daily life: the right way

The streets are paved with turds and cum filled condoms, sorry about that, but my toilets on the blink again. So the more civilised individuals tend to wear shoes, because generally people don't want shitty spunk on their feet.
But this capitalist world we live in doesn't want us to buy just one pair of shoes in a lifetime, there's just not enough profit to be made in that, so shoes are manufactured out of materials designed to break, and scientists place chemicals in our food that make our feet keep on growing (just like those chemicals Gillette put in shaving foam that make our facial hair become thicker).
As a result I've had to go shoe shopping because even though I'm from the planet Moanania I need to wear shoes to prevent shitty cum getting between my toes. Oddly, our capitalist society doesn't seem interested in extracting loads of money from men when it comes to clothing and shoes, so this was a challenge.
Firstly I tried to source some shoes in Debenhams, but all that were on display were size 8 right shoes, and a size 11 that a shop assistant (who has now been fired for committing the most heinous of crimes, putting a non-size 8 shoe on a shelf) mistakenly placed on display. Like a majority of the earths population I don't have size 8 feet, and even if I did one of my feet is decidedly too left for a right shoe. This wouldn't be much of an issue if this major retailer, and employer of dozens if not hundreds of staff, had somebody capable of fetching me some not size 8 shoes of both the left and right variety from the store room, perhaps if I had boobs?
So next I tried Clarks, this retailer was brimming over with young shop assistants eager to assist my feet (and I few I wouldn't mind giving a foot rub to). Being an expert in shoe retailing Clarks don't just have size 8 right shoes on display, no, they have a complete range of sizes in right shoes, all piled on top of each other in a small corner of the shop, a whole 2 shelves crammed in the small space not occupied by the 8 shelves of ladies shoes which were all carefully and artistically displayed.
Once I'd located a size 9 right shoe I liked the assistant dutifully went to the back room to locate the matching left shoe, after some time she returned shoeless, somebody had stolen her shoes? It seemed that this right shoe had no matching left! So I located an alternative right shoe I liked, but this was a 10 so the assistant started her long voyage to the stock room in search of a left and right shoe in size 9 but of the same style as the 10. She returned with a left size 9 in a different colour to the one I wanted, it's all she could find. Determined to locate the matching right shoe which must exist, for if we've learned only one fact about shoes so far it's that there will always be a right one, the assistant called upon her colleagues to scour the shelves in search of the AWOL shoe. Several expeditions to the store room later the missing left size 9 from some weeks earlier was located! Then, when hope was dwindling the elusive right size 9 was discovered inside the very box that nobody had thought to look in, the box marked size 9 shoes - contents 1 x left, 1 x right.

daily life: nuts about the bolts

You've probably heard of the famed Scottish inventor Tavish McAno, best known as the inventor of Lego in 1762. It's rumoured that he demanded the instructions with every kit be incorrect so as to instill ingenuity and creativity in the young children that wiled away hours constructing planes, trains and automobiles.
So I can only assume that the heirs of the McAno fortune have turned their attention from 10ft Ferris wheels to flat-packed wardrobes and are deliberately including mistakes in the instructions, or perhaps there has been some terrible calamity in the printers and page 3 of the assembly instructions for my new bureau were substituted for the care instruction of Inflatable Ilene, for I'm highly dubious that I was meant to stick my genitalia into the keyhole, and it was frightfully painful trying to get it back out!

daily life: like my dreams

You may recall that the old Laboratoire had to be abandoned due to a biological incident and that work on the newer, better, faster, stronger, slicker, cheesier Laboratoire started in earnest.
As you can likely imagine The Laboratoire has to store lots of potentially dangerous fluids and the most efficient way to prevent a repeat of 'the incident' is to store these in a supercooled environment. This means that large swathes of The Laboratoire are dedicated to the freezing of liquids ranging from milky to creamy, and that requires a large number of freezing units.

