Rant of the week: Train tickets and chicken
Hello minnows, and welcome back to the Quantum Angler! After a brief hiatus, my fishy blog will now return with a vengeance, and to that end I present to you a new feature - rant of the week! So without further Apu, let the rants begin!
Right, trains. Very fertile ground for a rant you'll agree, but I have a specific one in mind. I mean, tickets are expensive right? £27.05 return from my 'hood to London (with a YPR) ain't cheep, especially as the journey takes just 75 minutes. And then you have to stand up and sometimes they don't run at all. But I'm English, so I don't mind a bit of bad service or high prices. Where I draw the line however is a straight rip-off, so imagine my horror when I try to buy a single; £26.40 would be the price, a mere 65p cheaper than the return. That's a measly 2% saving if you only want half the journey! Before you say it, this is no isolated case, but simply the state of affairs on many if not most journeys around the country. What a rip-off!
In essence then, the tickets are effectively the same price, and that leads to one of two conclusions; either a return ticket is a bargain, or a single ticket is a rip-off. Given I've already asserted that my return ticket is not a bargain, the latter must be true. In other words, they will no longer sell you a one-way train ticket in this country at its true market value.
This is certainly a dastardly trick by the rail operators, but it's not just they who may take the credit. Ever tried buying chicken in Sainsbury's? You'll have experienced exactly the same thing. A standard tray of 4 chicken breasts is priced at £5.99, but if you buy two the second costs just £1 more, i.e. it's £6.99 for 8. Obviously then, you buy 8 breasts to save money in the long term. This "offer" runs continuously. Some may be fooled into thinking they've found a bargain, but I put it to you that the market value of the chicken is actually £6.99 for 8, I mean why would they give you another one almost for free all the time? You are made to buy 8 rather than 4 because if you bought 4 you'd pay almost double its true value. With this the supermarkets make you buy more, increasing their profits.
As a side-note there's the sheer waste which this policy must produce. No doubt a lot of people forget to freeze the extra chicken for later and it goes off. It once happened to me and Alex; collectively we had 16 chicken breasts in the fridge because of this "offer". Because our fridge was so jammed with stuff our flatmates forgot about, it never kept things very cool, so all the chicken went off. What a sad waste!
I could end this rant by citing it as an example of how this country is going to pot, and how we could solve this problem by kicking out a few immigrants. But I'm not after a job with the Daily Mail, it just annoys me when companies use their monopolies to extort you like this!
Right, trains. Very fertile ground for a rant you'll agree, but I have a specific one in mind. I mean, tickets are expensive right? £27.05 return from my 'hood to London (with a YPR) ain't cheep, especially as the journey takes just 75 minutes. And then you have to stand up and sometimes they don't run at all. But I'm English, so I don't mind a bit of bad service or high prices. Where I draw the line however is a straight rip-off, so imagine my horror when I try to buy a single; £26.40 would be the price, a mere 65p cheaper than the return. That's a measly 2% saving if you only want half the journey! Before you say it, this is no isolated case, but simply the state of affairs on many if not most journeys around the country. What a rip-off!
In essence then, the tickets are effectively the same price, and that leads to one of two conclusions; either a return ticket is a bargain, or a single ticket is a rip-off. Given I've already asserted that my return ticket is not a bargain, the latter must be true. In other words, they will no longer sell you a one-way train ticket in this country at its true market value.
This is certainly a dastardly trick by the rail operators, but it's not just they who may take the credit. Ever tried buying chicken in Sainsbury's? You'll have experienced exactly the same thing. A standard tray of 4 chicken breasts is priced at £5.99, but if you buy two the second costs just £1 more, i.e. it's £6.99 for 8. Obviously then, you buy 8 breasts to save money in the long term. This "offer" runs continuously. Some may be fooled into thinking they've found a bargain, but I put it to you that the market value of the chicken is actually £6.99 for 8, I mean why would they give you another one almost for free all the time? You are made to buy 8 rather than 4 because if you bought 4 you'd pay almost double its true value. With this the supermarkets make you buy more, increasing their profits.
As a side-note there's the sheer waste which this policy must produce. No doubt a lot of people forget to freeze the extra chicken for later and it goes off. It once happened to me and Alex; collectively we had 16 chicken breasts in the fridge because of this "offer". Because our fridge was so jammed with stuff our flatmates forgot about, it never kept things very cool, so all the chicken went off. What a sad waste!
I could end this rant by citing it as an example of how this country is going to pot, and how we could solve this problem by kicking out a few immigrants. But I'm not after a job with the Daily Mail, it just annoys me when companies use their monopolies to extort you like this!
posted by Cħarlie at
5:28 pm
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