M&S green Thai chicken curry served with Boston new potatoes.
OK, but not great. I can make better Thai green curry. And better in a Thai restaurant.
But, far better than the disgusting Thai dish from Cook.
Posts Tagged ‘M&S’
M&S green Thai chicken curry
May 11, 2024M&S chicken in black bean Chinese takeaway box
January 26, 2023M&S chicken in black bean Chinese takeaway box launched to coincide with Chinese New Year.
The hype, better than a Chinese takeaway.
I can only assume they must visit very poor Chinese takeaways.
The reality, very poor quality.
Another M&S fail.
M&S magic coffee
January 13, 2023RISTRETTO This translates from the Italian as restricted and the idea is to produce an even smaller and stronger cup of coffee than an espresso. This is done by using less brewing water for the same amount of ground coffee. The grind of the coffee should be finer so the brew time remains long enough to extract all the desirable aromatics from the coffee. — James Hoffmann
A lot of hype. Magic coffee in M&S? All the way from Melbourne. Give it a silly name.
What’s it like? My expectations not high.
Nothing special. Not disgusting undrinkable as would expect from Starbucks or Costa.
A ristretto double shot with foamed milk in a small 6oz glass.
The coffee I do not know, as was with a friend and did not ask. But what I did notice, the coffee not freshly ground.
Lazy scribblers, regurgitate M&S press release with column-inch filling drivel.
M&S have trade marked magic coffee. This goes against the philosophy of coffee, innovate, spread knowledge, raise standards, and M&S did not even innovate, by their own admission, they stole the idea from Melbourne.
A ristretto shorter extraction, slightly finer than espresso grind to compensate for shorter extraction, usually served as a double shot. The only ‘innovation’ with M&S magic coffee, to serve in a 6oz glass with steamed milk on top.
A speciality coffee shop, with high grade beans, freshly ground, skilled barista, would serve a far better coffee.
Update: I looked back in M&S Cafe the following week to learn a little more about magic coffee. A blend of four beans, over roasted, not ground for ristretto, not fresh ground or weighed, same shot as espresso, thus not a ristretto shot.
M&S turkey crown
January 3, 2023What fool pays over £85 for poor quality M&S turkey crown? Last week sold off for £21.
Carrots, celery sticks and a small onion cut into quarters, forms a rack for the turkey to sit on.
Fan oven 160C for two hours and twenty minutes.
The last hour a tray with par boiled potatoes and pigs in blankets.
Part way through, the turkey crown taken out of the oven and basted with the juices.
Turkey covered with bacon. A good idea, stops the turkey drying out, the bacon crisps. Except not a good idea, beneath the bacon a thin layer of stuffing which gave a vile taste to the gurkey.
Served with toasted potatoes, peas and mixed beans, cauliflower and pigs in blankets.
The M&S pigs in blankets very poor quality.
Turkey crown very poor quality cf organic chicken from Riverford. Poor quality cf turkey from local butcher.
Accompanied by red wine from Puglia.
Finished off the day with a Negroni.
M&S very poor quality spinach and ricotta ravioli
September 7, 2022Very poor quality pasta from M&S.
Use fresh pasta. Win win win.
- less time
- less energy
- quality pasta
Fresh ravioli
- 3-4 minutes pan of boiling water
- melt a knob of butter in a pan
- add a little pasta water
- toss pasta in butter
Fresh pasta saves on time, saves on fuel. And saves on the plastic.
M&S plastic obscenity
July 19, 2019The plastic obscenity that is M&S gets worse.
Plastic Free July, but would not know this from visiting M&S.
Shrink-wrapped coconuts, bananas rotting in plastic bags, and just when think cannot get worse, M&S are giving away plastic copies of their produce.
Quite why anyone would wish for plastic replicas of M&S goods is beyond me. More totally unnecessary plastic waste.
Yet another massive retail fail by a failing retailer.
M&S shwopping scam
April 28, 2012
shwopping not the future of fashion
M&S shwopping scam
Thursday, to much fanfare, M&S launched shwopping.
– M&S cynical exercise in greenwash
M&S were concerned at the billion items of clothing that go to landfill every year. They wished to do something about it, bring your unwanted clothes to M&S and M&S will recycle the clothes.
