OT: any idea what "travel to essential work" means?

Many petrol stations are also food stores and possibly it would be sensible for them to remain open and not forcing everyone to go to the larger supermarkets.

Bit of confusion from Matt Hancock who has advised those who cannot work from home go to work to ?keep the country? surely these people will end up packing buses, trains the tube etc. especially if services have been reduced?

Richard

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 16:12:08 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020, alan_m snipped-for-privacy@admac.myzen.co.uk> remarked:

If you don't mind buying M&S food, which is more expensive even than Waitrose.

If people are willing to pay M&S prices on the High Street when there are plenty of alternatives, - believe it or not - then I can't see any reason to suppose that they would object to paying M&S prices for what are essentially distress purchases. As many/most petrol station food purchases in fact are.

michael adams

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The nearest on to here is Waitrose

An interesting, if illogical, leap. I can think of numerous petrol stations which sell food but none with sell M&S food (which is a pity).

That aside, I assume you've not shopped in either M&S or Waitrose recently. They aren't the cheapest but they you can shop economically, especially in Waitrose. We used to pull both of our younger daughters' legs (twins, so two people). In both cases, the shopped in Waitrose as students - it was near to where they lived- but shopped wisely. (Two different cities.)

Unfortunately, there isn't a Waitrose near us. The M&S is good but not that large so lacks the range of goods.

They are going to start fixing cars properly without up selling?

It would be a whole lot better advising those that can work in isolation or with good spacing from others to travel to work as long as they

SteveW

"You may travel to work if it is absolutely impossible to work at home"

A petrol station in Bingley has an M&S food store, not much of a selection though.

Richard

Here they've said refuse and recycling collections will be normal, but garden waste collections may be skipped.

In message <r5deej$jnl$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 17:02:13 on Tue, 24 Mar

I used to work a couple of minutes walk from the first M&S clothes-less store (in Tolworth). It did housewares and food, and if M&S's website is to believed was about three years before they came up with the "Simply Food" brand. Back then they also quietly became the nation's largest florist.

The problem with the small petrol station stores (and others at railway stations and even hospitals) is that the range stocked is biassed heavily towards "TV dinners". Which are expensive to begin with, then plus a hefty mark-up. Those shops are franchises, of course, and M&S itself has little to do with them.

In message <r5dev7$idc$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org>, at 17:11:04 on Tue, 24 Mar

There's a medium size Waitrose near me, but it stocks a lot of what I'd call "faddy food"[1]. Getting basic items can be a struggle, and across the street is a much cheaper Iceland.

That Waitrose is the first place I've seen a joint of beef priced at more than £100! I was actually looking for rack-of-lamb, which is admittedly a bit faddy (that's why I went there, and none of the other stores had it), but none to be found there either.

Green waste went yesterday as normal. (St. Albans)

Waitrose are about the only chain I've found to reliably stock Gentemen's Relish, The bigger Saisbury's used to stock it, but no longer do. In these difficult times I found their basics porrige oats to be ok when the shelves were empty elsewhere. On previous Gentlemens Relish trips I found other odd items to be competitive as well.

Iceland are ok for three or four lines of frozen veg once you've negotiated your way around the frozen chips and pizza aisles. Which are now all sold to a £1 price point rather than specific weights of 500g or Ikg as previously. Which can be a faff.

michael adams

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In message snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com, at

BP stations with an M&S shop are quite a thing in the south.

Our green waste will be skipped. That's after they made us buy a second bin at an inflated price, and then after we'd bought one started to charge us for collection. It's a pattern here - they don't regard the green waste as important. Which is odd when they sell the compost it makes.

Andy

Apart from the two near here that closed relatively recently. One doing the best business is a Sainbury 'local' where the petrol is much cheaper than the similar Tesco one. One of the BP ones that closed was opposite the Tesco, and both price matched on petrol. But the M&S obviously not as popular as the Tesco for other things.

Asda is down to 102.something per litre at the moment.