Nick just opened a packet of Griffin's Chocolate Chippies and was overwhelmed with disappointment at the biscuit to choc chip ratio, which seems to differ significantly from the illustration on the packet. "I suspect they have changed the recipe or it was a bad batch, as all of them are like this," he says, adding that "Cookie Bear would not approve."
Gift cards - just cash stored in plastic?
"What possible justification is there for expiry dates on gift cards?" asks a reader from Westmere. "They represent cash paid to a retailer and are typically used because the giver does not want to use cash, which might be seen as crass and impersonal. For retailers, they are money in the bank. But they are a promise to provide something. Why are they not required to recognise the money paid over? I can understand that a card entitling you to specific goods or services might expire, since the cost of the goods or services might rise over time (although NZ Post's Kiwi stamp scheme has no trouble with that), but if someone has paid $50 for an entitlement to goods or services, that stored value should not expire. I would imagine that many people forget - as I did - that the card was in their wallet until it was too late to redeem it. I wonder whether any retailer is prepared to advise - trying to conceal smirks of mercenary satisfaction - what proportion of gift cards are never redeemed and how much free money they get from the expiry of these contingent liabilities."
Dining out on food foibles
The Disgusting Food Museum opening in Malmo, Sweden will highlight food that makes some people salivate and others want to hurl. "There has been some criticism of the Disgusting Food Museum as an exercise in othering - deeming the food of some cultures to be normal and delicious, and the aromas, flavours, and ingredients of others to be weird and off-putting. The items that feature on the museum's website fall into roughly three, often overlapping categories: unfamiliar creatures (bats, dog, insects) or parts (penis, intestines, heads); very strong flavours, textures, and aromas (durian, natto, root beer); and items that violate certain religious or moral beliefs (pork, meat, jell-o salad)."
