The Daily Record - Joan Burnie

Tesco undercut small corner shops

2012-05-25T05:59:19Z

THEY'RE not only opening a new Tesco beside me, they are opening two - within 500 yards of each other.

Not sure why, when we already have a couple of small but well-stocked, customer-friendly supermarkets, not to mention the large Sainsbury's half a mile away.

But then I have long suspected that when we were all asleep a law was passed which says no man, woman or child is allowed to live anywhere unless they're within three feet of a Tesco.

This week they stuck up lots of lovely posters - telling us they'll make a real difference to
our community.

Too right. They've done it even before they've started trading.

The local butcher has already put up his shutters.

Other small shops, including our independent wine shop, the cafes and cake shop will all now face competition from this retail juggernaut.

Almost inevitably, the butcher's won't be the last to close as Tesco cynically undercut everyone else until we're left with a row of empty shops - and those who once worked in them clutching their P45s.

Meantime, I see the company are in talks with the Government to take over the traditional
post office business and hand out benefits and pensions at their checkout tills. Is there
to be no stop to their expansion?

They prattle on about creating all these jobs but the raw figures show that over past years they have actually cut back on full-time staff.

Nor do they pay big wages - except to their bosses, with their £1million pay packets, share options and bonuses.

An ordinary worker gets as little as £6.55 an hour. Without their tax credits, which don't, natch, come out of Tesco's pocket but ours, they couldn't survive.

And, of course, those lovely self-service tills cost them sweet FA.

But it's the retail urban wastelands they create, which really stick in my craw.

They move in and practically everything else has to move out.

They ruthlessly undercut the smaller businesses, if only temporarily, with special offers.

Although, as the latest Which? report shows, they aren't always that special.

We'll probably be left with the bookies, the hairdresser and the sauna - although give them time and it'll be cuts and blow dries, along with fruit machines, at the tills.

Big isn't necessarily beautiful.

I like shops where they know your name and if you're 50p short they'll let you hand it in later.

But then it's not just Tesco. The entire supermarket sector needs to be trimmed back to a manageable size.

If I ruled the world, I know exactly where I'd start - I'd remove their liquor licences.

Doing that would do infinitely more to combat our booze culture than raising the unit price of alcohol.

Put drinking back into the pubs and off-licences where it belongs, and local shops back into local high streets.

You KNOW it makes sense.

Cashing in on the Olympics

2012-05-25T05:58:53Z

AM I disgusted, appalled, nay scunnered, that sundry torch bearers are selling their sacred flame carriers on eBay?

No, I am not. In truth, I'm glad they're making a few bucks out of the Games just like plenty of less worthy people who've got their snouts firmly stuck in the Olympic troughs.

Hiya, Lord Coe, not to mention the Ukrainian official who, according to the Beeb, was flogging off 100 tickets to the highest bidder for hard cash.

Why shouldn't a few ordinary folk get a part of the action? We're picking up the £11billion tab for this sporting extravaganza, whether we want to or not.

So give me one of the little people raising a wee bonus for themselves against the RBS fatcats slurping champers any day.

Besides, the whole relay thing is, to put it mildly, a farce. Apart from the runner jogging along for a few hundred yards it also takes 350 support staff, Range Rovers with blacked out windows, police outriders, helicopters, the Coca-Cola bus, Samsung's billboard on wheels and a Lloyds TSB bus.

With all that lot, some likely guy or gal selling their torch is pretty small beer.

But then, as you've probably gathered, I am not the London Games' biggest cheerleader. And the nearer they come, the less enthusiastic I get.

As for the much-vaunted "legacy" we're told will be left when the Olympic caravan moves on. Sure.

Fortunately, we've also got HM's Diamond Jubilee to look forward to. Glasgow has had seven street party applications. I'm amazed. Never thought there would be so many.

Addicts plan could have benefits

2012-05-25T05:57:34Z

IT'S not often you'll find me agreeing with the Con Dems but I believe Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, is on to something with these plans to cut the alkie and druggies' benefits if they refuse treatment.

Not a bad idea - so long as there is sufficient help available out there.

And that can't be done on the cheap, or entirely by the voluntary sector and organisations such as AA.

● THE Commons Public Accounts Committee say around £35billion in taxes go uncollected every year thanks, they say, to "error, avoidance and evasion".

