Aldi v Lidl

[maingate]

We get milk delivered & there isn't much cream on the top any more. The fashion (& I am guilty) is for skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, which is why cream is now so cheap.
I don't think our Blue Tits even give the bottle of milk a second glance. In the last 11+ years we've never had a bird punch a hole in the top.

Years ago there seemed to be a problem with Blue Tits getting at the Cream on milk bottles left in my Brothers Street. Someone noted that they must have long beaks as quite a bit of cream and milk had been taken from them.

Then the culprits were caught bang to rights. The Tits were pecking through the bottle tops and getting at the cream. Then my Brothers dog was following on and drinking the milk. She did it by leaning the bottle over to get as much milk as possible.

 

[Deleted member 62288]

RE; keeping food fresh

I am a big fan of Colloidal Silver, it has been a must-have item for me for many years.
(Cue Luddites and blue-man-meme fans)

I use it in countless ways, it is antibacterial, anti-microbial, anti-septic and simply splendid in many ways, as a medicine.
I pour it into my fresh water tank too, keeps the tank and contents healthy. Spray it on surfaces, toilet bowl, basin, shower etc, keeps the germs away.

Also, instead of bleach, why not use Hydrogen Peroxide, diluted, another must have for me.

james

 

[Deleted member 62288]

I've been a huge fan of these shops for many years now, especially pleased with them both in Europe too.

However I'm now stopped using my local Lidl, as it has teamed up with a shady car park company Athena.

Athena likes to issue "FPN"s a deceptive name for Fixed Penalty Notice, demanding a payment of £90, if you stay in the Lidl car park in excess of 90 minutes. According to the ThisIsMoney website ( Is Lidl's ten-minute free parking with a PS90 fine if you overstay fair? | This is Money )

Looks to me that they are more focused on issuing FPNs than providing car parking services ? to Lidl's customers.

What bothers me is:

I pay Lidl for my groceries with my debit card.
I get a receipt that has a bar code printed at the bottom.
I then have to go to a self service terminal and allow it to scan my receipt.
I must give Athena my vehicle registration number
Athena have positioned ANPR cameras in the Lidl car park
ANPR is Automated Number Plate Recognition - a camera &computer reads your number plate and gets your personal details from the DVLA.


So, by following Lidl's compulsory procedures, I have just willingly given Athena, the following information :

My Full name, address, car registration details, and all of the other details that the DVLA sell onto such businesses.
Then consider that I have just used my debit card to give Lidl, permission to take the cost of my groceries directly from my bank account via the debit card.
Lidl now have fresh details of my bank account.

The receipt has a bar code containing who knows what information, that I am forced to share with Athena.
After being required to also give them my car registration details, I will be free of a FPN / fake fixed penalty notice.

BUT I have just been forced to surrender so much personal information and agree to a set of terms and conditions, with a third party.

It is a trivial matter to combine the financial information and home address, vehicle details together to make collection of these fake fines directly from my bank account and at the very least to sell any unpaid FPNs to debt collection agencies along with enough information to harrass you on your front door with demands that multiply the unpaid fake fine with several layers of extra charges.

by using the Lidl car park, I have agreed to their onerous terms and conditions. - Its says so on the notice, near the camera "By using this car park, you are agreeing to...... etc"

All this for what ? exceeding the time allowed in a retailer's car park ! ****
Don't you spend millions on marketing to get me to use your stores Lidl ?

I read in another forum that Athena issued over 600,000 of these demands for payment to car park offenders during 2016, that is a huge number of pissed off shoppers.

So given the potential risk that are now imposed on shoppers to Lidls customers/Athena victims, I choose to boycott this branch and any others that use Athena.

Just sharing my view of the broader picture around this ANPR car park nonsense,
while awaiting my FPN which I have been threatened with by Lidl's checkout operator because I told them where to stick their terms and conditions.

I just wanted a bag or two of groceries ****.


james

 

[delicagirl]

i was sent three demands for the "fine" for overstaying by 3 minutes. I never replied to any of them. They stopped after the third notice. I never heard anything further.

 

[maingate]

I am a big fan of Colloidal Silver, it has been a must-have item for me for many years.
(Cue Luddites and blue-man-meme fans)

I use it in countless ways, it is antibacterial, anti-microbial, anti-septic and simply splendid in many ways, as a medicine.
I pour it into my fresh water tank too, keeps the tank and contents healthy. Spray it on surfaces, toilet bowl, basin, shower etc, keeps the germs away.

Also, instead of bleach, why not use Hydrogen Peroxide, diluted, another must have for me.

james

Sorry James but I have to ask.

