Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
Maybe it’s wishful thinking. But I seem to have noticed during recent shopping forays to the supermarkets that they have more staff on the checkout tills than has been the case in the recent past.
It’s good news for old codgers and the technology blind like me who tend to go to pieces faced with the sudden appearance of an error code on screen at the self-service checkouts.
I’m the annoying customer with his hand in the air appealing for help while those in the queue to use the infernal machines tut-tut. I can almost feel their minds whirring. “Another irritating OAP holding everyone up.”
I once heard a posh-sounding lady in the queue to pay at one local supermarket turn to the person next to her and say “why can’t they have special hours for these people who can’t understand these b…..machines.”
Morrisons’ chief executive Rami Baitich says the company is looking at achieving a balance between self-checkouts and manned tills.
Asda has already announced it is investing in staff instead of adding to self-service checkouts and Booths, which has several stores in Cumbria, has clearly seen the benefit of the human touch over technology. I might even get some advice about coping with my painful bad back while I wait.
I vastly prefer that human element. I’d rather wait a couple of minutes to get my shopping scanned for me. I find, on the whole, staff are more than willing to assist with a smile and I ain’t ever seen one of those fiendish machines smile as it ingests my bank card.
All it takes is a few words of conversation and you get a response. I guarantee I leave shops offering the personal touch with a jauntier step than I do if I have just been in conflict with technology.
Agreed, self-service can be beneficial to folk in a hurry. Kids on their way to school buying a bar of chocolate for breakfast. Office workers grabbing a sandwich and a drink for lunch. I will keep away until they’ve had their rush hour.
But what is life so full of care we have no time to moan about the weather to the friendly lady on the checkout?
Give the Primer Minister a break
You can’t do right for doing wrong.
Keir Starmer has been criticised in The Guardian for cancelling his summer holiday and remaining in London to be on hand in the event of a crisis, whether it be riots at home or impending war in Israel.
You would think it would be the opposite. I seem to remember Blair getting in hot water in the news when he hopped off to some expensive foreign retreat for a few weeks. He was blamed for abandoning his responsibilities as Prime Minister, but he didn’t care, our Tony.
These days you can stay in contact with phones and computers so even if you were to be away, you could be kept informed and even recalled if necessary without delay.
Apparently Keir Starmer used to visit the Lake District with his family. But that was when few people would have recognised him. You’d think he might be able to manage a few days here. If it’s good enough for Taylor Swift…she came to the Lakes and wrote a couple of songs about Wordsworth and it did her career no harm.
Gordon Brown spent a week here with his family during his brief sojourn in No 10. They stayed at Armathwaite Hall and visited a few of the local attractions.
The trouble is, no matter how hard you try, if you are well known people will want to talk to you and take those infernal selfies. I don’t know how celebs manage to stay patient when some ghastly stranger suddenly gets right up close to your face while holding a phone aloft.
Of course the Tourist Board will desire their pound of celebrity flesh if they find out there’s someone famous in their area.
In one breath they are trying to restrict visitor numbers to the honeypots, in the next they are publicising visits by the rich and famous in the hope of attracting tourists who enjoy rubbernecking places where celebs were spotted.
The key, according to the Guardian’s holiday expert, is to find a regular holiday place where locals don’t pester you. Harold Wilson went to the Scilly Isles every year. There’s a famous photo of him in shorts and sandals, sitting on a rock clutching what my mother used to term “that smelly old pipe”. He once said he went there because people gave him space.
Apparently Starmer had a holiday booked somewhere up-market in Europe but cancelled when the rioting broke out.
I suppose he might have been thinking of Dominic Raab who was Foreign Secretary and stayed on holiday in Crete while we were botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He got in hot water. In fact it was the end of his political aspirations.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Even prime ministers deserve a break. Sir Keir could always leave running the country to Sue Gray. She is doing it now anyway.