Doesn't help that Mr "We're-all-in-it together" Dave has sacked 3500 from the enforcement team. Thanks to that spiffing wheeze, every measly pound saved on wages means another 10 quid lost to the Revenue.

Meanwhile, next time Sir B Geldof screams at us to give him some f****** money, I plan to yell straight back, "Pay your f****** tax."

Good ol' Saint Bob, you see, has become one of those lovely non-doms who manages to avoid paying tax on his overseas earnings.

So what he does is perfectly legal but, morally, Sir, it stinks.

Bono, please copy. Either that or shut the **** up.

Sarah Harding displays lip fillers

2012-05-25T05:56:01Z

SARAH Harding's apparently been squeezing in pilates, weights and ashtanga yoga sessions in three different gyms between her hair dyes. But it's those small pillows the woman's been squeezing into her lips that fascinate me.

NOT sure why anyone is looking for a real-life Princess Merida. We've got one already. She's called Rebekah Brooks and just as soon as she's finished helping the police with their inquiries, I'm sure she'd be happy to take over the role.

And finally..

2012-05-25T05:55:03Z

I HAVE to thank Alex Reid for his letter about me and biscuit disease.

It gave me a giggle but, as a point of information, when a biscuit is stale it doesn't turn grey but goes soft and soggy. And I promise you, Alex, when that happens I WILL retire.

Clothes are pants at M&S but their food's a bargain

2012-05-23T07:44:22Z

I LOVE Marks and Spencer's Jersey Royals.

I am also addicted to their chocolate gingers - and me and the insignificant other regularly dine in on one of their 10 quid meals for two with a bottle of wine thrown in.

Terrific value and all that.

But just as well, because should I want to dine OUT not only would it cost me more, I wouldn't have anything to wear - or nothing to wear from M&S.

So I am not surprised that while their food department is attracting more customers, the rest of their goodies aren't doing anything like as well.

Their profits, according to their annual report, fell for the first time in three years. They still managed to make £706million, so perhaps there's not too much to worry about.

But unless the company start actively considering their core customers - that is, people like me - we may continue to go straight to the food hall, but we'll bypass everything else

There's no point. Even their newly-revamped store in Edinburgh appears to have decided that either no one over 39 buys new clothes, or if they do, they wish to be dressed in droopy skirts in even droopier pastel colours.

And why do they have to add God-awful, nasty, shiny trimmings to everything?

For reasons I can't quite fathom, they have clearly chosen to pitch their main fashion departments at the younger end of the market, which is crazy.

Not only is that age group more than well catered for by the cheap and cheerful chains, they wouldn't be seen dead inside an M&S.

There is, however, a huge gap in the market for shops that are willing and able to provide decent clothes for those who'll never see 30 or indeed a size 10 again.

Finding something which is smart, simple, well made and affordable is well nigh impossible for older women.

I have to ask, don't M&S want our custom? It certainly doesn't feel like it to me.

So I'll go on buying their potatoes, fancy biscuits and my knickers there - but the rest is pants.

Duncan Reid betrayed wife with sickening attack

2012-05-22T12:00:00Z

THIS isn't domestic violence.

This is plain, nasty, vicious violence that should never have that cosy word "domestic" stuck in front of it, because it somehow allows both the attacker and their victim to assume that it's not as bad.

But having your collarbone broken and your face smashed into a wall by the man you love is, in my opinion, worse than getting hammered by a stranger.

It betrays everything there should be between Duncan and Danielle Reid. He swore he would cherish her, would look after someone who is clearly a vulnerable, fragile woman.

He was also her carer. Some carer. Some husband.

Two things in particular depress me about this case.

One is their age. They are both only 22 and it might have been thought, after years of campaigning by charities such as Women's Aid, that younger generations understood, in a way that perhaps their fathers and grandfathers did not, that there is no excuse for any man lifting his hand, fist or boot to a partner.

But for all that, there was a survey a couple of years back in which more than half of teenage boys said it was OK in certain circumstances to give a girlfriend a wee slap.

Worse, a sizeable number of girls agreed with the boys.

How are we ever going to get it into these kids' heads that it's never acceptable?

Because the second huge problem with this case is that Danielle apparently blames herself.

It beggars belief. Except it is still the belief of many abused women such as Danielle.

They tell themselves they provoked the attack and deserved it.

The psychologists will tell you these women usually feel worthless and have low self-esteem.

Obviously.

They have it battered out of them. As Danielle had it battered out of her.

