| | Good evening, How times change.
I am just about old enough to remember the days when you went into a grocer’s and asked the nice man or lady behind the counter for a pound of butter, which was then weighed out on greaseproof paper and packaged before it went into the basket on your arm or into one of those wonderful trolley bags.
Then came small supermarkets where you wandered around yourself, popping things you didn’t really need into your trolley before heading to the check-out and your Green Shield stamps. Since then, of course, there have been automated check-outs, where you don’t even have to speak to a real person to pay for your shop.
But now the ante has been upped even further by Aldi. It has opened a shop in London where there are no check-outs and no payments. You wander round, grab your shopping and cameras identify the goods in your trolley, then charge it to your bank account. Facial recognition cameras ensure under 18s can’t buy booze. It’s all a long way from the social interaction that shopping used to be. Convenient but quite sad. Until next time, take care, Gillian | |
