I do the majority of our grocery shopping at "Lidl" and "Aldi" though I notice that a new "Netto" store will be opening on Queens Road this month. It will be like meeting up with an old friend - that Scottie dog with the basket in his mouth. "Netto" is Danish for "value" you know.
Anyway I nipped into the supermarket of the well-heeled and affluent today - "Waitrose" - visited by coiffured women with haughty expressions and corduroy men with Range Rovers. They looked at me askance when I refused to doff my cap. Well, I wasn't wearing a cap but you know what I mean.
I was looking for fox food. And finally I found it in the pet section - massive cans of chunks in gravy with rabbit and turkey. Clever wording I think. Not chunks of rabbit and turkey but "chunks in gravy". Chunks of what I wonder? Tripe?
The can cost me one British pound in spite of the amateurish label design. Why put a picture of a dog on food intended for foxes? And the writing at the top looks as if a lowly paid supermarket worker had just picked up a blue felt tip pen. Besides, if I were marketing fox food I'd call it "Reynard" "Vulpine Delight", "Farmer's Best" , "Ukrainian Village" or "Fox Feast by Jan Blawat". Not "Fox Food". That is so naff.
What odd packaging, nothing foxy about it! They could've at least put a picture of Basil Brush on the can!
ReplyDelete....or a foxy lady dressed only in a fox fur stole.
ReplyDeleteWith enough good food and patience, do you think Fred could be tamed? He's adorable!!
ReplyDeleteSome tough streetwise people in Britain parade what we call "trophy dogs" but how much tougher would I look with a fox at the end of some old rope?
DeleteI remember a crazy old man in my hometown that had a pet raccoon that he he took everywhere with him. It had a collar and leash but usually was just perched on his shoulder. He thought nothing of going inside businesses with his raccoon...I remember seeing them inside a drugstore together once.
DeleteThat's good. Most other Americans are raccoonists aren't they?
DeleteFred won't mind what the can looks like, he will be much more interested in its internal values. Waitrose's marketing experts would not agree with you on the label design being "amateurish"; to them, it has "a charming home-made look and feel" about it, I bet ;-)
ReplyDeleteMmmm...perhaps you are right Miss L.B.Arian. The label designer could be a veritable genius!
DeleteYou would have been better at Aldi. Six tins for two pounds but it doesn't say fox on them. You could write it on yourself. Seems daft paying 60p for waitrose to do it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip oh Master of the Hounds! Next time it's "Aldi" or "Lidl".
DeleteYou can actually buy fox food? Whatever next? And what, by the way, makes you so special that people in Waitress would even notice you? Ah. Could it be the thing on your shoulder? I thought the whole thing about being egalitarian and socialist was that one didn't judge people by stereotyping them. After all they may all have been socialists looking for fox food.
ReplyDeleteGraham, have you taken over my job? I thought you left the slagging off to me, I have been a little remiss lately, I'm still depressed at the thought of another five years of Dithery. Not that there was a credible alternative.
DeleteAdrian someone has to stand up for the poor defenceless Waitrose shoppers. It did it again: changed Waitrose to waitress. Spillchucker can be pain.
DeletePS I met Tony Bed when he was Wedgeben of Mintech (his PR people insisted that was how he was to be referred to) and he wore tweeds and corduroy and had a very haughty expression. I don't know if he shopped at Waitrose though. He probably left that sort of thing to Herself.
Go on Adrian tell me my grammar is lax and my checking is even worse.
DeleteGrey Ham, I can tell that you are only jealous because you haven't got a Waitrose in Stornoway. Makes it more difficult for you to source your kiwi burgers and your pickled grouse eggs. With regard to my old friend Tony Benn, his food was mostly given to him by friends and admirers like me. In fact they used to sell cans of Benn Food at The Che Guevara Supermarket in Islington.
DeleteYou must also try my line of Raccoon Chow. It's called "Favorite Chicken."
ReplyDeleteWell Paul Newman and Linda McCartney have their own brands, why not Madam Blawat? Wesleyburgers would be a big hit!
DeleteOne thing you learn early on when you live with nature - either in the mountains or at the sea or anywhere really. Never feed the wildlife. They are wild. Their parents teach them to forage for food. They do perfectly well feeding themselves without the Range Rover and the affluent grocery store. All city dwellers should respect these animals for what they are....wild animals. OK. That is my editorial for today!
ReplyDeleteWhy are my buttocks now smarting? Please forgive me Mistress, it's just that Fred is looking so skinny and he has a bad leg too.
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