Tales from the Lock-Down

[citoyen]

I suspect the poaching one is the most likely.

Definitely not that they've got a sniff of the cannabis farm in your attic, of course.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I wonder if we'll see supermarket sandwiches and salads finally go out of fashion with the outbreak in Greencore?

[Basil]

Our little village......[hotbed of crime]

What an exciting place you live in.
We once had someone double park here.

[Mr Larrington]

Pandemic officially over as Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles restarts making you put a pound in the slot to release a trolley from its bondage.  The [“Oiks” – The Invigilator.]s are clearly abroad again.

[Pingu]

First haircut since lockdown started.

[SteveC]

First haircut since lockdown started.

First visit to the dentist yesterday since lockdown started. I broke a tooth over the weekend, so it was an 'emergency'.
However, as there was plenty of time after the tooth was sorted, I was given a six-monthly checkup as well, which was a couple of months earlier than originally planned.
(Hair still needs cutting, though.)

[Greenbank]

Many of them take cash.  Indeed, pre-COVID it was my preferred method of dealing with small change (which barakta would accumulate, because hand impairment).

When Sainsbury's first installed self checkouts, they had a simple hopper you could pour coins into. Unfortunately the internal container for them is slightly under 1 pint. As I discovered when I poured in 1 pint of 2p coins... or rather about 90% of 1 pint of 2p coins...

They have since put a cover on with a slot, so you have to put the coins in individually... The just under 1 pint limit still exists. But you get glared at feeding them in one by one...

As it's not a debt a supermarket can choose refuse to serve you regardless of how you'd want to pay. They could, for example, choose to refuse to accept a perfectly good £20 note to pay a £20 bill, but it's unlikely they would.

But for settling a debt with "legal tender" there's a limit of 20p in 2p coins (if someone wanted to enforce that): https://www.royalmint.com/help/trm-faqs/legal-tender-amounts/

Now it's easier to pour the coins into a machine at a Metro bank and then cash them out that way. They don't charge any fee/percentage for doing so and don't mind non-customers using the machines. Everywhere else either charges a percentage or requires you to be a customer to pay the coins into an account. (I once paid in £195 in 5p pieces over the course of three trips to my local Lloyds Bank. I'd bagged them up myself [using digital scales to avoid endless counting] and they were happy to do it as long as there was no queue.)

[rr]

On some machines you can lift the slot out to reveal a hopper.

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[FifeingEejit]

The [house of toothy comestibles] near to where I lived prior to the start of all this was progressing to more new closer stacked self service, card only tills.

They had to "off-limit" 50% of them.

My new local hotc had not been subjected to the same enthusiasm for space / staff / cost saving. And has far smaller queues as a result.

The Tesco I go to or at least went to before starting to use click and collect only have half of the real tills that aren't blocked up by excess stock (about the last 4 pairs) available, there's also 50% self serve and 50% of the scan it yourself terminals available.
The village coop is the same in their real tills but they a rarely have all 4 going at once in normal times anyway, one of the Spars has 2 on but spaced to suit by Design thanks to a pillar anyway and the other one only ever has 1 person on at anytime anyway.

None of them are any slower than normal...

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[FifeingEejit]

As it's not a debt a supermarket can choose refuse to serve you regardless of how you'd want to pay. They could, for example, choose to refuse to accept a perfectly good £20 note to pay a £20 bill, but it's unlikely they would.

You need to travel north of Newcastle a bit more often...

The only sterling decimal note that wasnt promissory was the BoE £1 the rest are all similarly nominally worthless bits of polymer.

See also sterling coins issued by the states of Jersey, balliwixk of Guernsey, Gibraltar and government of the Isle of Mann.

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[pcolbeck]

Our little village......[hotbed of crime]

What an exciting place you live in.
We once had someone double park here.

Attempting to recapture the nanny goat and her kid that got loose and were eating everyone's front gardens - now that was exciting and knackering. It's hard to catch a goat that's delighted to be on the lam with an infinite supply of tasty flowers and hedges all around.

[ElyDave]

Many of them take cash.  Indeed, pre-COVID it was my preferred method of dealing with small change (which barakta would accumulate, because hand impairment).

When Sainsbury's first installed self checkouts, they had a simple hopper you could pour coins into. Unfortunately the internal container for them is slightly under 1 pint. As I discovered when I poured in 1 pint of 2p coins... or rather about 90% of 1 pint of 2p coins...

They have since put a cover on with a slot, so you have to put the coins in individually... The just under 1 pint limit still exists. But you get glared at feeding them in one by one...

As it's not a debt a supermarket can choose refuse to serve you regardless of how you'd want to pay. They could, for example, choose to refuse to accept a perfectly good £20 note to pay a £20 bill, but it's unlikely they would.

