Yodel redefines the word Safe while John Lewis redefines Eco-Friendly

Last week-end I visited the John Lewis web site and bought a couple of Buiani folding chairs. I was advised that they would be delivered within 7 days via a standard delivery service, as opposed to the specialist delivery service you get when you buy larger items and who are very good.

So when I came back home on Wednesday night, I found a very large (more on that later) cardboard box outside my front door and in the letter box was this delivery notice:

Yodel delivery notice

You will note how they checked the a safe place box. They actually left the parcel outside my front door. Luckily I live in a relatively safe place so theft is unlikely. On the other hand, leaving an unprotected cardboard box outside, in London, in January, with something inside that may suffer from getting wet strikes me as a tad optimistic. Or did check the weather forecast before leaving the box outside?

Another thing that I found rather puzzling was the size of the box. It would have made sense had it contained normal chairs. But folding ones: surely they'd be shipped folded? All was revealed when I opened the box:

The big box

You will note the green stickers on the left side of the chairs with the FSC logo advising me that those chairs are made from wood from well-managed forests. Brilliant! Unfortunately the amount of Air Pad packaging filling in the box probably offsets all eco-friendly credentials imparted by the FSC logo. On the plus side, it probably means that I now have enough air pads to send presents to my two nieces until they reach adult age (uncles are meant to spoil nieces and nephews, that's part of the job description).

Small Plastic Bag Madness

Following a push to eradicate the plastic bag from the United Kingdom (and London in particular), supermarkets have stopped giving the standard plastic carrier bags unless you ask for them. And even then, a lot of shops will now preferably give you a small plastic bag rather than a normal size one. On the face of it, this all sounds like a good idea as it consumes less plastic but it only looks at the very beginning of the life of a plastic bag and assumes I will throw it away once I get home. Well, no, I don't throw my plastic bags away: I reuse them. There are tons of different ways I can reuse a standard size supermarket plastic bag: as a bin liner for my kitchen bin for instance. But what can I do with the small ones they now give away? Not much! So they pile up at home. It's even got to the point where I started wondering if I needed to buy plastic bin liners for the kitchen bin as I'm now running out of standard size plastic bags!

So what could be the solution to this conundrum? Most people have two reasons to go to the supermarket: either to do a weekly food shop, in which case they will need large bags and are even quite likely these days to have their own bags, so no problem there; or they will just pop in to buy a few items that they realised they needed, in which case they may need a small bag. In that last case, it seems to me that the small plastic bag is not the right answer. A small (recycled) paper bag, similar to the ones you get in Pret or most other sandwich shop would be perfect! When I come home, I can then pop the small paper bag in my recycling green box and be done with it: much nicer and easier than dealing with a small plastic bag that is difficult to recycle or reuse.

Stop this small plastic bag madness!

Online Christmas Shopping

I went out to central London to do some Christmas shopping today, as for once I decided to start early. It was such a bad experience because of the masses of people that I bought nothing and decided to do everything online from now on.

Contacting Sainsbury's

Last week I went to the Sainsbury's in Richmond as it is the only place in my area where I can recycle drink cartons. When I got there, the recycling centre was drowned under plastic bottles because the plastic bins were full and people had been dropping their recycling next to them. I put my cartons in the proper bin (which wasn't full luckily) and when I came back home I decided to contact Sainsbury's and complain. I found the contact form quite easily on their website and filled it in, half expecting to get a half cooked excuse in response. But no, to my surprise I got an email on the Monday saying they had contacted the store's manager and they were emptying those bins every day. I even got the details of the manager so next time I go there, I can theoretically talk to him directly if need be. And then later this week I got a £10 Sainsbury's voucher through the post! Could it be that Sainsbury's are actually listening to their customers? I shall see next time I go if the plastic bottles recycling bank looks better maintained. And I shall spend my voucher.

Connecting the Old to the New

As I mentioned recently, Nokia changed their power adapters on new phone models. I suppose it enables them to design thinner handsets. Considering I have quite a few old chargers, I went round Chiswick today to see if I could find an adapter. It took me quite some time because Chiswick has no less than 8 mobile phone shops. Why? Go figure! But anyway, I did the rounds so here is how it went.

Vodafone

I started with Vodafone because it is the closest to my flat and this is the company with whom I have a contract and who provided me with the phone. The two guys in the shop seemed quite annoyed to see a customer come in and took some time to actually realise what I was asking for. They eventually told me that they could potentially have this and it would cost £15. When I asked how a simple adapter could cost £15, the answer was: Ask Nokia, it's not our price.

Thanks for being so helpful guys, I'll go somewhere else.

Metroline

This one is a brand new shop. The staff was really trying to help but eventually came to the conclusion that it didn't exist and I should buy a new charger instead, which is exactly what I don't want to do.

Carphone Warehouse

They knew immediately what I was looking for but said they didn't stock it and the only shop they knew that stocked it in Chiswick was Orange. When asked about the price, they said it should cost about £5, which sort of confirmed that the guys from Vodafone really didn't know what they were talking about.

O2

They were quick to understand what I was looking for but told me they didn't have that sort of things, didn't know where I could find it nor how much it would cost. At least they tried.

T-Mobile

I had to wait for someone to be available first. That took some time. Then it took even longer to get them to understand what I wanted and tell them that no, I didn't have any adapter in the box with my new phone. They then said that they could potentially order it for me and it would cost me between £10 and £15. When asked why I had been quoted anything between £5 and £15 for the same small piece of wire, the answer was: Don't ask us, ask Nokia.

Those guys must have gone to the same school as the Vodafone guys.

Phones4u

The girl I talked to had no idea whatsoever what I was talking about and got confused between the charger and data sockets on the phone. She was very nice and tried very hard to help but to no avail.

Orange

They knew exactly what I was looking for and said they normally sell it but had run out of stock. They had ordered more but didn't know when they would get them. When being asked for a price, they quoted £5.99. They suggested I check Carphone Warehouse and the internet cafe down the road called Hot Gossip. They also said I could find it on the Nokia web site.

Hot Gossip

Hot Gossip is an internet cafe that doubles as a mobile phone shop. They knew immediately what I was looking for but were out of stock. They quoted £6.99.

Nokia web site

Back home, I went onto the Nokia web site. It took a bit of wandering before I found it but I did. It is a Nokia Charger Adapter CA-44 and it costs £3.50 including VAT. Unfortunately, Nokia are out of stock as well. But they can send you an email when they have the item in stock again so I asked them to do so.

eBay

ThenI had a brainwave and went on eBay. Of course, they have tons of them there, most of them at a price below Nokia's own price. So I bought 3 for a grand total of £7.83, including postage and packing. I love eBay!

This will teach me to go on the internet before trying mobile phone high street shops. Out of 8, 2 really knew what they were talking about, 2 sort of knew but couldn't help and the other 4 were completely clueless. In particular, I was quite amused by the blatant lies from Vodafone and T-Mobile.