MDF doors warping.

[Nemesis]

Yes but you live somewhere where there is a large enough population. Where there isn't, in a very small market town, it doesn't take much to tip the balance into being unviable.

Our tiny village shop, the only shop for many miles for some people, opens long hours and the owners are lovely, but the loss of the PO part will mean the rest isn't viable, as the PO pays some of a salary and brings in custom.

It has achieved all this by stocking almost everything you might need for your house and garden and being willing and eager to order anything it doesn't have (which isn't often). You can go in and ask for an obscure widget and they'll ask you what size, and let you buy two in a paper bag.

So does ours.

But it is closing.

I have to say a large number of people didn't want Tesco to arrive in the valley. But Tesco was clever enough not to start from scratch with a planning app, which I doubt it would have got. It moved in and took over an existing business. It then proceeded to turn the car park (which was paved with blocks and had trees etc in islands to break it up) into a tarmac desert and mostly demolish a fairly new building, to turn it into Toytown.

It didn't get permission for the massive illuminated sign it wanted, thankfully.

http://www.tescopoly.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=90&Itemid=106

A spokesman for Tesco said: "This is a sad day for the majority of Sheringham's residents who will now have to wait for a store."

Tragedy indeed!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/22/eatesco122.xml

 

[biffvernon]

Now here's a thing. The old man we get our Christmas goose from has become too arthritic to pluck the geese this year so asked whether we would take ours with feathers. No problem. He is disappointed that so few people are willing to pluck their own and he fears he may not be able to sell them all.

 

[Nemesis]

You're not the pheasant plucker nor the pheasant plucker's son...
And you'll not be plucking pheasants till the pheasant plucker comes?


I am sure Penners will come up with jokes about being goosed.

My nuts don't need plucking. My crannies are safe.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mentor01/song.htm

Me husband is a keeper, he's a very busy man
I try to understand him and I help him all I can,
But sometimes in an evening I feel a trifle dim
All alone, I'm plucking pheasants, when I'd rather pluck with him.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's mate
I'm only plucking pheasants 'cos the pheasant plucker's late !

I'm not good at plucking pheasants, at pheasant plucking I get stuck
Though some pheasants find it pleasant I'd rather pluck a duck.
Oh plucking geese is gorgeous, I can pluck a goose with ease
But pheasant plucking's torture because they haven't any grease.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, he has gone out on the tiles
He only plucked one pheasant and I'm sitting here with piles !

You have to pluck them fresh, if it’s fresh they’re not unpleasant,
I knew a man in Dunstable who could pluck a frozen pheasant.
They say the village constable had pheasant plucking sessions
With the vicar on a Sunday ‘tween the first and second lessons.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's mum
I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker's come.

My good friend Godfrey is most adept, he's really got the knack
He likes to have a pheasant plucked before he hits the sack.
I like to give a helping hand, I gather up the feathers,
It's really all our pheasant plucking keeps us pair together.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's friend
I'm only plucking pheasants as a means unto an end !

My husband's in the forest always banging with his gun
If he could hear me half the time I'm sure that he would run,
For there's fluff in all my crannies, there's feathers up my nose
And I'm itching in the kitchen from my head down to my toes.

I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's wife
And when we pluck together it's a pheasant plucking life !

 

[Penners]

I am sure Penners will come up with jokes about being goosed.

Here's the closest I can get at short notice:

Q> What do a goose and a lawyer have in common?

A> They can both stick their bills up their @rses.

 

[Moo]

Penners, that's very rude.

What would Mrs Penners say?

 

[Penners]

Oh, I think she'd beat me soundly.

Again.

 

[Nemesis]

Observer letters, Sunday 17th Dec:

Beat climate change - eat local food

Eating local food is probably the biggest single contribution we can all make to cutting climate change. In a year, a typical family of four will emit 4.2 tonnes of CO2 from their house, 4.4 tonnes from their car, and 8 tonnes from the production, processing, packaging and distribution of the food they eat.

So it was disappointing to find no mention of local food in the 'Creating a low-carbon Britain' supplement (last week). Disappointing but not surprising, given that it was 'sponsored by the Carbon Trust' and contained an article by Terry Leahy of Tesco (key partner of the Carbon Trust). Tesco is, and will remain, part of the problem. Its business model is based on the globalisation of the food supply chain, and it cannot go green without dismantling itself.
Richard Boden
Wye, Kent

 

[Pford75]

Its business model is based on the globalisation of the food supply chain, and it cannot go green without dismantling itself.

