Who's started a new family tradition

The Cooke family from Redcar have boldly established a new tradition for Saturday night.

Every Saturday, at around 6.30pm, the family gathers in the lounge, in front of the television, to celebrate their new tradition of Not Watching Doctor Who.

‘We always used to watch Doctor Who together,’ says Mum, Alice. ‘But the show has gone right down the pan. It hasn’t really been any good since Matt Smith. Peter Capaldi was borderline OK. Jody Whittaker was bad. Ncuti Gatwa, I think, is pretty good. But the whole show is let down by really terrible writing, and by a dim-witted reliance on expensive special effects paid for with Disney money. The BBC has sold out. Russell T doesn’t care any more – he’s only doing it because he gets such a big paycheck.’

Daughter Kylie agrees. ‘The stories are rubbish and they are all the same. A monster does bad things to lots of people, ideally a whole planet or a whole galaxy. Doctor Who turns up, runs around a lot, waves his sonic screwdriver, and fixes things in a way that makes no sense at all. The monsters are all boring ones brought back from when Doctor Who was in black and white, but tarted up a bit.

Dad, Colin, complains that the whole show is just intergalactic wokery. ‘I’ll be impressed when we have an alcoholic doctor. Or when Doctor Who eats bad food on an alien planet and has to spend the whole episode in the toilet. That guy never eats – how does he do that?

‘Actually, I agree with Mum. It is the terrible writing that let’s it all down. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and erase Sylvester McCoy, and Peter Davidson and everything after David Tennant.

So, the new Cooke family tradition of Not Watching Doctor Who now focuses on rewatching old DVDs of Sapphire and Steel, and Blake's Seven and Tomorrow People – proper sci-fi that you can actually believe in.

image from pixabay

Supermarkets start pretend price war

Britain’s supermarkets are in a war of words about promotions, price cuts and bargains.

The combatants are huffing and puffing about price competition and market share, largely for the benefit of the Competition and Markets Authority. But the likelihood of any actual price cuts is considered very low.

'The supermarkets are speaking to different audiences,' said retail expert and professional bargain hunter Max Price.  ‘They want to tell the government and the competition authorities that they are not in a cartel – which would be illegal. They want to emphasise that retailing is very competitive and that there is no collusion in price setting.

‘The supermarkets are telling retail customers that prices are on their mind and that they are working hard to keep them low.   Even if they aren’t doing any work to keep them low.   Talk about price wars is cheap, gets free publicity, reassures customers and encourages them to spend, which is just what the grocers want.

‘Let’s take a jar of mixed spices as an example.  Customers have no idea what the right price for a jar of mixed spice is.  They don’t know what is in mixed spice, they don’t know where it comes from, and they don’t know if Trump’s tariffs have affected the price or not.  So the big supermarkets can change the price and the consumer has no idea if it’s fair or not.  The only things keeping the big supermarkets in line are the discount chains Aldi and Lidl.  Both are four-letter words, as far as the big stores are concerned.

So you can take all the hot air about price wars with a pinch of salt. Which will cost you anything from one penny to £2.42.

image from pixabay

In conversation with the BBC Director-General