I believe it was Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart who originally coined the phrase "The Customer Is Always Right". Well guess what, the customer is not always right. However sometimes the customer is, so I find myself a little bemused after my experience in ASDA (a wholly owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart) yesterday. Even if I'm wrong on this count, the principle still stands. Let me explain to the best of my memory...

As with many retailers, ASDA offer a scheme where you can buy one product and get another at a reduced rate, or even free. Yesterday while I was shopping I happened upon a refrigeration unit at the end of one of the aisles containing a variety of 'party food'. Amongst the items were a selection of breaded cheeses (which are quite nice) whose individual price was £2.67. Also, on the very same shelves were packs of 'Pigs in a Blanket' (mini sausages wrapped in Bacon) at £3 each, something which I became quite fond of when doing the Atkins diet several years ago.

All the items in this section, including the two mentioned below were labeled as "Buy any 2 for £5". The keyword here is any.

So I proceeded to add three cheese selections and three Piggies to my basket, expecting a total price of £15 for the six items, and continued with my shopping. I'm a big fan of the self scan checkouts and made my way over and began scanning, the first six items being the cheese and pigs, and as a result I instantly became aware on scanning the sixth item of the pairs that only two pair had been discounted. "No matter," I thought, "I'll just nip over to the customer services desk and they'll sort it".

Or so I thought.

The customer service desk was staffed by a lone young lady, and I showed her the items and my receipt. She looked a little inexperienced and, understandably, after trying to get hold of somebody for several minutes, asked one of her colleagues for assistance, an older lady.

"It's because some are frozen and others are chilled" she informed me.

"Erm, no." I replied, "they're all from the chilled section, from the very same shelves in a refrigerator on the end of one of the aisles" (which as everyone probably knows, isn't a particularly large space).

"Ah, they're a different price" was her next response.

"But they all have the ANY 3 for £5 banner on them, and they all came from the same section where they were mixed in with each other" I replied.

"That doesn't matter, they must all be the same original price"

"I'm sorry? That's not how it usually works. There's nothing to say this on the display, and since they are all together it's misleading"

"Yes, we get a lot of this" she continued, "but they have to be the same original price to qualify".

With this she called over another passing colleague, and in an exasperated tone asked her "These all have to be the same price to qualify for the discount don't they" (I've omitted the question mark there as it came across as more of a statement).

Needless to say the new lady agreed, re-stated the fact, and walked off.

"It's never worked like this before," I protested, "It says any on the packing, they're from the same shelves and there's nothing to say you can't match. Every other time you're able to mix related products under the same offer. I'm actually only missing a smaller discount than if I had two of the £3 items so I'm saving you money".

Now I know it's Christmas and these people had probably been working hard all morning and were as stressed as everyone else, and despite this I always make sure I talk to staff in a polite and calm manner, no matter how agitated I may be on the inside, but sometimes the people you are discussing with cannot return the same courtesy, so it was surprised that with some abruptness she replied:

"Well if we did that you would have people mixing dairy with fruit and expecting the discount"

Sorry? Where did that come from? I was talking about two items from the same section! It was about this point I realised I was wasting my time, I was giving up but still felt it was worth another try, so let's go for the apathy approach:

"Yes I can fully see that, but this is a little misleading don't you think, after all the items are together and from the same range".

It wasn't any good. At this point she turned to the young girl on the desk and asked her to "get the fresh produce manager to explain to the gentleman".

The store was busy, so I waited a while, but realising I would probably be wasting my time I thanked the girl on the desk for her help, explained I realised it wasn't "her fault" and made my way out of the shop.

Politeness cost nothing so I was happy in remaining polite. This normally does wonders, however I've left ASDA feeling at worst cheated, at best mislead. The sad fact is I do most of my shopping in ASDA, and since I live easy walking distance away from the store this will probably continue to be the case. But at least for the time being I'll be spending less and visiting alternative supermarkets more, all for the sake of £1.01 - I have no doubt they'll loose many times this from my amended shopping patterns.

Just to tie up - in case anyone from ASDA reads this and wants to respond, here's some bullet points for you:

1. Please train your staff to be a little more courteous. Your young girl on the desk was let down by older members of staff who clearly viewed me as an irritation from the start. We all have bad days, but I'm sure this isn't the image you want to put across.
2. Please consider revising your packaging if these products genuinely were not eligible for the promotion when purchased together. Otherwise, again, please train your staff correctly.
3. Please, where possible, come to the customer service desk when called as quickly as possibly. I was stood there far too long waiting for people to arrive.

I would just like to close by stating that I don't write this to try and blackmail any vouchers, etc. In fact at this stage I would be offended by such an offer. However if somebody from ASDA (or Mr Wing the branch manager) would like to send me a letter of apology for the way I was treated, I'd gladly accept that. Most of all I'd like to see some evidence that this won't happen again.

Well, the interwebs are alive with the squeals of delight from the few of us who managed to get our hands on a Wii (I got mine on the 12th hour, metaphorically speaking, from Nige). Never before have I been too physically tired to play video games!

It's a cute little bugger which (fortunately) fits neatly under my TV with the other gear (it's getting quite scary down there, especially around the back with all those cables and wires), and such is the excitement around it we're already up to four controllers.

I'll leave others to wax lyrical about what a treat this beauty is to play, especially against (or should that be with) other people. Suffice to say it offers a different gaming experience to the XBox 360. In fact I've been surprised how many people I've shown this to who say (without prompting) that it's a console for the whole family, not just the kids in the family.

Just one word of warning though, you need a lot of space for four aggressive people to play tennis without somebody getting hurt.

See the Nintendo forum on my web site for more news and views on the Wii.

The Microsoft mapping site (http://local.live.com/) just keeps getting better, so much so it's now scary!

I've just installed the 3D view plugin and it goes down to an amazing level of detail over my house:

There seems to be a lot of the country covered in this much detail, and you can view towards any of the four main compass directions (the above picture is viewed looking east). This is all truly amazing and I just wonder where it could all go!

I've always argued that GPS systems should not show buildings on their display, but now I'm not so sure... perhaps when you're approaching your destination this kind of view (overlaid with roads for where tall buildings obscure the view) would be just what you need.

The technology is obviously almost there, so it's only a matter of time (and demand) now.

I'm truly excited by this.

By the way, mine is the house with the two silver cars in front of it not where the pushpin is. I'm just no good at putting pins in maps with a mouse!