Patently wrong......it's business model is based upon economies of scale....which apply locally as much as globally. Waitrose, Sainsburys and Tescos all manage to source local produce in this part of Norfolk.

There's much with which I do not agree....but the pseudo retail experts pontificating on what Tesco's (or any other supermarket) can/cannot do is annoying.

 

[Lime]

Now here's a thing. The old man we get our Christmas goose from has become too arthritic to pluck the geese this year so asked whether we would take ours with feathers. No problem. He is disappointed that so few people are willing to pluck their own and he fears he may not be able to sell them all.

Best done on a still-warm bird.
Not a possibility for many and off-putting for some.
I would go so far to say that the majority of people eating meat of any sort this Christmas would not like to be involved in the slaughter and trimming of the animal.
it would make them think too much.
Another aspect of the supermarket and the general isolation of the butchery that goes on in our names behind closed doors.

 

[biffvernon]

Waitrose, Sainsburys and Tescos all manage to source local produce in this part of Norfolk.

Ah, Christmas is coming and the Norfolk Turkey (hatched in Hungary) is in the freezer.

 

[Flyfisher]

I would go so far to say that the majority of people eating meat of any sort this Christmas would not like to be involved in the slaughter and trimming of the animal.

We're having pheasant for Christmas this year and I was involved in both. I guess that puts me in the minority.

But I certainly agree with the sentiment. I think the general 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' attitude regarding meat production is not particularly healthy. I'm sure it's the reason for most of the bad practices in the industry.

 

[Nemesis]

....but the pseudo retail experts pontificating on what Tesco's (or any other supermarket) can/cannot do is annoying.

you could tell Mr Boden that then. Here he is:


http://www.wyecycle.org.uk/


Wiatrose has had a few problems with its organic turkeys:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/07/nfood107.xml


(My hazelnuts were hand reared in the garden, are organic and free range, and shelled in humane circumstances.)

 

[MdB]

(My hazelnuts were hand reared in the garden, are organic and free range, and shelled in humane circumstances.)

But think of the poor squirrels that you are depriving of their food source....

 

[Nemesis]

We don't have squirrels.

They stay in Allen Banks.

The rats have the spares anyhow.

 

[Penners]

Waitrose, Sainsburys and Tescos all manage to source local produce in this part of Norfolk.

Ditto here in Suffolk. Not a huge proportion of their produce yet, but over the past few months it seems to have been growing.

Let's hope the trend accelerates.

 

[Penners]

My hazelnuts were hand reared in the garden, are organic and free range, and shelled in humane circumstances.

I've always suspected you're a bit of a nut-crusher.

 

[Pford75]

Ah, Christmas is coming and the Norfolk Turkey (hatched in Hungary) is in the freezer

My local Sainsburys provides bacon from a pig farm in the same town, asparagus (in season) from a town only 4 miles away, apple juice, assorted fruits, pork, parsnips, sprouts and potatoes...all from named farms within 20 miles....there may be more, but these are the ones which I have just checked in my larder.

They're not perfect, but i would rather give praise where it's due...than simply take the position of 'all supermarkets are bad'

Nemesis - as for the Waitrose article, I'm sure it's true....but do you really think that all small village retailers are perfect? I remember a local shopkeeper selling out of date produce, another greengrocer selling the same potatoes as both 'normal' and 'organic'. The bakers in my last village was closed for public health reasons......so whilst i don't claim the big supermarkets are perfect....neither are the small retailers.

 

[Nemesis]

I suggest we all starve then.

 

[Penners]

When I were but a lad, I got a school holiday job with our local greengrocer in Leamington Spa.

He sold all his vegetables out of wooden bins built around the walls of the shop. There were two grades of tomatoes - 1/6d a pound and 1/9d a pound.

We invariably sold out of the 1/9d ones faster than the others. One day this happened quite early in the day, so he told me to take some of the 1/6d ones and put them into the 1/9d bin.

I asked him "won't people complain?"

"They won't know the difference", he said. "They're all the same tomatoes anyway."

"So why do the 1/9d ones always sell faster?" I asked.

"They're more expensive, so people think they're better", he said, quite unashamedly.

:?

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/jun/26/themonarchy.supermarkets