While rebuilding The Laboratoire I ordered specially designed freezing units manufactured by Hotpoint, specified to handle the particularly toxic substances that are commonplace at The Laboratoire. Unfortunately these were not manufactured to the standards that we at The Laboratoire pride ourselves to uphold, and a few days ago an unfortunate, and previously very promising, member of staff was opening one of the storage drawers in an RZ freezing unit when it failed. As safety is of utmost importance at The Laboratoire she was wearing a state of the art hermetically sealed suit designed by The Laboratoire Skunkworks, yet as she pulled open the drawer it shattered and shards flew in all direction piercing a hole in her suit (the Skunkworks is now working tireless to create a more robust suit), and another piercing a containment unit enabling some very dangerous specimens to escape.
The biological containment procedures automatically triggered sealing off sector 19B of the Refrigeration and Freezing Facility and a controlled burn of the area was initiated, including the unfortunately infected employee.

Upon hearing the news that an employee of The Laboratoire had met such an untimely end I immediately contacted Hotpoint to complain that after a mere 5 months there had been a critical failure on one of their freezing units due to the poor quality materials used in it's manufacture.
Hotpoint boast of a 5 year parts warranty on all products, yet the company representative stated that this is a 'limited warranty' and does not cover any non-mechanical or plastic parts. I was completely outraged by this, they essentially stated that the product can be poorly made and break as long as it isn't the motor/compressor, the door can fall off, the shelves can snap, the drawers can explode, but as long as the compressor still runs they take no responsibility for this, even if the unit is only 2 weeks old, and even if the failure was covered (as unlikely as that would ever seem to be) there is a £100 labour charge levied against the replacement of any failed parts.

I'm not allowed to endorse or condemn an organisations or products on this site, I certainly can't tell you to never by a Hotpoint product because they are poorly manufactured and that the company unethical promotes a generous rectification programme with the aim of luring customers into purchasing products that are not fit for purpose. Though I can setup a new division at The Laboratoire dedicated to manufacturing freezing and refrigeration equipment that doesn't break after 5 months!

mini-moan: locking the stable door

The internet is a dangerous place. Everybody is trying to steal your bases so they belong to them and although sometimes people don't lose their bases due to stupidity, most of the time it is down to the world being populated with morons.

As a result of this websites handling information that could be used to steal bases often overreact to this threat and implement absolutely ludicrous security measures such at the UK National Lottery website.

To buy tickets online for the UK lottery you have to fund your account with a minimum of £10, this is often via a debit card payment. These details are then stored on their servers so it's quick and easy for you to top-up the bases so Camelot can make millions make things more convenient for users.
You are able to get your bases back at any time, so long as there are at least 10 in the account, but these have to be transferred to the debit card used to fund the account.
So what happens when you want to your bases back but since you funded the account you were issued a new debit card because the old one expired, broke, was lost or was stolen? Well obviously you update the debit card details stored in your account, there is a handy link on the website.

But this is where the security kicks in, for your 'protection' if your account has any bases you can't update your debit card details, this prevents somebody hacking your lottery account, updating the debit card details and putting your hard earned bases into their account. So when you update your debit card details the site automatically transfers any bases to the previously registered card and then adds the new card.
Can you see the problem here? If you have an intellect great than that of a mentally retarded dung beetle, which granted is many times greater than the developers of the National Lottery website, you will have realised all your bases have been transferred to a debit card that no longer exists!

All your bases are belong to some random person now!!!

daily life: rather taxing

Value Added Tax, it's quite a money spinner for the UK government, apparently accounting for the 3rd largest amount of revenue collected each year.
I'm not going to argue for or against VAT because frankly I don't give much of a crap, there's a saying about death and taxes that is so cliche I will not bother to repeat it.

What does massively irk me when it comes to VAT is the completely arbitrary rates and exceptions that are deeply woven into it's very possibly VAT Exempt fabric. VAT was originally intended to apply to luxury goods, which is why food on the whole is VAT exempt, and why a Jaffa Cake is not a biscuit.
British society has also decided that literacy is very important and therefore books are not a luxury. Also, unlike our friends over the pond in Yankland, it seems British people generally think access to healthcare is a right that doesn't belong only to the wealthiest members of society, with the exception of dentistry, which for some reason that I'm sure many people have found both bizarre and incredibly frustrating, is pretty much private!!!

