Track of the Week

Every Little Helps World Domination

For the purposes of not naming names, the following theory discusses a hypothetical supermarket chain. Let us call it, ‘Tesbury’s’.

It’s often said that stores like Tesbury’s want to control the provision of everything from Custard Creams, to Car Insurance to DNA and the human soul... and keep quite a nice display of fresh fish with ice underneath it on a table.

But why would Tesbury’s want to strive for world domination? Why, when we can do it for them? We’ve already made a start. We all do our bit taking the strain off the checkout operators by learning how to struggle with the self-service tills (see ‘Love Eggs and Self-Service’, August 2011). (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Love Eggs and Self-Service

This was how the discussion went when self-service checkouts were first mooted in a supermarket executive board meeting:

‘People won’t want to serve themselves at supermarkets.’

‘They will if they heard how the girl says “Cash”.’

Which girl?’

‘The one who does all the voice-overs for the checkouts. Listen to this (light clunking sound of tape recorder button being pressed): ‘Insert cash or touch 'Pay with Card.’

 ‘Whoa! That made me feel like…’

Yeah, go on. Feel like what?’

‘Well it made me feel like I don’t know – grabbing a retail item, swiping it, making a beeping noise.’

‘See? That’s what I’m talking about.’

‘Who is that girl? She says ‘cash’, but she doesn’t just ‘say’ it…’

‘She gushes. She injects jubilation, triumph, an uplifting sense of just saying something, a word, whatever the word, doesn’t matter. Like she imagined that the word she said immediately before it was the last word she ever expected to say. Then saying ‘cash’ is this one enormous bonus.’

‘Her delivery – it’s like a, like a verbal cuddle’.

‘I like that. And there’s more. Check out how she delivers this piece on an unexpected item in the bagging area…’ (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Track of the Week

Funerals on Public Transport

The Oyster Card is an electronic smartcard you can use to pay for journeys on London Transport. While its designers have made travelling easier for those living in the capital, they have rather overlooked the concerns of the dead. Suddenly, the deceased are left high and dry with unusable credit.

However, there are now ideas on how to address the situation. Money you may well have put aside for a hearse (what is really a specialist, ultimate taxi service) you can spend on other things like nicer casket handles, rest assured that your Oyster Card can still get you to a cemetery near a bus or London Underground route. All you need do is chat up some pallbearers about slightly altering their plans come the day. Instead of asking them to slowly hump you around lying in a box, you could ask them to escort your corpse onto a number 73, for instance, making sure you’ve left them enough for a one-way ticket’s worth on your Oyster Card. (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Playing the Track and Field

We may not be aware of it but we all know a bit of Greek. ‘Marathon’, for instance, means ‘snickers’. And we know that any word ending in ‘thlon’ means something like ‘event’. Biathlon, decathlon, pentathlon, triathlon – all multiple sports events. So, if we are in Greece and we want to invite people to a social gathering we might baulk at trying to communicate, bridging the language barrier.

‘We’re holding a little event’, we would start off shouting slowly in English, perhaps trying out a bit of pidgin sign language.

‘Eh?’ they say.

‘A thlon’ you say hopefully. ‘We’re thinking of having a thlon’.

‘Thlon, thlon’ they say, turning to each other joyfully, the penny dropping (or at time of writing, the Euro cent dropping, as it is not yet known in the present financial meltdown whether Greece will revert to their previous currency, the drachma. If it does the couple mentioned will realise in terms of the lepton dropping (100 lepta = 1 drachma)). (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

Track of the Week