On my way home last night, I popped into the M&S food shop on the Birmingham New Street concourse and bought a few things for a late supper. They had a range of “deli” snacks – feta and cheese empanadas and the like. These were priced at £2.89 per pack or 3 for £6.

Obviously, I realise this means the snacks are hideously over-priced at £2.89 - that M&S make a very satisfactory profit from them being priced at £2 a pack. I get it's just an insidious means of playing on our greed and sense of value. They know that the average buyer will stand there and think, “Umm, one looks a bit meagre and if I'm having two I'd be stupid not to buy three.” So, my purchase of one £2 snack - or admitting that I'm a fat greedy bastard, £4 snack - becomes a £6 sale. So far, so normal. And it surely says something about our society that we're so used to this cynical manipulation of us that we just shrug our shoulders. But there's more.

The deli-range was on three shelves, 9 snacks, three on each shelf. My third pick – the one to make up the numbers - was spicy chicken something or other. These were placed right in the middle – in position 5 if you will. I added some hummus and pittas and the cashier asked for £10.84. That seemed a lot. I studied the receipt and saw I'd been charged £2.89 for each of the three snacks.

I questioned this, and the manager was summoned. Apparently the spicy chicken wasn't included in the promotion. Just the other eight products surrounding it. Which leads me to the conclusion that M&S has worked out that enough people pick the spicy chicken as one of their three picks (and probably the last one), and then when they get to the tills either don't notice their mistake, or don't like to complain. And M&S turns a potential £4 sale into an £8.67 one. Ker-ching.

Presumably they've also estimated that the profit is worth more than the cost of the irritation to those stuck in the queue behind those who do complain; and from the negative marketing from those who moan about it afterwards, and from the bad reputation that builds-up like limescale on their brand, from such gimlet-eyed cynicism.

The snacks, by the way, were shit.       

This link made me laugh:

I've had some daft interviews, (and done some daft ones too.)

I went for an interview on the night shift at Denny's in Seattle in 1983. The bloke who interviewed me was younger than me - I was 21. He said "If I employed you, out of 10 how much would you be giving me?" I thought about this seriously for a few moments, added a couple of marks to make myself look keen and said, seven?"

1984 saw me on an assessment centre for trainee managers with Berni Inns. Anne bought me a polyester three- piece suit down Lewisham market for £20, which was striking sparks off the hotel furnishings. It's a miracle we weren't all toasted. I nailed the group exercise, but the interview didn't go so well. The bloke said to me - "Thing I don't get, what with your degree and stuff,  is why you want to be a fucking fish and chip salesman?" "Um, when you put it like that, neither do I." I said. "Thank you" he said, "Claim your expenses on the way out."

1985 saw me doubly-degreed and on an assessment course as a trainee Trading Standards Officer. We were shown around the weights and measures department. Engineering stuff everywhere. I can't even re-wire a plug. "These scales seem off" the bloke said. "Anyone fix them? You, you have a go." I should have left soon after. 

The one interview I nailed was my one as a graduate trainee for Commercial Union, 1986. George, as I came to know him, welcomed me, sat me down and said "So why do you want to work for an insurance company?"  Before I could deliver my carefully pre-prepared bullshit of an answer he continued: "Because it's bloody boring here. Man alive, let me tell you...." And he did, for half an hour. I nodded in all the right places and started Monday.