So surely if reading is deemed so fundamental that books are VAT exempt, and medical services are likewise viewed as a right, those of us with less than perfectly shaped eyeballs, unable to read a book, or more crucially a road sign, can toddle down to our opticians and purchase some new ocular correctifiers without the extra 20% burden of VAT?

This is where my definition of Luxury differs massively from HMRC, because the eye test that determines I need to stick massive lenses on my eyeballs so I can actually see The Gherkin while standing so close to it a Nats cock wouldn't fix between us is VAT exempt, but the lenses that enable me to view every hair on a Nats cock at 50 paces incur the full 20% VAT, not even the reduced rate of 5%.

So, being able to see = Luxury
Burial/Cremation of the dead = VAT Exempt

That's good, so when I run down and kill all those pedestrians that I couldn't see at least their loved ones can burn them without spending a single penny on VAT.

But before you rush off to charter an Aircraft after realising it has a VAT rate of 0%, remember that you could die in a firey plane crash after the pilot fails to see that 747.

And when you hire an expert to cast their trained eye over that VAT Exempt Ming Vase you are about to purchase, make sure said expert isn't squinting.

daily life: against the rocks

Like an incredibly dashed thing against the rockiest rock on the dashiest day of the year.

You know how some online retailers enable you to configure stock alerts? The intention is that you will be immediately informed that an item is in stock so you can rush to their website and purchase it without a seconds thought, so overcome with excitement that an item, which may have been unavailable for months is suddenly just a few mouse clicks away.

Well, Tesco are one such retailer, and a few weeks ago I had duly configured a stock alert for a product, I'll leave it to your imagination as to the identity of the item.

Yesterday, while checking my emails I spied an email from Tesco titled 'Stock alert for xxx', where 'xxx' will be the stand for the item in question. So I navigate to Tesco's website like a man possessed by the urge to by some 'xxx', never has a man been so determined to get some 'xxx' action. Yet, I was bemused to discover that Tesco didn't have any 'xxx' in stock, the 'xxx' cupboard was bare. My first thought is 'xxx' must be bloody popular, it's flying off the shelves, people obviously want to get hold of some 'xxx', but just to be sure I doubled checked my emails and reading past the subject line it all became clear.


Sorry, the following product isn't back in stock:

The thing is, I'd assumed that the whole point of a Stock Alert is that until told otherwise, the customer will assume that the item isn't in stock, I knew it wasn't in stock, and explicitly asked to be informed when I could get my hands on some 'xxx', which means I'll assume there isn't any 'xxx' available until I am informed otherwise.

To make matters worse, out of interest I decided to check up on Tesco's 'xxx' levels today, and it appears 'xxx' is now abundant, though I have not actually be informed by Tesco that a hot batch of 'xxx' has come.

So it seems that Tesco haven't quite understood the concept of a Stock Alert, instead of informing customers when 'xxx' is available they instead inform customer that they there 'xxx' needs cannot presently be met.

And in case you are wondering, I had seconds thoughts on acquiring 'xxx' over the internet and am considering how best to fulfill my current 'xxx' needs.

daily life: what's that sticking up in the covers?

This is more of a re-rant.
We live in the Information Age, or so I am told, the world is full of information, information at the touch of a button, information spitting it's juicy goodness right into your face, and you like it, you want the information in your face.
So why is the information I want impossible to find?
I want to telephone a company to inform them they've been incompetent - Can I find their phone number on the website? My arse I can. Even if the website has a 'Contact Us' button at the top of the page it certainly doesn't take you to a page with contact details, likely a page telling you the company has helpful customer service advisers working 24 hours a day to solve your issues. Well they are wasting their money paying a team of 'friendly and helpful' customer care staff to work 24 hours a day, I doubt anybody has successfully located the phone number yet.
If the page contains more than the tagline for their next TV advert it probably has a selection of 'Frequently Asked Questions' that will solve your need to speak to a human, though it's more like a scavenger hunt, and you have to find the clues and answer the questions in order to proceed to the finish line.
So finally after wading through the 'Forest of FAQ' you might stumble across a link to a 'Live Chat' thingy, well it's not quite a phone number but at least I can have a 'Two-Way Dialogue' with a real person (or a super advanced AI that would give Vest-Man a run for his money), though your hopes of resolving your problem as dashed by the heart shattering message 'Unfortunately our Live Chat service is not available at the moment, but you can speak to one of our customer support team on the telephone'. ARGH!!!!, and they don't even list the telephone number.

