Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Hobson's choice?

I got an email the other day from Tesco. They had noticed that I hadn't shopped online with them recently, and hoped they hadn't done anything to upset me. They asked me to let them know if they had, and as a goodwill gesture they would give me £10 off my next online-shop-over-£100-to-be-delivered-by-27-May.

And you know what, I nearly fell for it. I even had preliminary chats with ex-housemate S over whether we could split it. But a couple of days later I got my Tesco Clubcard statement in the post.

I never asked for a Tesco Clubcard. In fact, I have refused a Tesco Clubcard on many occasions. I do not want Tesco mining my data, however benignly they claim to do it and however many vouchers for V8 juice, Evening Primrose Oil and anchovies I might receive as a result. But if you shop online they give you a Clubcard *whether you want one or not*. Of course they do. They know where I live, they know what I buy. They want my soul. They're not having it.

So instead, I made a fifteen mile round trip to Waitrose and spent £115. That'll show them, I thought.

What an idiot. To be fair to me, it's getting on two months since I last did a supermarket shop, and to be fair to them, Waitrose are clearly at the less evil end of the supermarket scale. But ye gods, are they expensive. I recoiled in horror at a packet of ("Cave Aged") Gruyere which cost nearly Six Pounds and some pine kernels for Three Pounds Ninety Nine. But I spent a small fortune on Jersey new potatoes, another on 'wholesome' walnuts, and yet another on organic tampons. And don't even get me started on the caperberries.

Whichever hype you believe, you're still a sucker, I reckon.

joella

1 comment:

Timbo said...

Can you believe that our local M+S is generally cheaper than both Waitrose and Tescos?

No, me neither, but they are.