What really aled me over Christmas!

FROM MY CORNER .... with Ann Brunswick

Want to know what really aled me over the festive season?
My festive season was totally ruined by an uncaring and thoughtless multinational company and I want to share the details with you!
You’re wrong if you thought it was Telstra. Understandable guess though, under the circumstances. And no, it wasn’t some mobile telephone company or power supplier that tried to stiff me with an inflated bill. That happens a lot, too, doesn’t it? TransLink charging me a motza cos I’m an old fashioned gal who likes paper travel tickets? Not that, either.
No, it was one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of softdrinks – the Schweppes organisation. Here’s how it unfolded. At the end of a long day or night, the final trick to winding down after working a corner for as long as I do, is to get home, kick off the high heels, discard the wig and enjoy a scotch and dry. Surprised, loyal readers?
I bet many of you saw your Ann as a gin and tonic sort of gal, but no. To get the bitter taste of a day’s hard grind out of the system, your Ann turns to a nice highland malt, a few ice cubes and a splash of dry to take the edge of the spirit. Heresy, I know, to true whisky afficionados, but there it is. And herein lies the problem.
My bitch is with Mr Schweppes and his little 330ml bottles of ginger ale. And I’m not talking about how they reduced the amount to 330ml a few years ago when they stylised the bottle a tad. Didn’t reduce the price then, did they, but that’s a bitch for another day.
No, I’m talking about how it’s just about bloody impossible to unscrew the tops of these blasted things. True! I know some people out there in Indieland see me as Wonder Woman, but while we might look alike, sadly I don’t have the strength of that glorious creature.
You just simple cannot get the top off these bloody things You can try a very dry tea towel, run the top under hot water for a half-hour and all you get is sore hands, sorer shoulder muscles and a really bad mood.
Was it just a bad batch where the tension meter was too highly set during the bottling process;? No, because it’s been a problem your Ann has faced for months now. Unless you’ve got some pliers in the kitchen, or a piece of sandpaper handy, you just get angrier and angrier as you try without luck to open the bottle.
These things are just badly designed, and I want the head of this company’s CEO on a platter. I want their bottle designers sacked. And I’m calling on all Indie readers to boycott their miserable tight-sealed product so that they never operate in this country every again.
Why do I keep putting up with this problem in the first place? Kirk’s ginger ale is a mighty fine, albeit sweet softdrink that’s great on its own. But it just doesn’t mix well. So it looks like I might have to drop into a hardware store after work today and get a few sheets of coarse sandpaper – anything to avoid in future this nightly hissy fit I’ve been working myself into trying to open a bottle of Schweppes ginger ale!
Please make me feel better by letting me know if you’ve had similar problems with this product – or any other well-known brandname for that matter. Email me at ann@theindependent.com.au

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The Valley certainly lives up to its “Loud and Proud” image from time to time.
Your Ann was having an evening meal in one of those cafes on the northern side of the Valley Mall over Xmas/New Year and it turned out to be a very distressing and unpleasant experience, what with the wall of sound that was thundering across the mall from the Royal George, Ric’s and Kalibar. Honestly readers, Phil Spector would have sat bolt upright in his prison cot with pride at the mega decibels throbbing out of those venues. It became one almighty roar whereby you simply could not even begin to guess what particular deluge of decibels was coming out from which venue.