Are you getting Deja-vu yet?

Or recently I needed to give several organisations the address of the new Laboratoire, that was certainly not easy, especially HMRC who required me to know some special number to prove I am who I claim I am, only I don't know that special number, some other person knows that special number so I have to ask them what the special number is. So to prove I am who I claim to be I need to provide them with a number that only another person knows! In what world does that ever makes sense?

Can somebody also please tell me what the light on my Vax means - There is this red light that goes on and off, sometimes off completely, other times flickering, others flashing at regular intervals. I would guess it's telling me how much I suck at any given moment, but the instruction manual doesn't even mention the existence of a light, and most definitely does not explain it's various phases. I can only assume the light and the corresponding instruction manual were produced by a team of women (we have many female teams working tirelessly at the Laboratoire, getting to grips with some very long and hard problems), that would certainly explain why I have absolutely no idea what is wrong, and why when I ask the response is "If you don't know I'm not going to tell you!"

Oh, and there is a whirry thing that I haven't got a clue as to its purpose is!

daily life: square hole

The new Laboratoire is nearing completion and alongside high technology such as the Photon-Fabulator and Electro-Knobulation machine, all vital to the daily operation of The Laboratoire, a fleet of new toilets have been installed.
But today I was trying out one of the new toilets and noticed that the toilet seat was square. Perhaps being from another world I am anatomically different from most, but my posterior is more round than square, I'd go as far as to say it isn't square in any way. As a result trying to sit my round plug on the square hole was a deeply unpleasant and uncomfortable few minutes, and it definitely failed to provide the appropriate amount of purchase often required when carrying out the numerous activities a toilet seat is accustomed to.
It has me wondering what bizarrely shaped derrière the toilet seat designer must have had. What shop sells trousers that fit a square backside? Are they able to sit on a futon? Do they use specially manufactured round toilet paper?

daily life: can't get it out

I'm not an expert screwer, I probably only screw a few times a year, Christmas generally involves some screwing. Screwing is hard enough, but it's made all the worse when the previous screwer has left behind a shattered mess.
How difficult is it to look after the head while screwing? It is after all the most important part of any screw, you need to care for the head, touch it gently, definitely don't apply too much pressure, and if you go too fast the head just explodes in your face and the whole thing will be an exercise in futility.

Remember, when you screw be gentle with the head.

food: you say ping...

... I say pong

I'm a big fan of all things garlic, on occasion I could probably be mistaken for a Frenchmen, and I often cook up a batch of garlic butter king prawns. Garlic prawns and fresh bread is hard to beat.
But the problem with cooking up a tasty garlic based dish is having to handle the Garlic, everybody is well aware of my issue with Asparagus and Garlic isn't much better in that regard.
The main issue is crushing of the cloves, all manner of garlicy juice absorbed deep into the very core of my hands and it just wont shift. I've tried everything short of scrubbing my hands with wire wool, I even resorted to asking a Frenchman how he removed the odour of Garlic from his body, and his response was to rub my hands on a Zinc tap which proved to be as effective as the French army (or Lithuanian Air Force) . If you are interested the exact phrasing of the question was 'Hey, you're French! You must know how to get the smell of Garlic off your hands?'.

But finally I have solved the problem with the newest creation from the Advanced Technology Department at The Laboratoire; Garlic_Gloves.
These multi-use gloves manufactured from fabric coated in a custom Garlic repellent film specially developed for use in Garlic_Gloves by experts in the field of odour repellent films at The Laboratoire are guaranteed to repel all Garlic juices.