There are more important issues than Rangers saga

2012-05-18T06:20:44Z

I HAVE a dream. But it is one that is more impossible than winning the Lotto or finding out I'm sharing the duvet with George Clooney.

I want to wake up one morning and find there is nothing whatsoever in the paper, or on the news, about Glasgow Rangers.

Not a single peep, speculation, Sir Galahad of any colour, Lord Moneybags or Tycoon Charlie.

I am sick of an entirely pathetic, boring, drawn-out saga. Despite the number of words written and spoken about it, it is nothing - a mere pimple on the back side of the real news that is happening out there.

The fate of the euro matters.

The trial of Ratko Mladic.

This endless recession.

The sky-high unemployment figures. The Government's attack on the most vulnerable in society.

Even our crazy weather - all of them, and an awful lot else, matter infinitely more than the fate of one poxy football club.

It's gone bust. It can't pay its bills. End of.

So why don't they just padlock the Ibrox gates, sell off the assets and pay at least some of the debts - not least to the little people who are owed money?

They're the ones who are really suffering - not the fans who have more-or-less happily allowed themselves to be diddled, as well as deluded, for years by their beloved club.

I also give you Clinton Cards. They have now gone into administration, too.

Thousands of ordinary people are likely to lose their living, there will be yet another big hole in our high streets as its shops close down.

How much space did the demise of Clintons get in contrast to Rangers? Diddly squat.

No big daft men weeping, anguished tweets or chatroom hysterics.

No unholy expressions of glee either from Clintons rivals.

The sense of proportion from footie fans in general is nil.

If they could put even half of the passion and energy they dribble away on their teams into something worthwhile, we might actually get somewhere.

We're not even good at football.

We're, what? Forty-eighth in the world rankings?

There's not a Scottish team that could make it even in the Blue Square Premier down south.

So why can't we just accept that whatever glory days Scottish football might once have enjoyed, they are not going to come again - not when there are clubs such as Manchester City having a squad of mercenaries on whom they spent about a billion quid.

But you know what? The only thing that keeps me relatively sane about the whole footie and Rangers thing is that, and listen up here people, I am actually in the MAJORITY.

Most of us don't care about the so-called beautiful game with its over-paid stars, its bile and its prejudices.

More folk go to museums than attend matches.

In short, if not another ball got kicked at Ibrox, or anywhere, there are considerable numbers of us who would shed nary a tear.

There might even be room for issues that do affect us all.

A plague on all their pitches.

Marriage in fast lane

2012-05-18T05:58:36Z

BELATED congratulations to Bernie Ecclestone, the sexist, octogenarian garden gnome and billionaire who runs Formula One and is about to tie the knot for the third time.

His daughters are apparently not hugely impressed at his choice of a third bride, Fabiana Flossi, who is 35.

Initially, the girls wouldn't speak to Flossi, but fortunately they never completely fell out with their father or his money.

Truly, wealth is a great healer, as well as wooer. Bernie said he didn't go down on one knee to ask for the almost six foot Fabiana's hand - but then how could she tell?

It won't apparently be a long engagement. At 81 it might not be a long marriage either.

Making a dog's dinner of talent

2012-05-18T05:57:32Z

NO, the mutts were not particularly impressed by Pudsey. He can't, after all, do a moon walk like Lady B. Or catch rabbits.

The only thing standing between me raking in £500,000 off their talents is that my pair think I'm the one expected to obey on command.

Get up. Make my doggie dins. Fetch my ball. Walkies!

The older one also doesn't like men. A besotted Simon Cowell has finally - sorry Britney - been outed as a gent who likes his bitches with four legs and a tail, as well as big boobs. But it's debatable whether he'd enjoy doing BGT with a set of canine teeth clamped around his ankles.

Meantime, I was wrong about The Voice.

After the auditions it became just another bog standard yawn of a talent show. Maybe they should get shot of their own dog. Byee Jessie J.

● THE starting gun has gone off for the Olympics. Unfortunately, it didn't hit Lord Coe in the backside

● HILLARY Clinton went out without make-up.

Hold the front, centre and the back pages too

Meanwhile, I wait to hear if Obama moisturises and if Mitt Romney uses aftershave.

Will Army help sort out thugs?

2012-05-18T05:56:20Z

WOULD bringing back National Service, as some have suggested, sort out these wee nyaffs and thugs who think that getting tore into another gang of equal inadequates is the perfect way to spend an evening?