But for settling a debt with "legal tender" there's a limit of 20p in 2p coins (if someone wanted to enforce that): https://www.royalmint.com/help/trm-faqs/legal-tender-amounts/

Now it's easier to pour the coins into a machine at a Metro bank and then cash them out that way. They don't charge any fee/percentage for doing so and don't mind non-customers using the machines. Everywhere else either charges a percentage or requires you to be a customer to pay the coins into an account. (I once paid in £195 in 5p pieces over the course of three trips to my local Lloyds Bank. I'd bagged them up myself [using digital scales to avoid endless counting] and they were happy to do it as long as there was no queue.)

With a 20 mile one way trip to the nearest Metro bank, I'm not convinced the economics of that really stacks up

[Greenbank]

Many of them take cash.  Indeed, pre-COVID it was my preferred method of dealing with small change (which barakta would accumulate, because hand impairment).

When Sainsbury's first installed self checkouts, they had a simple hopper you could pour coins into. Unfortunately the internal container for them is slightly under 1 pint. As I discovered when I poured in 1 pint of 2p coins... or rather about 90% of 1 pint of 2p coins...

They have since put a cover on with a slot, so you have to put the coins in individually... The just under 1 pint limit still exists. But you get glared at feeding them in one by one...

As it's not a debt a supermarket can choose refuse to serve you regardless of how you'd want to pay. They could, for example, choose to refuse to accept a perfectly good £20 note to pay a £20 bill, but it's unlikely they would.

But for settling a debt with "legal tender" there's a limit of 20p in 2p coins (if someone wanted to enforce that): https://www.royalmint.com/help/trm-faqs/legal-tender-amounts/

Now it's easier to pour the coins into a machine at a Metro bank and then cash them out that way. They don't charge any fee/percentage for doing so and don't mind non-customers using the machines. Everywhere else either charges a percentage or requires you to be a customer to pay the coins into an account. (I once paid in £195 in 5p pieces over the course of three trips to my local Lloyds Bank. I'd bagged them up myself [using digital scales to avoid endless counting] and they were happy to do it as long as there was no queue.)

With a 20 mile one way trip to the nearest Metro bank, I'm not convinced the economics of that really stacks up

I've heard of an invention that makes journeys of that kind of length possible under one's own power, sometimes even enjoyable.

(Obviously the advice won't work for everyone, but that's no reason not to let people know that the facility does exist and may be usable by some people.)

[L CC]

I've heard of an invention that makes journeys of that kind of length possible under one's own power, sometimes even enjoyable.

Steady on mate. Crazy talk!

[grams]

The holes in the Perspex screens in the tills in Pret are like a quarter of an inch narrower than the silver platters they serve eat-in meals on.

It’s just the right distance that it looks like it will fit, and every time it doesn’t. Torture.

[SteveC]

Latest from our work is that one of the divisions (not the one I work in) has started saying things like 'be prepared to work from home for the whole of next year'.

[Jurek]

I've just been advised that I'm back at work from Sept 7th.
I've been off since March 16th.
The really good news is that we've been relocated back to our old office in E17.
This means that I'll get my old cycle commute back. 
26 miles one way to the new place, with the last 8 miles on shitty roads was just too much.

[ian]

Our mothership is reopening on the 8th September as a 'socially distanced collaboration environment.'

[Jurek]

The one thing which we do have at work is space.
The site I'm currently at is ~ 24 acres.
The one I'm moving back to is ~6 acres with probably fewer than 60 people working there.
I reckon you could easily fit 80 to 100 double decker buses into the building I will be working in.

[citoyen]

I've just found out I'm supposed to be back in the office next week, but fortunately I've got the week booked off.

We've been split into two groups, alternating weeks in the office, in order to maintain distancing. That means instead of having just a few days to get used to the idea of being back in the office, I've got two full weeks plus a few days. Must say that is a relief.

[ian]

I technically work from home anyway, so probably won't go back this year, but reading between the lines they're generally moving to towards primarily home-based working (for those who can) with offices as hubs (I doubt we'll be keeping two motherships orbiting over London in the long term).

Which actually seems to make sense and pretty much what I've been doing for years.

[Canardly]

Passed a main roadside pub this evening with tables outside fairly well occupied by customers. All closely seated and none wearing masks. Has the message been lost in the telling somewhere?

[Polar Bear]

Passed a main roadside pub this evening with tables outside fairly well occupied by customers. All closely seated and none wearing masks. Has the message been lost in the telling somewhere?

Didn't you know that food and drink makes you immune?  🤔

[Kim]

Passed a main roadside pub this evening with tables outside fairly well occupied by customers. All closely seated and none wearing masks. Has the message been lost in the telling somewhere?

Didn't you know that food and drink makes you immune?  🤔

Sort of:  The government's SCIENCE says that the virus isn't transmissible where a card payment machine is in use.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The message is that the economy, and to a lesser extent mental health and, ooh, let's give it a fancy name like 'social cohesion', are more important than physical health.