On sale immediately at a mere £10 for a right Garlic_Glove, £20 for a left Garlic_Glove (because being left handed is wrong and left handed people should be punished for their Satanic ways) or £50 for a matching set containing 1 x Right Garlic_Glove and 1 x Left Garlic_Glove.

mini-moan: silver lining?

Firstly, this is post number 150. Big up The Guy Who Moans Called Matthew Massive!

So, I was perusing the Deli-counter at Waitrose, in fact I was the only person at the deli counter and about to purchase some items. But then, suddenly, swooping in like some sort of mad bat an old lady jumped in front of me to enquire about the location of pre-packed Salami. I thought this couldn't take more than a few seconds so didn't mention anything, though obviously I was boiling over with rage and eyeing up the cheese wire!
Then, to my amazement, a long conversation about various Salami available at the counter began, the next thing I know the counter assistant started slicing huge amounts of Salami. I stood there bewildered, was this an evolution of the 'Chat and Cut'? Literally a chat about Salami followed by cutting Salami.

Apparently during this outrageous behaviour by a member of the 'greatest generation' two women appeared at the counter looking at cheeses. This now fairly lengthy queue provoked a member of staff to jump into action and reduce the congestion that was now forming at the deli. Unaware of who was first in line (clue it was me) the assistant asked who was next, to my complete surprise one of the new arrivals chimed up "I'm next" to which I had to finally take exception.

Perhaps these 'cutters' were concerned that the 5 year matured cheddar might suddenly expire in the 5 minutes it would take for me to purchase some coleslaw, or that the Danish Blue would become a tad too mouldy for consumption?

daily life: words cost nothing

Being a thoughtful and kind individual I like to make my Laboratoire a comfortable and enjoyable place to be for the numerous Laboratoire staff. That's why the Laboratoire is home to a fine dining facility and a number of kitchens stocked with superb beverages and snacks, there are even refrigerators so Laboratoire staff can keep food and drinks from home safe, and if they choose to store butter in a Laboratoire fridge they can guarantee that it won't disappear.
But it turns out that the Laboratoire kitchen is not the safe and convenient storage facility that I hoped it would be and the 'Laboratoire Advanced Cleaning Crew' have a habit of removing food from the fridges and breaking peoples mugs and other beverage holders. Wander over to the Laboratoire kitchen and you will see an array of chipped and cracked mugs or Laboratoire employees sobbing as they clean up the shards of a mug that was lovingly crafted by one of their children as a thoughtful birthday gift.

Accidents happen, though it seems like the Laboratoire cleaners may have been sticking their fingers in the butter based on the regularity of them dropping things, but never once will they stick a post-it to the broken remains with a note of condolence. I remember once hearing a terrific noise and when I next went to retrieve my mug found that only 75% of it that remained on the mug shelf.
Ronnie Corbett would be spinning in his grave (and if you are reading this after June 9th 2014 he will be) to know that sorry seems so hard to say.

mini-moan: what ever happened to bus conductors?

Being a sad and lonely individual I have to cook for myself and with the price of ready meals for one being so high I often have to cook from scratch. So I scour the shelves of Waitrose, Tesco and the Co-Operative Eagle-eyed watching for the reduced labels so I can afford to buy the ingredients for my often bizarre and rarely edible creations.

Today it was time for a cut price prawn stir-fry and every time I use the wok I ask myself the following question;

What fecking idiot at the Central Design Institute for Advance Wok Design decided to construct the handles for my wok entirely out of metal?

I'm assuming that there must be some ludicrously named 'institute' for those that design woks, there's an institute for everything nowadays.
Perhaps I'm the only person in the world that noticed that metal conducts heat and that when cooking a stir fry heat is in abundance. Therefore handles that conduct heat combined with heat equals hot handles, and hot handles plus hands equals hot hands, and hot hands equals me shouting obscenities at the top of my voice.

mini-moan: take no for an answer.

I've just been completing an online survey for shirts and giggles. When you are as bored and lonely as me sometimes a radio button is your closest friend.
The first question presented asked whether I watched one of about 15 different sports, anybody that knows me will not be surprised to hear I never watch sports.
So having answered NO to every sport the following questions were displayed, they are not word for word accurate but close enough for the purposes of an internet moan.

