hospital in time. He had to let his 14 year old son take the wheel at one point.

    But even though the doctors operate and remove the cheese it is too late. The rapidly growing bacteria from the raw milk spread through out her system eating away all her healthy organs. Medical science admits defeat and pulls the plug.

    So let us show a little respect for those men and women who are our first line of defense against chaos and mass death. The grocery clerk.

    Paula

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  19. Someone posted about this on another thread saying unpasteurised cheese of any type is unsuitable for pregnant women, and what would have happened if they hadn't been so nannying? The press would have had a field day, apparently.

    But I think this misses the point. The cheesemonger could have warned the woman but she was not entitled to refuse the sale. The cheese might have been for someone else, it may have been used in a recipe and thus the cheese would have been rendered 'safe', or she might just have wanted to take the risk. That's what a free society is all about. Once warned, she could make an informed choice but it is not the place of the supermarket to make judgements on other people's behalf. The supermarket stepped over the line and invaded the customer's privacy and personal choice. This sort of behaviour may have been acceptable in the Soviet era but in a so-called free liberal democracy it should not be. Freedom is lost by the little liberties being taken away first.

    Rant over!

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  20. Well I for one, would never risk pissing off a pregnant women, as Florida is a concealed carry state and pregnant women are known to be rather moody. Especially when it comes to food.

    Paula

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  21. On one hand, I wish you a peedy recovery and that you get out of hospital before it is too late for you to carry on life as a normal person and have the opportunity to enjoy food, sleep and all the other luxuries that we are free to enjoy, but what will i do without my dails dose of traction blog - I woke my son up laughing just now - just the thought of a pensioner running amok with a teaspoon scooping peoples eyes out was just the tonic i neede after a hard days work. Hope you get some sleep

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  22. We had wooden cutlery and elegant round solid cardboard plates of a new design on the winemakers' market last sunday. This stems from the region's policy to prevent waste environmentally difficult to dispose of.

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