Groceries | Lawrence van Rijn

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August 16, 2026 · 18:06

The idea that came

So, there I was day dreaming, when a thought just occurred to me. It happened when I was watching a Dubai Festival City Mall YouTube video and I saw saw the Tim Hortons stand. I asked for a cappuccino (in my mind) and I mentioned that I was peckish (a term I never use in real life, but I might from now on) I asked them for fried beaver tail (jokingly) and they did not have them, they did have a Double Sausage & Egg with Cheese Muffin which I ordered and devoured (scrupulously) but it set a few cogs in motion, which this is about. I noticed a fresh meat sandwich and that hot me going. There was a show of the Carrefour earlier in that video and this got me to give Carrefour a boost. You see, Dubai is rather warm (so is Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Riyadh, Dammam, Medina, Jeddah and Mecca) and as I have never seen this option in any Carrefour, I thought it was time to shine a light on this option.

First we get the refrigerated bags (they have those, but the idea is not the bags, but what goes in).On the Inside we see:

A patch with three slots, these slots will fit cooling elements precisely. Now we get two settings, either they buy these cooling elements or they exchange them, The exchange might cost them 3-5 dirham per cooling element, they sell for whatever the norm is. Consider that these people might take an hour to get to the mall, they have a coffee and by the time they get to grocery shopping, these cooling elements are no longer able to cool. I reckon that they need to come in a satchel, and consider that they might come in Carrefour colours with the name ‘Carrefour’ on the pack. Now consider that this service will drive all kind of customers to the shop, especially tourists and out of town people. The idea that you can exchange (conditionally) of the woolpacks might drive a lot more people. Consider the lemonade and refrigerated items that you can sell when you offer a service like that.

So whilst I am decently certain that the service does not exist. I wonder why no one thought of that. These packs need to be clean and when they are in their own satchel that is extremely likely to be the case. And I reckon that Carrefour has space for a small freezer at the cashiers holding up to 400 cooling packs and optionally a lot more in the back of the store. I see it as an essential service that places like this in the UAE (Saudi Arabia too) could offer. And as the revenue increases, it might become a free service of exchanging cooling packs (with certain demands) but here I am wondering why no one thought of it. I watched several Carrefour YouTube in Dubai (I did not see one of the Yas Mall) and the option was not given. I wonder why not, perhaps there is a good reason, but I cannot see it.

So I sign of of this Sunday to become a lumberjack until Monday (snoring the night away), it is only 18:00 so I might kill some orcs and goblins to get sleepy. One Orc (hack), Two Orcs (hack), Three Orcs (hack), you get the process, its like counting sheep.

Have a great day. I will write more in about 15 hours.

Politically phrased budgets

I don’t get to take a jab at the Guardian too often, so when that day does come (like today), then I like to enjoy every moment of it (overall it is still the best paper though). In this case it is an article by Lenore Taylor on the article ‘Rising cost of living, just an illusion‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/30/household-bills-australia-wages-rising)

The new ‘analyses’ show that the average household was better off by $5300 compared to 2008. Are you for real Miss Taylor?

Let’s look at some numbers. I have lived in the same place since 2008, I will even add to that that most of what I have is from around that time, and according to Energy Australia I am regarded to be a stable user, which means that my usage has not changed that much over the years. Yet, in 2007 my average bill was $160, in 2012 it was $275 and now it is $375. So in 6 years my electricity bill went up with a whopping 134%. the bills in 2013 have been less than $2 apart per bill so it seems that overall my usage remains the same.

Her reference to the ‘Natsem modelling’ is there, and apparently it claims that the annual increased cost of living is 1.7%. My train ticket had gone up by 8% (which was better than the NSW projected 10%) and my rent in the last 2 years had risen by 15%, the last step was a 7% increase. As the last two costs are costs we all see regular like clockwork, it seems to be that her article is only slightly weirder then just plain bogus, but that might just be my view on it!

Consider that many people have not seen decent raises in the last few years as some companies had hit hard times; it seems that I was reading a story with the missing bang of realism.

So the question becomes, is she just quoting a source, or is she missing the ball by a lot?

I leave that to you the reader!

There are other sides. Yes, groceries have gone up, yet the milk from my supermarket seemed to have been the same for a long time. In these times, even though I feel for the farmer, the fact that milk remains affordable is a good thing for me, as many other things go up. So even though the groceries, which is a chunk out of anyone’s budget seems remain almost stable, the overall cost of living did go up.

The second increase is the cost of one’s credit card. Most people, if they have a job, they tend to have a credit card. When I got mine, it came with an awesome 9.9%. And for a time it stayed there. It is now a little over 13%. This means a plus 3% rise, I am not blaming the banks (even though I would love to do that). When we consider rent, travel and credit cards, three of the most common items used, is seems that the 1.7% annual increase is just a tale, for the simple reason that most of the other stuff we daily need did not get cheaper and our regular cost of living went up by a lot more than 1.7%

So who did she write the article for?

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The idea that came

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