What digital devices do you watch each sport on?
Obviously none as I've just said I watch know sports.
Then it asks

Which sports do you record to watch later?
None, I watch no sports.

Which of these devices do you use to compliment your viewing of sport?
NONE!!!
Followed by.

How important would each of these XBOX Live features be to enhancing your experience of watching sport?
Why do you keep asking me these questions?

Surely it isn't beyond our technology to analyse the response to the first question and selectively screen out subsequent questions that will just massively annoy the people you are hoping will complete your survey?

mini-moan: loose ends.

Buying new shoes really annoys me, I have a high instep and wide feet so it's a bit of a challenge to find shoes that fit comfortably, though that is more of an inconvenience than an annoyance. What really annoys me when buying shoes is that shoe factories are obviously staffed by morons that don't know how to lace up shoes. Every single pair of shoes on the shelves are laced backwards, half laced, or sometimes not even laced at all. So I have to spend 5 minutes re-lacing every pair of shoes before I try them on. When coupled with most shoes being uncomfortable I can lace up 5, 6 or more pair of shoes in a single fitting.

Surely the first question on the application form for working at a shoe factory should be 'Can you lace a pair of shoes?', and the very first task at the shoe factory recruitment day should be a practical shoe lacing session.

Yet it seems this is not the case, perhaps shoe factories demand that their staff incorrect lace shoes during manufacture, but any self-respecting human would sooner go hungry than be forced to incorrectly lace thousands of shoes in their lifetime, so by science I can conclude shoe factories are indeed staff by morons or worshippers of Satan.

mini-moan: give it a good squeeze.

Balls can be tricky things, sometimes you need to grab hold of one but can't get a good grip. That's the problem with round things, and the bigger they are the harder it is to maintain purchase.
So that's why Bowling Balls have holes in them, once you stick your fingers in a hole (or three) things become much easier, but sometimes the holes are too big and your fingers just flop around with no sensation, or too small which means you can get your fingers in just fine but trying to get them out can lead to all manner of trouble.
It always annoys me massively when Bowling alleys, who's only job is to ensure people throw balls at sticks, completely fail on the hole front. My nearest Bowlplex have the worst holes I've ever stuck my fingers into, some of the holes in the balls are so small that you'd practically need a microscope to see them, were it not for my fingers becoming rather jammed I'd have thought they'd forgotten to drill any, so you end up going for a ball that is too large and cumbersome, clinging onto it like Wil Wheaton trying to hold onto his last shred dignity.
I just wish I could find a couple of balls that feel comfortable in my hands.

daily life: last shred of dignity

The work on building a new Laboratoire after 'The Incident' has progressed well, I am now well into the furnishing and fixings stage so today I headed to my local boot fair to see what bargains I could obtain for fitting out the Laboratoire.

As you can probably imagine the Laboratoire works on a lot of highly secret projects and along with such projects a huge amount of sensitive paperwork is produced. So top of my shopping list was a shredder to ensure that none of these papers fall into the wrong hands. To my delight I saw 2 shredders available the first a standard shredder which simply wasn't capable of safely disposing of documents as sensitive as those produced by the Laboratoire, the second was a cross-cut shredder which would provide the appropriate level of protection. After a short haggling session where the seller guaranteed the shredder was in full working order I handed over my £2 and toddled off with my new security device.

Eager to start disposing of my sensitives I popped them into the shredder, I waited for the sound of 'peace of mind' to erupt but there was only the sound of disappointment (which I've grown used to). The shredder did not work, I even had the chief engineer from the 'Laboratoire Advanced Technology Division' poke at it with a screwdriver for several minutes but to no avail.

