Disgruntled – Part II of II
Posted on Friday, July 16, 2010 at 10:19 pmCategory: Strange Thingies, The Vendée
Actually, I’m a whole lot less disgruntled now that Eldest Daughter is back in circulation, looking fit & bronzed and making appreciative noises about home cooking.
She got back Tuesday evening complete with a sack full of dirty laundry and presents for everyone. I was going to receive a new penknife, mine having gone missing a little while back, but it reappeared while she was away.
So the new one went to her sister. I was compensated by being granted a 50% interest in a piece of cheese from proper Alpine cows (brown with white patches, I am told).
The cheese is very nice, but the penknife came with a compass in the handle. I’ll get over it.
So I can turn now to the second source of disgruntlement in my life: pink loo paper.
I’ve nothing against pink loo paper per se, but why in the name of sanity is it – periodically – the only colour that supermarkets stock?
I used to wonder if it was just the South Vendée that was afflicted with this appalling lack of consumer choice in the matter of personal hygiene, but intelligence has reached me suggesting that it is not uncommon.
Of course, French supermarkets are far less sensitive to running out of stock lines than their UK counterparts. It is well known that UK supermarket managers sign suicide agreements agreeing to disembowel themselves with a pointy stick if their store should ever run out of any of the 14 types of baked bean they are required to keep in. Even the curry flavour one that is only ever bought by the severely stoned looking for something novel in the way of munchies. (1)
And then there was that nasty incident in Droitwich (2) where the local Tesco manager was stoned to death by his own staff after the store was unable to source sufficient asparagus in October to meet demand following the broadcasting of a Heston Blumenthal recipe in which the bespectacled plate juggler and well-known food loony prepared a highly original but utterly inedible dish of pigs goolies and that same quintessentially spring vegetable whipped up with strawberry-flavoured Angel Delight.
The manager, a Mr Trevor Sympering-Pratt, was pelted with no fewer that 430 unripe avocados, these being the only type the shop had.
I used to be acquainted with a bloke who was once a buyer for one of the big supermarkets. He left after discovering that while he was allowed to scoop out the very soul of his suppliers, leaving them as barren, empty, husks, he wasn’t actually allowed to physically harm them.
So he joined the oil trading game, where such social niceties are seldom given houseroom.
Aside from giving me two very good reasons why one should never eat supermarket taramassalata, he also passed on some gems (merely hearsay, of course) about the fruit and veg side of the business.
For example, he said, 40% of all fruit & veg purchased from UK retailers will never be eaten. It will pass from the shelf or chiller cabinet, making a brief stop in the fruit bowl or vegetable rack, before finishing its career in the bin. Or on the compost heap.
For this reason, appearance and availability (even at the cost of a Yeti-sized carbon footprint) are as – or more – important than flavour or seasonality. Some fruit sourced by supermarkets will not ripen once picked so the shelves are even loaded with stuff that is not even properly edible.
Ridiculous.
French supermarkets are somewhat better in this respect, believing that shoppers will actually want to eat what they buy, they tend to stock lines that are either ripe or will satisfactorily become so in a couple of days.
The downside of this is that sometimes stuff can be a little, well, over-ripe. Better to grow it yourself or seek out local growers happy to improve their margins a bit by selling direct to the fruit-hungry punter.
But this is all beside the point.
My questioning of retail personnel on the subject has often led to them backing away looking slightly bemused, though one did volunteer the intelligence that that was what they had been supplied with and that was the end of the matter.
However, My Dear Wife did raise the matter with the headmistress and teacher at the school while they were in the process of ordering the consumables for next year.
Their response was that loo paper in France is pink because pink is the colour of loo paper. Other colours just don’t really enter the equation, so no-one really cares if pink is the only colour in stock.
They just don’t realise how empty their lives are.
(1) I made this up.
(2) This too. Sorry.
July 16th, 2010 22:39
A friend on my course was in the stores department of a naval vessel. She said that there was a special place in hell reserved for those who ran out of potatoes or loo paper! You can never have too many of either on a naval vessel, being that not enough to eat or things to wipe your bum with. Maybe at times of shortage the navy has appropriated all the white loo paper?
July 16th, 2010 22:49
The French consumer must prefer pink loo paper. I expect it adds a gay touch to their bathrooms.
July 16th, 2010 22:53
Well, I suppose pink loo roll is preferable to no loo roll, unless you happen to have a field of docks nearby.
I feel that it behoves you as an English gentleman and fellow expatriate to let us into the secret of the taramasalata.
July 17th, 2010 08:40
Pink here in 86 as well, although there has been the occasional sighting of white which I am reliably informed as being a manufacturing fault whereby they ran out of pink dye
July 17th, 2010 09:55
A few years ago the paper was a sort of nasty rigid pink on small rolls. The only (un)kind that was available, we thought that it was because of the ‘continental’ plumbing – or lack of main drains.
Now we have a lot more choice in colour, layers, softness and good old Eco friendliness. Trouble is the choice is buy it now and stock up as next week that sort has been replaced by the next choice.
July 17th, 2010 12:34
Here in the USA, the land of vast choices in everything else, the only loo paper available is WHITE (but it does come in regular, extra large and jumbo roll sizes).
July 17th, 2010 13:01
Whatever happened to Bronco and Izal?
July 17th, 2010 15:28
This post raised comments at the breakfast table from assorted guests of the rugby type that it explained a lot about France…untoward remarks about the gay movement, etc….you can probably imagine the rest for yourself.
July 17th, 2010 16:40
You didn’t say what colour of loo paper you preferred, Jon. Would it be a darker hue, perhaps? And what about texture? Soft or hard?
This is a bit of a cliff hanger blog.
July 17th, 2010 17:48
[...] to the bottom of the matter It was Jon who started it, with his lament about the availability of loo paper in every colour, as long as [...]
July 18th, 2010 10:26
A very interesting piece, Jon and I do enjoy your ‘beside the point’ digressions. I found myself laughing out loud at your supermarket buyer ‘husk’ remark. How nice that your daughter is back within the fold.
July 18th, 2010 14:56
Thank you all for your comments.
For the record, I think loo paper should be white. Not pink.
And it is instructive to learn that in the US white is pink.
I detect the hand of the New World Order here.
All very worrying.
July 18th, 2010 20:24
so perhaps i could fund my travels by starting a “white loo paper black market”? Hmmm…. and i’m quite certain the novelty of pink paper would sell here in the states. perhaps an exchange program?
July 18th, 2010 21:49
DF – Shouldn’t be difficult. I’ll get onto a friend I have in the container shipping game and get a quote.