Off my...

I hate supermarkets and I especially hate large supermarkets. Had to go to this one today for the first time in 18 months and it was even worse than last time.

I wrote a long piece about how and why I hate supermarkets but it was just as boring as the supermarket, so I deleted it.

Edit: By astonishing popular request, my supermarket rant:

There was a birthday in our household today and the birthday meal required filo pastry, coriander and fruit juice. Last time I needed filo pastry it took me 5 shops and 3 hours to discover that I could get it only at the out-of-town Sainsbury's so that's where I went first this time.

1 For some reason I thought I might be able to grab what I wanted and escape fast but I had forgotten how supermarkets work. Where is stuff? Where the freezer section was last time, there was coffee. Where the veg and herbs used to be, there were clothes. I found the herb shelves and there was no coriander. (Luckily I had a co-conspirator near Oxford market so I phoned her to buy the coriander there.) However, I later found that herbs were tastefully scattered throughout the produce section. Why? Nor was there any label in the freezer section that might mean pastry. I wandered up and down the freezer aisles three times before spotting it. Of course supermarkets employ as few humans as possible so there was no-one to ask. (Hey, Americans, do your supermarkets have computers where you can key in what you want and the system tells you where it is? Is that on its way here?)

2 I couldn't remember where juice used to be but stumbled on it. There were more brands of juice than any human being needs. I do not have enough life left to waste it pondering 17 brands.

3 On the price comparison tickets some were marked per litre, some per 100ml (OK, not that difficult but why?). Some tickets were missing. Where there were special offers it was impossible to know whether the comparison prices were for the original price or the special offer price. Why offer a price comparison service if it's unusable?

4 There is something that supermarkets put in the air and in the lighting to deaden the brain. I come out finding whole chunks of life have disappeared, unaccountably. I think it's even worse for the staff.

Nor, for me, is online shopping the answer:

5 Supermarket purchasing policies screw producers.

6 Fruit and veg are harvested unripe to reduce bruising during transport. Artificial ripening does not reinstate the taste (incidentally, look up next time you are in a fruit section at the special lamps there to make the fruit look riper - cunning eh!).

7 Stuff harvested or manufactured five miles down the road has been carted from one distribution centre to another and back again. They say it is more efficient. What sort of cock-eyed world do we live in that this sort of food-mile-intensive 'efficiency' is what decides how we get food?

8 Apart from the feeble 'community charity' donations, profits go straight out of the local area and into the investment accounts of shareholders (unless you shop at the Co-op but they don't have filo pastry). I'd rather my money supported a small local business.

There - you didn't really want to read all that, did you?