 I am absolutely outraged that anybody would sell an item at a boot fair that they clearly knew did not function, especially as they proclaimed so forcefully that it was fully functional whilst I negotiated the price. No wonder I hate humanity if this is how they behave.
It'll take me 200 days of clicking through to Kelkoo from TopCashback to recoup my loses, and that assumes a 100% tracking rate, if you believe that could happen you are truly living in a wonderland.

daily life: something to say

I'm big on making outlandish statements, I have numerous theories and rules which I trot out from time to time and I just love to refute other people comments.
That's basically all this blog is, a series of outlandish statements about daily situations in which I complain about others and the stupid things that they do.

But what really annoys me is when people ask me to back-up my clearly outlandish statements, to provide evidence proving my point is correct. If I make a claim such as 'Only homosexual men wear black shoes' and somebody asks me where my scientific basis for that statement is they are merely embarrassing themselves and showing their own stupidity (everybody knows straight men only wear brown shoes).

Somebody please just give throw me a bone.

food: trused-up

Don't worry reader the picture above is nothing to be concerned about, well that's not strictly true, it's nothing sinister.
Today I decanted to my local Tesco Extra to purchase the final few ingredients for a curry, one of said ingredients was a bulb of garlic. I spent some time circling the store at one point proclaiming 'Am I stupid, I can't find garlic anywhere', I received a few strange looks.
When I was finally pointed to the garlic I couldn't quite comprehend that which I saw, at first I thought they obviously only sell garlic in packs of 2 or more which was annoying as I only needed one bulb, but as I lifted the sack to my face for inspection I discovered that the sack contained just one.
I can understand the need for a sack if storing two items, but this is completely unnecessary.
I can only guess that Tesco have had numerous requests from customers that they need to be able to swing their garlic around and Tesco felt that swinging a sack would provide the best end user experience.
I am certainly not saying that you can't have a great deal of fun with a sack, but a sack containing a single bulb of garlic is completely unnecessary.
This is made more ridiculous when examined in context, nowadays Tesco provides carrier bags that are designed to bio-degrade, they actually bio-degrade before you've even managed to get your shopping home often leaving a boot full of plastic confetti, and they want everybody to re-use their bags to help 'save the environment'. Well then, why on earth are they manufacturing garlic sacks? Surely the carbon footprint of that garlic sack is far larger than selling the garlic loose and the customer using one of those little clear plastic bags that Tesco already have to supply for the other vegetables?
Plus most bizarrely Tesco sell their "Chef's Choice" garlic in sacks of 1(49p) or 4(£1) and Organic garlic in sacks of 3 (90p), I found this bizarre, why not sell the "Chef's Choice" garlic loose for say 30p each and let the user choose however many they want?

mini-moan: denied the opportunity

Recently I ranted about ripen at home fruit that does anything but. Instead you spend days monitoring that nectarine or banana only for it to rot into compost when you look away.
Today I turn my intention to fruit that is the polar opposite, an example of this would be the Waitrose 'Perfectly Ripe' range which is more 'Perfectly Rotten, Perfect For Compost', though sometimes with Waitrose even their regular range of fruit is rotten before you leave the shop.
On Saturday I purchased a punnet of cherries, and with them being Waitrose they were far from cheap. Yet the very first cherry I removed from the punnet was dripping and rotten, the next also rotten, the one after home to a whole colony of mould, eventually I found a cherry that wouldn't have caused me severe digestive trouble and it tasted, well it had no taste at all.
I returned the cherries to Waitrose and with my refund I purchased 4 Pears, rather expensive golden jobbies imported from New Zealand, although the fact they came from New Zealand should have been the first warning they would be terrible, much like anything imported from New Zealand.
The first pear while massively disappointing was indeed 'Perfectly Ripe', the second '50% Rotten', the third '75% Rotten' and the final '25% Rotten'. With a success rate that low I don't know how they can use the term 'Perfectly Ripe' unless they mean for making White Lightening.

At least with 'Ripen at Home' I get the opportunity to live in hope for several days that my fruit will be ready, the enjoyment of inspecting the fruit and proclaiming 'Tomorrow will be the day, I will feast on various fruits' before the disappointment that is a rotten puddle of decayed fruit where before there was optimism. No, with 'Perfectly Ripe' you bypass the fun and head straight to disappointment town, much like the A34 when heading towards Didcot.