Zero transparency

About a year ago I developed a bit of a thing for extra mature cheddar on toast washed down by low calorie coke, in fact a whole two litres of the stuff. And as regards the latter I quite liked Tesco's Cola Zero, which retailed at forty-something pence, so was a good deal.

Of course, shoppers will have noticed some huge price increases in recent months, and indeed some of Tesco's pricing is bizarre at the best of times, so it often pays to pay close attention. Thus my Cola Zero seemed to be edging up in price by a penny or so all too often, and then a few weeks ago it suddenly rocketed to something like 56p, hence a rise of around 20%.

Which put me off buying it slightly, particularly as two litres of coke in half an hour or so is perhaps excessive for someone weighing nine stone-something - OK, all that cheese on toast has made me gain a few pounds and I'm now over ten stone - and it's certainly not advisable if you won't have access to toilet facilities for the next few hours.

Nevertheless, in true Tesco style the 20% price rise was soon followed by a 'buy two, get one free' offer, thus it was game on again for the bulging bladder!

Wait, though. The three for two offer detracted attention from yet another price rise - a further 40% had been added to the basic price, hence a rise from 56p to 78p! Thus even with the stupendous mega bargain deal the price was still significantly higher than it was a year or so ago.

Another one I noticed recently was the price of Tesco's Value range lavy roll* (OK, I'm not fussy, and my budget is limited). The price of a four-pack seemed to rocket a few months ago, resulting in a pack price of £1.20, which if my recollection of the previous price is correct means that it had more or less doubled.

Not to worry, though, because in true Tesco style the twelve-packs weren't much dearer, so it was a bit of a no-brainer - twelve rolls rather than four for little more cost.

However, one day subsequently I was sitting in a, er, contemplative environment and noticed that the hole through the middle of the roll seemed to have increased in size significantly. So I checked the packaging and it transpired that the twelve-pack rolls comprised only 200 sheets, as compared to 400 sheets in the four-pack rolls.

Thus while the packs gave the impression of comparing the price of four rolls with twelve, in actual fact the four rolls were effectively comparable with six in the bigger pack. So while buying the bigger pack seemed significantly better value, the reality was that the price per, ahem, wipe was largely similar.

The moral of all this of course being that the figures being bandied about in relation to the Edinburgh trams fiasco should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. Or several pints of coke.

Marketing gimmicks and political spin. Not much difference, just a change of environment.

*Officially 'toilet tissue', terminology which I doubt the average purchaser of the Value range uses much.