You're a beautiful woman probably...

I’m very disappointed by what seems to me the continuing decline of standards in Gateshead’s Tesco store. I’ve been a customer of Tesco at this store for 28 years and I can’t ever remember it being as bad as this. I went shopping there this evening. There were no bananas (something I consider a staple) at all on the shelves. Empty goods trolleys used to stack the shelves seemed to be littered everywhere, most with no staff visible near them, making it very difficult to navigate the aisles. The fridges looked poorly kept, with lots of frost on the frozen food. I could not find any lower fat or chicken sausages more than a day or two ahead of their “sell by” date, making them no use to me, as I shop for food several days ahead. At the till, I pointed out that I had four bags to reuse from previous visits but, when I checked my receipt, I found that the cashier hadn't given me my clubcard points. I then had to queue at the customer service desk. After bypassing the last customer of a ...

I'm on the way back from another trip to London, which included a very enjoyable visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum. John and I were impressed with its vastness, the elegance of the building and the sheer number of curios and treasures there. What makes London so fascinating to visit is the richness (in more senses than one) of the culture there. When you consider that the V&A is just one of London's museums and that there's also the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery - to name just a few - then it starts to dawn on you how many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money have been (and continue to be) lavished on London, to the detriment of other parts of the country. I know that London has its grim Council Estates and higher property prices, but the arguably greater social problems and higher gun and knife crime than the North must, if anything, be evidence that money spent on a region doesn'...