If you are so careful with your wellbeing, how come you wobble? :idea:

From another James.

 

[Deleted member 62288]

Sorry James but I have to ask.

If you are so careful with your wellbeing, how come you wobble? :idea:

From another James.

I wobbble due to a spinal chord injury which lost me about 50% function of my lower body.
With age and the degenerative nature of spinal chord injuries, things only get worse.
I'm at around 60% loss currently, I struggle to stand and can only walk short distances.

So my determination to avoid using a wheelchair by forcing myself to use my ever atrophying lower body makes me somewhat unsteady and ungainly.

But I remain at liberty and free

all the time I can drive...


as an afterthought,

my condition forces me to be sat down or laying down most of the time and I am very technically inclined, so my primeval need to have a large battery bank to power my electronic gadgets might be a sublime factor in my reasoning.

james

 

[maingate]

I wobbble due to a spinal chord injury which lost me about 50% function of my lower body.
With age and the degenerative nature of spinal chord injuries, things only get worse.
I'm at around 60% loss currently, I struggle to stand and can only walk short distances.

So my determination to avoid using a wheelchair by forcing myself to use my ever atrophying lower body makes me somewhat unsteady and ungainly.

But I remain at liberty and free

all the time I can drive...

james

Sorry to hear that Jim. It sounds like you have a good mental attitude towards it though, which counts for a lot.

I went through a bad time for a long time with a back injury. Nowhere near as bad as your situation but for a time I thought I would never work again. You just have to plod on and make the best of things. Keep it up mate.

 

[Deleted member 62288]

Sorry to hear that Jim. It sounds like you have a good mental attitude towards it though, which counts for a lot.

I went through a bad time for a long time with a back injury. Nowhere near as bad as your situation but for a time I thought I would never work again. You just have to plod on and make the best of things. Keep it up mate.

Yes, a good positive mental attitude is essential.

For me it helps to remind myself that the physical james is only the current manifestation of my real & authentic self which is spiritual and ancient.
I set myself the current, past and future challenges to resolve in this lifetime, I must have had a reason to do so.

I truly believe this place and this life was as I pre-planned it to be, so I meet whatever challenges that I encounter, I will face them and resolve them rather than shrink from them.

This body, this human form is the vehicle created specifically for this journey and is expendable once this adventure is completed.
I just happened to have pranged mine in the process.

While alive, hedonism is the reward, physical experiences, physical challenges, good and bad are all part of the fun and learning.

After which I believe that I will return once again to wherever we dwell (some folks call it heaven) where we can access our ancient history and memories once again.

and the best bit is we meet up with all of our old friends, family and ancestors - helped me deal with the recent deaths of my parents.

There and then we can plan our next adventure/education set of challenges

just my paradigm

james

 

[Tezza33]

Banana's release ethane when they are ripening, this can affect some other fruits and make them ripen faster.

When we pick green tomatoes at the end of the season Maggy always puts bananas with them to ripen them quicker

 

[jennyp19]

I’ve been using the ‘green’ fruit and veg bags for many years. The first time I bought them they were a new innovation from the US - from QVC could have been nearly 20 years ago.
- I think they were called something like Debbie Greenwood veg bags. They really do work. If I buy a bargain lot of fruit, especially under ripe bananas, I split them into 3 lots one lot in green bag in fridge, another lot in fruit bowl in green bag and third lot as is just in fruit bowl. The main thing with the bags is don’t fasten the tops tightly, so any excess moisture can evaporate. It’s surprising how those bags work - often if veg, particularly carrots, is put in fridge it just sort of shrivel and goes floppy but in the special bags they stay crisp and the tops actually start to grow. In fact you don’t need to put them in fridge. But the fridge does extend their life. The bags last for ages - just wash out and keep re-using them.
Tesco’s were selling off a lot of veg for 10p between Christmas and new year - I still have some leeks left which I bought.

Does anyone else stand celery in a mug of water, like flowers to keep it fresh.


Did anyone see the Jimmys Farm programme a while back on how they use different gases in storerooms in warehouses to stop fruit from ripening and then a different gas to set it off ripening again when required. Something to do with using the same gases, ethanols that fruit produce.

Also did you see the programme a couple of weeks ago - I think it was, Greg Wallace , Inside the Factory, but not sure, they showed how there is many more times the amount of nutrients etc in seedlings than in the fully grown plants - guess what they’ll be selling before too long - back to the mustard and cress pots we used to have when we were kids. Food for thought if you haven’t got access to a garden. Instead of eating Brussel sprouts, you could get more nutritional value from a few seedlings.