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By Les Scammell, November 23, 2009 12:27 pm

Aldi are trying hard to become Australia’s third major supermarket chain. At the same time they are trying to offer far more than simple groceries. The question is are their products really good value.

Unlike most supermarkets, you could not do your complete grocery shopping at Aldi. There are a lot of products they simply do not stock so you are forced to go to other supermarkets anyway. The products they do sell are competitively priced, often well below supermarkets. Some of the products are great value.

Baby nappies (diapers) are very well priced and very good quality. Many of their groceries lines seem to be good quality as well. I know there are times when I buy one of the grocery items to try out and I am quite surprised at the good quality. Breakfast cereals are a good example – I know my kids prefer them to any other.

When it comes to Aldi electricals I start to have some doubts. I know we purchased one of their wide screen LCD television sets. It worked well for about 13 months then just died. Warranty – I will be honest here and say I cannot remember if it was one year or two year – but I will warn everyone who buys and Aldi product that has a warranty beyond three months – photo copy your receipt. The receipts that are issued by Aldi are printed on thermal paper. Any sign of heat in the air and those receipts will turn to black and the printing (and proof of purchase) totally lost. So even if it did have a two year warranty, I don’t have the receipt as proof of purchase date etc.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that Aldi products are all European. Aldi as a brand may be European but most of their products come from Asia. Electricals like TV’s are cheap products that have been rebadged – or badged by the manufacturer for Aldi.

The crazy part is, these products work very well. I have not come across many products that I wasn’t happy with. Just don’t expect a long service from any of their products.

Is there good value shopping at Aldi? For grocery items, yes. For electricals, I think you may be better off buying a named brand from one of the larger retailers. The Aldi TV was around $500. For an extra $300 I could have purchased a similar Sanyo product, with a proper receipt and much better service history. I could have used the $500 as a deposit, say at Big W, and paid the other $300 off over the next six or so weeks.

It is a pity. I do like their products but so far I am sitting at three for three when it comes to failures.

photo credit: iwouldstay

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By Les Scammell, November 23, 2009 1:11 am

What’s caught my eye in the news this week? Plenty and I must say there is a diverse number of articles.

The world is probably sick of hearing about Britney Spears but once again she has appeared in the news and for all the wrong reasons – what’s new. I don’t know about you, but if I was foolish enough to pay $200+ for tickets to one of her concerts, I would expect to hear her sing – not watch her lip sync to one of her CD’s, especially when she does it so poorly.

Australian fans have been quite irate at her actions on stage. In fact, some have complained that her dance routines were off as well. Poor Britney can’t seem to do anything wrong. It seems a lot of the tickets to he concerts went unsold.

Whilst Britney was failing to flatter, Hulk Hogan was getting flattened – or was he? With professional wrestling it’s hard to know if they are acting or for real. However a news conference which featured Hogan and rival Ric Flair ended with Hogan leaving covered in blood, several reporters with damaged equipment. Flair apparently threw a table off the stage and into the press before diving onto photographers. That’s wrestling for you.

Talking of wrestling, one elderly hospital patient in the southern state of Tasmania wasn’t fit enough to wrestle – in fact, he couldn’t even get the attention of any of the nurses. He woke to find he was bleeding from a wound drain and rang his call bell to obtain assistance. In desperation he phoned his wife who then dialed triple-0 (911 in the states) to see if emergency services could help him. I know there is a shortage of nurses but that is getting to the ridiculous stage. Fortunately all turned out well.

Of course the elderly do occasionally get themselves into trouble. Take the poor old guy who took a wrong turn on his way home. He wound up 600km (400 miles) from home and in another state. He rather sheepishly approached police asking for directions home. They were quite amazed to hear how far from home he was. Asked why he hadn’t asked for help his answer was pretty simple – “I love to drive”. Sounds like me.

He may be a little late now for this Wednesday’s national ‘go home on time‘ campaign. Yes – there is a campaign afoot to have every Australian worker actually go home on time. Crikey, the country will grind to halt – no one goes home on time. I do sympathize with this movement. Australian bosses do like to get their little extra out of their employees, unpaid. When I say little extra, some workers find they are staying back to finish task for more than hour each day – unpaid. Let’s all “go home on time” on Wednesday.

The stories from overseas that caught my attention include, from Russia, an article concerning three homeless people who were suspected of eating a 25-year-old man they had butchered. Not only did they eat parts of him, they sold the uneaten parts to a local kebab house. Kebab anyone?

Finally, one rather enterprising gentleman in Taiwan was arrested recently. It appears he would get on the internet and post photos of a young handsome man. He would use these photos to get to know young women. Part of his ruse included telling these women that his father ‘needed sex to cure a condition’. Many of them agreed and so met with the gent. His ruse came to an end when some of the women tried to go further with the relationship with the non-existent young man. Still – surely they knew something was up – I mean, sex to cure a medical condition – how naive.