Since I gave up gazzling gallons of Lemon Lucozade (not good for diabetes, you see) my drink of choice is now sparkling mineral water with squeezed lime juice.Having just been down to the local Tesco to buy some limes I thought I should share with you the fact that they have gone up in price by 33%! Still, inflation is only 4%, so I find that deeply reassuring.
Fresh food does tend to fluctuate like that though. Did they go up from 6p to 8p?
ReplyDeleteHere's how to get them for nothing:
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday buy a News of the World (95p) Inside there should be a voucher for £5 off at Tescos if you buy £30 of shopping.
Buy 30 quids worth of shopping including 4 quids worth of limes and, hey presto, you get them for nothing.
Buy a lot of limes from a street market; they will be cheap and plentiful in areas where there are a fair number of people of Asian or Caribbean origin.
ReplyDeleteSqueeze them all, freeze in ice cube trays, transfer to bags.
Add a cube to your mineral water.
From my own experiments, frozen lime juice will stay good for at least 6 months. You can also home freeze grapefruit juice, but not orange juice as it goes bitter unless you pasteurise it.
I'm not remotely surprised. The official figure has so many valid exclusions to keep it low that it's removed all relevance.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC website had some "inflation calculator" not long ago, where you could work out what your level of inflation was at based on what you use. I believe the average figure generated was around 20%.
That sounds more believable that 4% doesn't it? Although I suppose the 4% lie is better for the economy. If the official figure hit 20% there would be carnage.
If you find that your sinuses are getting bunged up more often, suspect the citrus. If not, count yourself lucky.
ReplyDeleteMr Mr Mr Mr Mr Annonymous.
ReplyDeleteInflation has risen to, erm, to about temporarily to 3.9%, so erm , for ease lets just call it 3%.
Mr mr mr anon.. you are quite mistaken in your calculations. And if you were correct it would be the fault of erm, erm , Mrs Thatcher who started global warming, the credit crunch and not negotiating with the facist Junta of Argentina that led to the second Iraq war.
Mr Speaker..Mrs Thatcher invented inflation and fed it to the miners instead of milk.
She dug up all the windmills and replaced them with nuclear missiles. She closed down, erm ,all , the, the, the greyhound tracks and replaced them with sailing parks for the Tory elite.
I heard it on 5 live with Iain Dale.
Lime is cheaper in street markets. In North Islington, you the can buy a bowl full of lime for a £1 or two bowls for £1.50 if you go near the closing time on Saturdays.
ReplyDeleteLOL - in the early '90s I was a (crap) investment banker at Lazard.
ReplyDeleteThen, the CEO of a FTSE 100 company, at a meeting at which I was assistant-junior-bag-carrier, during a 'troubled moment' for his firm, opined:
"Bloody John Major and Norman Lamont. A rise in inflation is the only way we can rescue our balance sheet from all the bloody debt we have"
In the short-term, an irristible point
Are the laws of supply / demand suspended in your part of the world then?
ReplyDeleteIf the lime growers of the have a crap harvest one month, it will push prices up. What's that got to do with inflation?
As a regular buyer of Twiglets from Tesco, I have noticed how the price seems to fluctuate wildly between 76p and £1.20 - almost double the cheapest price.
ReplyDeletePresumably this is caused by crop problems on the Twiglet trees in the country where they are produced?
Lime is cheaper in street markets. In North Islington, you the can buy a bowl full of lime for a £1 or two bowls for £1.50 if you go near the closing time on Saturdays.
ReplyDeleteOh god can you picture this person.Urban parasol ,small square glasses,little beard, faux-mosexual.Probably buys limes for some recipe from Thailand ...In South London life is cheap but in North Islington Lime is cheap !!
The twiglet harvest has been badly hit by the voracious marmite weevil... you're lucky you're not reduced to serving wotsits as pre-dinner nibbles.
ReplyDeleteI am just about to buy a Sony TV. I first looked at the model I have chosen about 18 months ago. The price was then £1100. It is now only £499. I could buy a lot of limes with that deflationery difference of £601.
ReplyDeleteanonaLon ... Normal price is probably around 76p fer yer twiggies , every couple of months the price will double and is held for 28 days , allowing them to advertise the following month "now at half price" ( stock will have built up due to reduced sales at the higher price too) ...!Key line eye level point of sale leader ..!
