Dead 'good'...

Barnsley has 3 Greggs. Now, don't get me wrong, Greggs is an incredible business, however, it's a shame that the business which thrives the most at times of recession is a purveyor of greasy pastries.

With this high horse, judgmental perspective, imagine my delight when I saw a healthy food established having opened right next door to one of the town's stalwart pasty dispensers.

However, if I'm anal about a healthy lifestyle, I'm twice as anal about the use of language.

This new shop is called 'Gud 2 Eat'.

I can remember how risque Toys 'R' Us once seemed with it's abbreviation, especially when they placed the 'R' backwards. I remember the odd Chippy having a sign which confirmed that they sold Fish 'n' Chips but even these independent heroes still had the common courtesy to correctly use apostrophes to indicate the omitted letters.

Since the explosion of the mobile phone and 'txt spk' business have suddenly taken to using this trend in their names. 'Phones 4 U', 'Fish 4 Jobs' and so on. An acquaintance of mine runs a letting agency called '2 Let 2 U' and an estate agency called '4 Sales 2 U' (sorry Chris). All this could well be acceptable with the straight forward replacement of a number or single letter for a word in a 'clever' kind of way but changing 'good' to 'gud'????

It terrifies me (it probably shouldn't but it does) to think that we think so little of our language that we would just change the spelling of a word for the sake of saving a letter. I can't possible think of the benefit either. Did they think that healthy food and a reasonable standard of English would be just too much for the simple folk of Barnsley?

And what next? 'New Luk', 'Alfuds', 'Wikz', a sign outside a shop representing a grunt?

And where did I observe all this from? Subway. Make of that what you will...

How much are people willing to pay to be an idiot? I don't know but it's definitely less than £1.

I shop at one of two of the major supermarkets. Either Tesco (as it's the closest, open 24 hours and you can get some decent deals) or Morrison's (as its the best for fresh stuff and overall great quality). However, this article is about one difference in policy between Tesco and Morrison's that fascinates me. And here it is:

At Morrison's you have to utilise a pound coin (or one of those pound coin equivalents that you can usually buy for charity) to access your trolley and at Tesco I can access a trolley without a deposit.

At first glance, this seems like something a bit anal and repressive from Morrison's. If someone wanted to steal a trolley, it's probably still a bargain for a pound as well as the inconvenience of having to make sure you have the relevant change on you when you get to the supermarket (something I'm terrible at) it also seems to be an unnecessary burden on their customers. Something which if you're having a bad day can wind you up. Why can't you just access trolleys freely like at Tesco? Well, this winds me up because I'm in the majority of folk who ALWAYS TAKE THEIR TROLLEY BACK.

When I do go to Tesco now I am constantly amazed by how many lazy, ignorant dipshits just leave their trolleys strewn across the car park in spite of the fact that they would have to walk a mere fifteen feet to place it in the nearest trolley collection zone (or whatever they're called). People are not willing to be this lazy if it risks loosing them a whole pound! A pound they could spend presumably on two and a half cigarettes, a third of a pint of Stella or put towards the paint work they need doing because of someone's roaming trolley in a supermarket car park....

I never see a loose trolley at Morrison's, all trolleys are constantly and perfectly aligned in the right sizes and yet I must slalom my way through dozens on each visit to Tesco. If £1 is a sufficient deterrent to stop people acting in an anti-social manner perhaps this is something judges across the land could pick up on. Rather than issuing ABSO's, community service or short prison sentences, just simply threaten the delinquents with a £1 fine....

If I ran a supermarket I would definitely adopt the £1 trolley deposit..... and I would have Gillian McKeith checking people's trolleys on their way out....