Hello Woolworths! How about selling loose veges?

You would think by  2020 the supermarkets would have worked out a way to sell things without packaging, especially organic veges, which are bought by folk who know the problems  caused by packaging.

At the supermarket this morning the woman working at the checkout counter couldn't get her reader to read the barcode. She asked me to read out the very small numbers she had to use instead. She complemened me on my eyesight and I said I wouldn't have been able to read the code without glasses. It turned out that she had had some glasses which had cost her $600, but she'd left them at the till for 2 minutes and someone had pinched them.  Really some people are swine.

I can't help thinking about this woman. She was older and would have had to work a long time at the Supermarket to save for them. She said she was not going to buy a replacement.

Anzac Anzac - where are the historians?

I wonder how this young man will fare, returning from a war with experiences his people at home wont be able to understand.  Is he traumatised? Will he still be alive in five  years?  Are there sufficient support systems for him or is the government mouthing support while cutting his benefits? (Australia: 2015) What are his chances of happiness?

As another Anzac day rolls around I feel as I do after long election campaigns: I am totally over it! Earlier in the year I saw two Gallipoli-inspired concerts (one by the ACO and the other a sung tribute) which were tributes to the humanity of the soldiers, but the feelings they inspired have since been contaminated by the posturings of the politicians and commercial sector. 

Woolworths pulled their 'Fresh in our memories' marketing campaign after it bombed on social media but they were too late - their attempt to use the Anzac spirit to sell groceries pushed me right over the edge. I no longer like Woollies and I am sick of nationalistic, jingoistic politicians. Birth of Australia indeed - go and read your history books!

One thing I do find interesting is the juxtaposition of the 100 year "celebration" of the failed Anzac landing and the rise of a new Islamic Caliphate. In a fascinating radio interview last night historian Malise Ruthven said that the Anzacs might have failed in 1915 but the Turks were eventually defeated and the result was the dismantling of the Caliphate ruled by the Ottomans. If Bush, Blair and Howard had read their history books they might have reconsidered their decision to invade Irak, but I bet they didn't know what a caliphate was. (Ruthven is a writer, journalist and historian and wrote Islam in the World, Fundamentalism: the Search for Meaning, and A Historical Atlas of the Islamic World.) It is a pity we don't hear more from historians instead of politicians on these occasions, which brings me back to why I am so over Anzac 'stuff' right now.

Link to a thoughtful article about present day Australia

Milk that tastes as it should

In Wellington I bought a little pack of Anchor milk to drink on the bus. It tasted as milk used to taste, which is more than you can say for most of the milk in Australia. I had not realised until recently that the cheap milk sold in Coles and Woolworths is processed from milk, dried milk, water and who knows what else. Tastes like it too.

Anchor Milk

Addendum 20 September 2012:   Now I read that Fonterra uses permeate in its milk (one of their brands is Anchor) so either they have started to use it since I wrote this or you can't judge real milk by taste. In the meantime the organic milk from Aldi that I had been buying in Australa has changed and is now ultra-pasturised to make it last longer so I don't buy that any more. I buy Aussie Farmers Direct milk because they say they don't add anything.
Addendum 9 October 2012:  Milk is still in the news (and no wonder). An update is here.