ReplyDeleteCheck the sell buy date and stock up at the lower one , shelf life's over a year ,sealed, probably anyways .....Mugs at the full whack, margin will be over 100%
Lots of products do that .!. the other one is two fer the price of one , but one was twice the normal original markup anyways for the legal required minimum ....
all a bit nobby
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"Phand a bowl guv" in walthamstow market...innit.. or if yer really desperate ... join the eastern Eurolandians (Albainians methinks) after closing time, and scavenge the lefties before the bin men gets them ! , fill a carrier bag of close to near pulp if yer not too particular ...! Sats the best day, as the markets are closed Sunday, and the borderline stuff will not keep ...........
hmmmm there's tasty isn't it !
No doubt the limes were flown in from Paraguay or somewhere so the reality is:
ReplyDelete4.4% increase in inflation
30% increase in petrol costs
20% increase in environmental taxes
30% increase in wages for Make Trade Fair
20% increase due to the poorly performing Sterling.
And yes, I'm probably thinking what you're thinking, bloody Fair Trade laws hitting us in the wallet....
Can I just say, some excellent and very, very funny comments.
ReplyDeleteI'm with The Honourable Bill Quango MP and thank him for his excellent analysis of the current trends.
I too ADORE street markets! I love the people, the earthiness of it all, and the limes! SOOOO cheap!
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ReplyDeleteSony TV guy.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Jamie Oliver could think up a recipe for all these cheap TV's that will keep the nation fed for years.
"Every Little Bit of Inflation Helps."
ReplyDeleteOoh, you are awful, but I like you.
What with this post and the Gordon Brown post earlier... I think I should ask what you HAVE been drinking today? :-)
ReplyDeleteoh bugger, forgot my password again
ReplyDeleteoh bugger, forgot my password again
ReplyDeleteJust like EVERYTHING else that is green nowadays!
ReplyDeleteCan cost you a fortune!!
Inflation is always difficult to measure. I remember (in the days when deflation/low inflation was the problem) that there were all sort of issues. Take the problem of three for the price of two. Say a supermarket sells socks for 1 pound a pair. Chinese socks arrive and the supermarket continues to sell a pair for 1 pound, but offers 3 pairs for 2 pounds. Technically the price for a single pair is flat, but anyone buying socks probably buys three for the price of two, representing a -33% change in price. The stats office will tend to assume prices are flat. Thus inflation was overstated in this period. Now, we no longer get three for the price of two, and this represents a 50% increase in effective prices. So the effective inflation rate would probably be about 1.5% higher once one takes into account these factors. (just as it used to be about 1% lower when price destruction was at its most extreme.)
ReplyDeleteYou made a mistake .
ReplyDeleteYou did not buy your drink with 1% added digital TV with HD and Surround Sound which has fallen in price by 30%...
Just inherited £220,000k from an Aunt.
ReplyDeleteI pray for higher inflation as I get more interest and can't wait for the property prices to crash as I will pick up a cheap house.
Thank you so much Gordon Brown and everyone at Nu Labour who have helped make this happen!
...love inflation the returns are great
good advice from tachybaptus but only use plastic ice cube trays as aluminium (there may be some of these still in use) reacts with the acid in the lime and it tastes horrible.
ReplyDeleteAll this inflation malarkey is a scam.
ReplyDeleteI went down to Poundland yesterday and everything is still a quid. If they can keep their prices stable, anyone can.
Scaremongers
When will Iain Dale's Inflation Lime-omitor become part of the ONS? Its clearly a more acurate measure than CPI or RPI.
ReplyDeleteFYI the papers were reporting last week that the price of milk has been cut to around 27p, similar levels to the 1970s. Maybe you could be like "Leon" and just drink milk!
In Sainsburys Limes went from 15 to 20p
ReplyDeleteIain, my favourite low-alcohol tipple is sparkling mineral water in a long glass with ice and a dash (half a teaspoonful) of Angostura bitters.
ReplyDeleteNo idea if it's compatible with a diabetes regime, but if lime juice is OK the modicum of alcohol in it should be OK too? Plus you get the bonus of posing with a drink which, like yourself, is pink, plae, and interesting.
Beyond New Labour said...
ReplyDelete"FYI the papers were reporting last week that the price of milk has been cut to around 27p"
But only for the weekend. Leave the shopping to the servants, do you?
Do ANY of you silly buggers live in the real world? Gas and electricity just got yoinked by 30% upwards..
ReplyDelete