Looking Out To Sea

Last year some time, when the weather was still hot and people still wore t-shirts and skimpy dresses during the day (obviously people still wear them in the evening, yo), I did some research to see if the Village Store was much more expensive (or cheaper) than the local supermarkets.

I don’t have the data to hand — it’s buried somewhere in my computer — but I think we were “about average”. Some things were very good value and others less so.

The important point was the level of work required to get the prices. Of the local shops (Tesco, Co-op, Lidl) none of them allow price checks online, without at least setting up an account and logging in (Tesco). This makes week-by-week comparisons much harder because you have to pound the streets each time to keep current.

The other factor was the level of obfuscation used by the supermarkets. The Co-op was particularly helpful: all their price labels have a standard unit price somewhere on them. Even a packet of tomatoes sold as a priced unit will give its weight and cost per weight. On the other end of the scale Tesco go out of their way to avoid comparison. To buy a packet of tomatoes, for example, you buy a packet of six. So you have to guess how much six tomatoes might weigh, assuming a spherical tomato of uniform density and blandness.

In short, even with a small number of shops comparing prices is extremely difficult without a great deal of legwork and calculation. Clearly they don’t want you or me or anyone else setting up supermarket-price-comparison.co.uk and informing people of the real cost of their weekly shop.

On Saturday afternoon I felt pretty crap with a cold but we went out to Pilrig Park just behind the flat to take part in the Pilrig Park Clean-up organised by Greener Leith.

We were given latex gloves and those trigger-operated litter pickers and as many black plastic bags as we could hope to have a use for, and went forth to clean up the park. This was our first time on a clean-up so we’ve learned a few things:

• It’s not a very sociable job as there’s generally several hundred metres between you and the nearest person. I wouldn’t say bringing an MP3 player was a bad idea
• Holding open a black plastic bag in a windy open field is quite tricky. I wonder how we might improvise some kind of hoop or holder to keep the neck of the bin bag open.
• The rich pickings are to be found in the perimeters of the park, amongst the trees and bushes.
• Glass bottles are a pain because they’re so heavy. Something like a wheelbarrow to cart them to the nearest recycling spot would have been great.

And yesterday Greener Leith organised a Leith Commuter Breakfast with free bacon rolls and bike tune-ups for people who commute in Leith on bike or foot. There was a lot of passing trade — many people cycle along the Water of Leith and were drawn in by cries of “free bacon roll!”.

I’m very grateful to Greener Leith for being so active and coming up with new ideas to bring people together. If you’re local have a look at their website and maybe join their social network.