Shopping and SF [S. Worthen

If you are buying seed packets, don't use the self-service tills. The packets don't weigh enough to register in the bag on the scale (which is used to "prove" the object was put in the bag) and each thus requires its own manual override. As did using my own bag because it already had library books in it. As did putting more than a flimsy plastic bag's worth of goods in the bag, as it is a backpack and can handle more weight than a flimsy plastic bag. Self-service shopping: only useful if you're buying the right products.

The place to be last night for SF was the Fishmarket in Northampton (UK), where Iron Cupcake was themed around science fiction. I wasn't there, but wishus and hungry_pixel were. I'm looking forward to their reports.

Looking through lapswood's photos of SFX's launch event for the Summer of SF Reading, I am struck by the total absence of female authors.

At least there are large numbers of female authors mentioned in reply to coraa's request for modern space opera recommendations.

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Looking through [info]lapswood's photos of SFX's launch event for the Summer of SF Reading, I am struck by the total absence of female authors.

Same thought struck me. It all seemed very bloke-y.

Self-service shopping: only useful if you're buying the right products.

In Canterbury Sainsbury's, they're trying to persuade people to put full trolley-loads through self-service. They are clearly insane and people were telling them so last time I did the week's shopping there. Queues a mile long and people refusing to use the self-service tills. I was so proud of us all.

I mean, how am I suppose to scan/load my bags when my bags are trolley bags and need to be in the trolley that is currently full of shopping (and indeed my pound coin, so I can't just swap one for another)in order to be loaded. 'I'll help you' said the shop assistant brightly. You mean, like the till assistants used to do by ringing up the items while I packed them, at a normal till?

Ahem, end of rant.

Edited Date: 2010-05-25 02:37 pm (UTC)

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It occurs to me that there might have been female authors in the audience. I meant, of course, as I'm sure you knew, female authors on the panel or doing booksignings or otherwise highlighted or promoted by the event.

Thank goodness my local Sainsbury is only encouraging baskets at self-service currently!

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In Canterbury Sainsbury's, they're trying to persuade people to put full trolley-loads through self-service. They are clearly insane and people were telling them so last time I did the week's shopping there.

Heh... it comes with time. This happens regularly where the self service has been in place for a while. I remember losing my self service virginity and it was traumatic. I put the week's shopping through in double quick time now though and avoid the regular queues.

I tried using self service again last week, figuring it would be quicker than queuing for one item.

Hah.

I can't scan my clubcard as far as I can see without paying with the credit card part of it. And no one came when I pressed the help button. I left in a fit of Tourette's.

There are at least some female authors in the list of recommended books for the SFX Summer of Reading. Um, three, to be precise, of whom two (Mary Shelley and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain) are dead. The other is Doris Lessing. Where, exactly, are Joanna Russ? Ursula Le Guin? Mary Gentle? Justina Robson? Gwyneth Jones? Liz Williams?

I feel a blog post coming on.

Edited Date: 2010-05-25 03:50 pm (UTC)

Self service works in my nearby Tesco Express when I'm picking up a litre of milk and some bananas having bought everything else in shops further away. It has many ways of going wrong for anything more complicated.

As for absence of women, I'm getting seriously irritated by it everywhere: Illustrious, SFX twice, anthologies, lists of working academics...it's all over the bloody place. I wish the chaps would get a grip!

The trick with light objects and the self-service is to pick the bag up and put it back down. At least this works for me. The system registers that something has changed and also that the bag has the correct weight now.

How interesting - I don't know who wishus is, but I probably met her! I know it's a 'her' as garry was the token male there :-). I shared a table with 2 people I was delighted to meet for the first time; a journalist from a sci-fi magazine and a very talented lady whose vanilla-choc cakes were my personal favourites. I said hello to a number of others too.

I am torn between ics london and numpton. Ic numpton has more interesting themes and more genuinely friendly people, but ic london has more cake :-)

She may well have been the SF magazine person (but I cannot promise it). I have no idea what hat she was wearing (metaphorically) while there. She was the one who showed me the Northampton Echo article on one of the last ICs.

S. Worthen | Weblog

Shopping and SF

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