Tesco to roll out new, larger shopping trolley!

I hear that Vauxhall has offered Tesco a special deal to replace its stock of shopping trolleys with a slightly larger, new style trolley. This special deal is due to a naturally occurring surplus that they can now, no longer accommodate.

It is believed that the bigger wheel on each corner will provide stability, easier handling and more reliable steering - they guarantee that the awful stomach-muscle pulling effort of dragging the old style trolleys back to your vehicle will be a thing of the past. The new trolley will roll with ease once the easy-to-use, centrally placed handbrake leaver is released.

The problem of customers removing the trolleys from store sites will be successfully eradicated as the new trolleys will not be able to be taken on any long journeys due to a built-in "short journey only" factor, cleverly integrated into the core design.

Night-time shopping has been made easier by the provision of sportily raked headlight-style lamps on the front of the trolley and small red reflectors on the rear. There are other larger red lights on the back of the trolley – but at the present time, it is unclear if they will, in fact protect the customer from rear end shunts or trolley rage.

There will be more seats in the new trolley (with appropriate seat belt provision) to comfortably accommodate up to 5 children (this reflects today's growing trend for bigger families) or 4 smaller children and a granny. At the rear of the trolley is an extremely large receptacle for rubbish, which only needs emptying once or twice a year (or in emergences when the customer may wish to accommodate more shopping).

This new style trolley was recently trialled at a Tesco store, raising immediate concerns that more trolley shelters will need to be built to house them (see above).

Customer feedback is eagerly awaited.

Did you chuck out your chintz?

If you are, like most of us over ten, old enough to remember Ikea’s 1993 ad campaign telling us “Chuck out your chintz”, then you might be shuddering at the terrible inevitability of recurring fashion trends. There is, if you’ve opened a Sunday supplement or actually any magazine this year, a terrible, creeping invasion of rose sprigged anything and everything. So if, when you went in for those white walls, purple carpets, red settees and barcode art, you threw all your chintz in the loft instead of the skip, you’re laughing – just dig it all out again and give that persistent fashion merry-go-round of rampant commercialism a poke in the eye for once!

Interestingly, if you Google Ikea’s famous phrase, you will see it has been generally adopted to describe the throwing out of anything useless. “Useless” of course is a very subjective word – if its rose-printed exterior offends our eye, does that make the item no longer fit for purpose? No. If past generations had chucked out everything on a commercial whim we would not have any antiques at all, let alone all those Victorian chintz patterns that are now used by designers as inspiration for their “new” ideas!

It all began quietly last summer when a high street camping supplier offered us a rose bespattered tent to take our annual summer holiday in. As a camper myself, I have to say that I have never, ever seen anyone on any campsite, pitch this pretty canvas chocolate box. Perhaps they were too shy to leave their back gardens.

Of course there’s an upside to all this – you know camping must be really cool when designers take an interest in it! And now there’s a choice of – no not just one rose bespattered tent but several ditsy daisy designs to camp in. Or should that be camp it up in? And it doesn’t end there – you can buy just about anything rose printed or flower bedecked - anything you like from a doormat to a kitchen chair, a radio to a shopping bag, plates, crockery, cutlery, a car – let alone the “chintziest” choice of armchairs, curtains, blinds and carpets. If you really did chuck out all your chintzy stuff back in 1993, you may be sorry. Sorry that is, that you’re a bit of a fashion victim.

They say never go back. That means the mini, batwing tops, ra-ra skirts, wedge heels – no wait - I’ve just bought some of them - and flares, well - may be some things are worth revisiting…