Not convinced.

They'd be more of a hindrance than an asset in any real army, which had to do real soldiering. They're probably neither bright enough nor sufficiently fit to make it anyway.

The fags and booze on which they graze doesn't help. That said, they might benefit if they had something to do with their time and learned a little discipline. But how do you instil either?

After all, if we rounded them up and set them to work picking up litter or whatever, they'd go screaming about their human rights to lie in their pits the day and create mayhem at night.

I despair.

However, despite wanting to grab them by their scrawny necks and shake the sense into them, and their weapons out of them, they do need to find something to which they can aspire beyond the neighbourhood hard man.

Which means jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Airwaves are turning grey

2012-05-18T05:05:18Z

Congratulations to Beryl Renwick and Betty Smith, Sony Award winners for their programme on BBC Radio Humberside.

At 86 and 90 the pair are even older than Sir Brucie, although their jokes are considerably younger.

Good luck too to Robin Daykin, 74, and his wife Annette, a spring chicken of 62, as they get set to burn up the Isle of Man track on their motorbike and sidecar combo.

Better to go out with a vroom, vroom than a whimper.

Waging war against gas price rises

2012-05-18T05:00:28Z

CENTRICA, who run Scottish Gas, have said fuel prices may have to increase by 50 quid a household next year.

Meanwhile, their chief executive Sam Laidlaw's annual wage packet, despite the company being fined £2.5million for not properly investigating its customers complaints, has reached close on £4million. Could these facts possibly be related?

But never forget - we're all in this together. LOL, as the PM said to Rebekah Brooks.

PS to Mrs B - tabloid hacks such as you and me, dear, shouldn't moan about being "hounded".

And finally...

2012-05-18T05:00:00Z

Can it really be true that 21 per cent of people take their phone with them when they go to the lav?

What are we weighting for? Teach kids to cook

2012-05-11T06:15:46Z

JAMIE Oliver is heading up a new campaign, which aims to introduce compulsory cooking and food education classes into schools for four to 14-year-olds.

In a letter to the PM Oliver, backed by health experts, says that teaching kids how to prepare nutritious meals for both themselves and their families would be an important step in fighting the obesity epidemic, which has left us as, officially, Europe's fattest.

Terrific idea.

Catch their taste buds when they're young and maybe there's a chance they'll start realising food doesn't only come in tins, wrapped in cardboard or from a takeaway.

The drive should also get the support of Alan Cumming, one of our choicer exports, who on his return to the old country to play Macbeth was not impressed with the national diet.

He tweeted his distaste: "I know I'm back in Glasgow when I see an ad with a family in gym gear, smiling in front of cartons of chips and pizza."

Always good to see ourselves as others see us and all that.

We're not only piling on the pounds but seem to have bred an entire generation of wee lardies who haven't a scooby about where their meals actually come from.

It's not nice and it's not pretty.

Ironically, our TVs are stuffed with cookery programmes. Fat use they are and, anyway, I'll bet a Nigella to a Delia that they are largely - VERY largely - watched by people scoffing carryouts.

And before you get wired into the texts and emails calling me a hypocrite because only a day back I was chuntering on about the Duchess of Cambridge's dramatic weight loss, I don't think everyone should be a size 10.

What we should be aiming for, as in all things, is a happy and healthy medium.

You don't get that from starving, far less from ready made meals bunged full of hidden fats, salt, preservatives and additives, which are not only bad for you but also highly addictive.

I'm a fan of what medics call the "It isn't Rocket Science Diet" which doesn't involve anything tricksie, merely advice to eat less and move more.

Seems simple to me.

But not, apparently, to others. To be fair, it's not just gluttony.

There is strong evidence that some of the morbidly obese are no more nor less than junkies - whose drug is food.

Their fix is just as deadly as nicotine and alcohol but by the time they realise it, it's way too late and no matter how much they want to, they find it well nigh impossible to kick their bad food habit. They're hooked.

Maybe it's weigh (sic) too late to help them, which is why we have to catch them at as early an age as possible so that kids learn not only how to rustle up decent food but what goes into it.

See, once you are making your own meals you are in charge of the ingredients and aren't at the mercy of manufacturers who, not to put too fine a point on it, are pushers.

So well done Jamie.

And too right Alan.

We've got to do something before the NHS is overwhelmed dealing with an epidemic which is almost entirely self-inflicted.