Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a regular shopper at Waitrose and will continue to be so due to the excellent quality products you offer. It’s nice that whereas other supermarkets constantly seek cheaper and consequently nastier food to sell to us that Waitrose values quality and issues such as sustainability. However there are three issues that have been playing on my mind that I wanted to raise with you:

Firstly there seems to be a rather large amount of packaging on some of your products, in view of the dangers that plastic waste poses to the environment I wonder why it is necessary to incase tomatoes for instance in a plastic tray and then wrap them in plastic? What is wrong with selling them lose and providing paper bags in store rather than plastic ones? You could also start charging for bags like M&S they are spot on with that policy. Also till operators always try and wrap products up in extra smaller bags when I get to the till. What is this unhealthy obsession with plastic? Do you realize that Turtles maybe chocking to death on this plastic as you read?

Secondly in my local store in ***** there is a young lady who works often on the tills. This young lady has dyed pink hair and a nose ring. Unfortunately she is made to wear a blond wig and put a plaster over her nose. I can perhaps see the reasons why wearing plasters over piercing might be appropriate for food preparation but wearing it on the till is frankly ridiculous. It upsets me to think that this young Lady has had her dignity removed by being made to wear a humiliating wig and offended that Waitrose would pander to the petty and narrow minded people that would be offended by an individuals choice to express themselves aesthetically in any manner they chose fit. Could you please confirm whether this is a policy of Waitrose or merely a petty minded and bigoted manager with fascistic tendencies acting on their own initiative?

Thirdly I return to the environmental agenda to ask why it is necessary to leave on so much lighting at night time. I appreciate you may want to give the impression that the local Waitrose store is always bright clean and active to avoid ruffians trying to break in at night, but couldn’t at least some of the lights be turned off? I invest a considerable amount of personal time in making sure my electrical appliances within the home are turned off only to have my smug sense of environmentalism ruined by walking past your store at night and viewing rows and rows of tills left on with their log in screens taunting me.

As a regular customer at Waitrose (it being the only place that serves drinkable Riojca, coffee, and tasty olives within a 50 miles radius of an otherwise bleak northern culinary wasteland). I agree that the concept of the supervisors keying in their magically code is an annoyance. I had previously thought like another reader that this was due to the age of the seller (with only young people, sad loners and the mentally damaged working in supermarkets).

I have been served only yesterday by and older member of staff without the need for this procedure, might it be that the person serving you was themselves mentally damaged and unable to understand their own age?

I did enjoy your letter of complaint though. Perhaps such letters could form a regular aspect of your blog, whereby you dispense your ruthless wit and acerbic pen on the unwitting gray faces that surround us.

PS
There is a young lady in my local Waitrose who is forced to wear a blond wig (that looks utterly stupid) whilst on the till because she had dyed her hair pink! She also has to wear a plaster on her nose because she wears a nose ring. I find this petty fascism annoying and you have encouraged me to write immediately to my own Waitrose to turn this tide of evil that is swamping my otherwise perfectly bourgeois shopping experience.

You had a beard and looked remarkably perky for a man who had been on the lash the night before. You may well be a vigorous man, youthful in looks, but you don’t look like a spotty callow pissed 15 year old lout wearing a hoodie.

My advice…. get an old coat, stuff some battered old clothes into an old carrier bag, stagger around Waitrose for a while, make inappropriate remarks at checkout, slurring your words if possible - perhaps, a mild bout of Tourettes - you’ll be fine. They won’t ask for ID. They will be only pleased to see you leave.

I have the benefit of a bit of grey at the temples. I also wear an australian stockman coat, am 6ft 1″ and I make a point of looking straight at cashiers and chatter to them when I make my purchases of Rioja. Perhaps it is the shepherd’s crook I have taken to wondering around Chiswick with - after seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury on TV using one to great effect to get about. Maybe I look like a monk… a West London Friar Tuck?

Maybe it is the Cider which is the cause of your problem at checkout?

I am off to a new watering hole. The Bollo seems to be full of investment bankers with their appalling children…

I may make a guest appearance on here later - after dark….. - which reminds me… may be time for another “Charon after dark” podcast…?

If all their staff are having to get permission though - that’s crazy.