A dumb video featuring Joanna Lumley emptying her wardrobe and taking her unwanted clothes to M&S to be recycled.
The CEO of M&S was asked could people bring their unwanted clothes to M&S and not buy anything. The fraction of a second hesitation, before he answered yes, said it all.
The day after the launch. I checked out shwopping.
A big poster in the window of M&S, very much in your face as you walked into and around the store, even the staff wore badges encouraging you to shwop. You could not miss that shwopping was the next big thing, the future of fashion, as M&S claim.
The store was not, as I expected to find, awash with unwanted clothes.
I asked a very helpful lady, had they been inundated with unwanted clothes all day.
No, she replied, she did not think any clothes had come in.
She pointed to a small box where people were to dump their unwanted clothes.
Could we please have a look inside, I asked.
We looked and found a couple of carrier bags of what we assumed to be clothes.
Is, this it, I asked.
Looks like it, she replied.
She then explained how the scam, oops sorry, scheme worked.
People were to go through their wardrobe, find all what they did not wear and bring it into M&S so it could be worn by someone else.
So far, so good, but not quite the stopping unwanted clothes going to landfill as the clothes were not going anywhere, the clothes were sitting in a wardrobe.
She then went on to explain that whilst in M&S you could buy new clothes, and that there was an incentive to do so as you could enter a prize draw and win £100 of M&S vouchers.
The helpful lady then handed me a leaflet, a step by step guide to shwopping:
Come in store for those new season’s ‘must have’ and bring an old item of clothing with you.
And there you have it, this is not a green initiative, this is about shopping, buying those ‘must have’ fashion items, consumerism writ large.
The very name says it all shwopping not shwapping. The emphasis is on shopping not swapping.
Deborah Orr could not have put it better in an article in The Guardian:
One is tempted to suggest M&S would achieve its aims better if it discouraged feckless clothes-buying, by specialising in more expensive investment items, made in Britain, like it used to. Or refrained from selling so much of its food in plastic packaging.
But all retailers want consumers to keep consuming. If they can market the idea that it’s green to do so, they will. And “Shwopping”? It’s an ugly word for a mildly dubious enterprise. I don’t suppose there’s much harm in it. But I can’t help feeling it’s not good enough for such enthusiastic endorsement from Lumley.
Some apologists say it closes the loop. No it does not, as you are going out and buying new clothes.
Shwapping, closing the loop, would be to buy from charity shops, donate to charity shops.
M&S are to be complimented on a very slick marketing campaign, ease the conscience, whilst carry on shopping.
This is a bit like airlines who offer to plant a few trees to offset the carbon of the flight. Only it does not.
The carbon of the flight is emitted over a period of a few hours. The tree absorbs the carbon over seventy years for a fast growing tree, a few centuries for a slow growing oak. And this ignores who looks after the trees, who safeguards the trees.
Fast fashion is a very dirty industry. Growing of and processing cotton (unless organic) is highly polluting. Irrigating cotton leaves the land coated in salt, the hazardous chemical sprays pollute the land and water supplies, processing of cotton, the bleaching and dying, more hazardous chemicals. Then the cotton goes into the sweatshops to be turned into the clothes we wear.
Anything that closes the loop, that uses natural materials, is to be welcome. But that is not what M&S is doing.
Slow fashion: Clothes that are well designed, clothes that look stylish, clothes that we value, that we launder and repair, clothes that can easily be recycled.
Fast fashion: Cheap clothes (though at a cost to people and planet), clothes we throw away, that cannot be easily recycled and end up in landfill.
Slow fashion will come from a small designer, we can ask where the clothes come from, how they were made, the materials used.
The CEO of M&S claimed they were buying British.
Thursday evening In Business on BBC Radio 4 looked at what was left of the textile industry in Lancashire. One of the mills had M&S pull the plug and they collapsed overnight.
The CEO of M&S claimed they were the No 1 High Street retailer on the environment, way ahead of other High Street retailers.
Really, thought I, is that why you import King Edward potatoes from Israel?
What of Lush, thought I.
