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Looking on Facebook a lot of people I know were there too, although
chances of bumping into someone you know are pretty slim considering
the size of the venue and volume of people.

John Bardon had a stroke in real life in June last year. He returned
to EastEnders as Jim last night for a one off special to help raise
awareness of what a stroke actually is and means. He was supurb.

I'll be amazed if John Bardon and June Brown (Dot) don't get an award
for the way they acted out a difficult, sensitive and important
storyline. Watch it.

This is a bit of a geeky post that only exists because I hate spending my lunchbreak in a queue at Tesco.

As a former Tesco staff member for five years while at College and University I remember one very boring training session (over ten years ago) where we were told that a customer has ten interactions with staff members during a shopping trip, from trolleyboy right through to cashier. We were all encouraged to interact with the customers, smiling and saying hello wherever possible.

These days I can walk into Tesco as a customer and avoid any human contact with any of their staff by using the brilliant self service checkouts. It's not that I'm looking to be unsociable, but when I am in a hurry I want to go in, shop quickly and get out fast.... self serve is therefore a great asset for people in a hurry.

Both Asda and B&Q have also invested in self service and face the same issues Tesco do, so I guess what I've written here counts for all of them.

Tesco Chelmsford was always a nightmare at lunchtime prior to self service, massive queues at the traditional tills meant annoying waiting times and often customers who had just a couple of items would abandon them and walk out. I used to walk in at lunchtime and judge if I was going to shop depending on the till queues, if they were bad I'd walk straight out.

Then along came four self service tills with one Tesco staff member watching over them, and all of a sudden the massive lunchtime queues were reduced by customers serving themselves, and my custom could be guaranteed if I walked onto the store.

Of course, when the tills were first introduced there were a few problems and a couple were always out of action, but over a year later, I think they finally have them all working well.

The issues are nolonger with the technology, the issues are now with the abilities of the people who use them.

So.... I have a few ideas on how the whole experience could be made even better to speed up the queue for people like me who want to get out the shop as fast as possible. Here goes.....

1) Instead of having 4 tills, install 8 and have two staff members looking after them between them.

2) Split the 8 tills into two banks of 4 tills.

3) For the first bank of four - make these tills exclusive for people that know how to use them and can use them quickly. Make two 'cash only'.

4) For the second bank of four - make these exclusive for those that need help, are not in a hurry or have never used self service tills before. These people really mess up the tills, I know they don't mean to but having them in the same queue as people in a hurry gets really frustrating.

5) When the shop gets busy I notice that the staff member who looks after the self service tills often ends up working on a traditional till, collecting baskets or running off to support other staff in need. When they do this the self service tills mess up and there is nobody to fix them, the queues get even worse while customers stand like lemons while for no reason the till repeats 'please wait for assistance' (and nobody comes). Leave the staff member to look after the self service tills.

6) Stop idiots who cant read 'baskets only' and shop with trolleys from using the self service tills. Consider giving them life bans from the store if they even look at those tills.

7) Paint a Q line on the floor.

....and that's all I have to say about that.

Last time I blogged about BBC iPlayer with suggestions someone from the BBC came back with feedback, I wonder if Tesco, Asda or B&Q will too?

Above is a picture of the river Brain joining the river Blackwater at
7.30 this morning.

Why is it that the products I like are usually the ones that get discontinued?

Last month the 'Cheese Panini', last week it was 'Tesco Temptations Nuts with Chocolate' and now it is the 500ml size 'Tesco Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice'.

Every little helps.

Clearly sales of box sets and rerun orders by international
broadcasters for the classic TV show have been drying up so 20th
Century Fox orders a new film to generate interest in the old show
knowing that a whole new generation of viewers will have to buy up a
back catalogue to find out how all this came about.

First, the negative points. The film has no aliens in it, yet the
title, which is also on Mulders famous spaceship poster, made me
believe I was going to watch a programme about weird alien stuff, of
which there was none. Second, mention of Mulders sister, what was that
all about? Usually when a charecter is mentioned they eventually
become part of the plot, but no. Then there was the child in his sick
bed that was in the care of Scully, what happened to him in the end?
And the Catholic priest charecter, what was that all about? Why did
he have those powers? And in the snow storm why was Scully not
blocked in by the broken down snow truck?

The whole film seemed rushed, lacked special effects and as far as I
could see was weak in the objective I consider it was made for, to
generate interest in that back catalogue.

On the more positive side the acting was good, the plot (although
rushed and weird) kinda came together and it was well shot.

Worth going to see, I gave it 6/10. Justina gave it 7/10.

Hais turned up in a Santa hat which drew attention from the friendly
restaurant staff who then provided us all with crackers and served us
well. We were told we were the first Christmas Party this year, to
which we pointed out this was our 2007 celebration.

Hais, Hal, Kara, Nick, Tomi, Alex, Nicki, Justina and I had a great
evening, toasted 19 months of successful business and remembered some
great achievements by a company that is still so very young.