Next visit was to Lush. I told them of shwopping and the claim from M&S No 1 on the environment.
To say they were incredulous would be an understatement.
Why do you not shout about your environmental credentials I asked.
We do not need to all the staff chorused, all you have to do is look around our shop and you can see with your own eyes.
They were right.
We then had a long discussion on environmental matters and I signed their petition calling for a ban on animal testing of products.
How many products in M&S are tested on animals?
It is not what M&S say they are doing, but what they are doing that matters.
I picked up from M&S a prawn and avocado sandwich. It was inside a paper bag with a plastic window. The paper bag was lined with plastic. Virtually impossible to recycle. When I opened up my bag, I Found my sandwich to be inside a plastic tray!
The only positive thing about the M&S cynical greenwash exercise, is that it has highlighted the amount of clothes that go to landfill. But you do not solve this by emptying your wardrobe and restocking it from M&S.
You solve it by adopting slow fashion. Slow fashion is the fashion of the future simply because it is the only fashion that is sustainable.
Will M&S be advising to buy quality clothes, to not buy so many clothes, to look after our clothes, to recycle our unwanted clothes to extend their useful life?
I somehow think not.
– M&S cynical exercise in greenwash
– Lush Cosmetics – Our Environmental Policy
– ‘Shwopping’? An ugly word for a dubious enterprise
– Do we recycle enough of our clothes?
– Disposable clothes
– M&S launches ‘shwopping’ scheme
– Joanna Lumley joins M&S to launch shwopping
– Joanna Lumley launches Marks & Spencer’s Shwopping campaign
M&S cynical exercise in greenwash
April 26, 2012
M&S CEO Marc Bolland and Joanna Lumley at The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, London for the launch of new campaign 'Shwopping'.
I listened with growing incredulity to the M&S breathtaking crass hypocrisy and exercise in greenwash on You and Yours BBC Radio 4 this lunchtime.
M&S are shedding crocodile tears at the amount of clothes that are dumped every year in landfill. A billion items of clothing they claim. Their solution is that we take all our unwanted clothes to M&S for recycling, and no doubt replace with new clothes whilst we are there.
Cut out the middle man, take your clothes direct to a charity shop.
Support slow fashion, not fast fast; dress for style, not fashion; buy quality, not rubbish.
Is it necessary to replace what is in a wardrobe every few months with new clothes?
In M&S their food is over-packaged. I suggest we return all our packaging to M&S.
M&S charge 5p for a plastic carrier bag. Read carefully the small print: Only 1p goes to an environmental charity. This a cynical ploy to milk the customer and to distract from their over-packaging.
Why no paper bags in M&S for our loose fruit and vegetables? The bags can then be recycled or composted.
The stuff we buy spends less than six months in our homes before it continues on its one-way linear trip to landfill or incinerator.
M&S compared the recycling of clothes through their stores with the successful recycling of glass bottles! When was the last time anyone took a glass bottle back? We recycle glass, not bottles!
Yes, we need to reduce our waste and energy consumption. We do so by reducing consumption and increasing recycling, not by taking our unwanted clothes to M&S and whilst we are there replacing old for new.
When you donate to charity shops, choose the smaller charities who do not throw away after a couple of weeks what you have taken the trouble to donate. Avoid Oxfam and British Heart Foundation who rip off customers with the prices they charge. Another reason to avoid Oxfam is that they are the partners in this greenwash scheme with M&S to encourage increased consumption.
Are people really this gullible that they fall for a cynical exercise in greenwash?
Shwoping is a slick marketing campaign to encourage easily led fools to empty their wardrobes and run off down to M&S to buy more clothes. Green it is not.
A green campaign, which shwopping claims to be, would encourage slow fashion, to buy quality, to value our clothes, not throw them away.
Shwoping is not sustainable fashion.
‘Slow fashion’ was coined by Kate Fletcher. It has evolved from slow food, is part of the slow movement.
– Do we recycle enough of our clothes?
– Disposable clothes
– Oxfam rips off its customers (yet again)
– M&S launches ‘shwopping’ scheme
– Joanna Lumley joins M&S to launch shwopping
– Joanna Lumley launches Marks & Spencer’s Shwopping campaign
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