Today tonite shite

It's not often that I get the time to sit down and watch commercial TV news and "current affairs". I caught this story tonight on the difference in quality between fruit and veg in rich suburbs and poor suburbs.

Where do I begin to describe this pox ridden pile of filth? The article was spruiked along the lines of people in poor suburbs getting old crap fruit and vegies and rich suburbs getting nice new fruit.

Duh?!

Like, it's called "the market". There is an old nostrum that "you get what you pay for". It turned out towards the end of the article that people in 'rich' suburbs like moi are paying 80% more for oranges and 40% more for tomatoes. Shit, I wonder if that kind of explains the difference in quality?

They then showed a range of fruitbats on the street that came out with statements like "we should all get the same quality food - we're all Australians". I'm sorry Mrs Fruitbat-on-the-street, but there is Bill of Rights that has a clause saying, "All Australians have the right to top quality apples".

For starters, there is only so much premium quality fruit to go around. People who are prepared to pay more get the best stuff, and people that are not prepared to pay much get the leftovers. It's called a "market clearing price". When I want to make tomato paste, I go to the Flemington Markets and shop around for a box of really cheap tomatoes - maybe something along the lines of $4 a box, or about 50 cents a kilo. You know that you are not gettint fabo quality tomatoes to grace a tip-top salad. Some will be squishy. Some will have yucky fungusy bits. You just chop those bits off and chuck them in the pot. They're for making sauce, for fucks sake.

People in low income suburbs are unlikely to pay $6 for an organic, super-grade quality avocado. I shit you not - when I used to shop in Crows Nest, I used to visit the organic shop there, and that is what I once paid for an avocado in the hope that I'd be getting a really nice, tasty avocado. Well, it was good, but I never went back and paid $6 again. I just can't afford to buy a few $6 avocados a week. I can afford to buy maybe 2 avocados a week at $2. If I was busted arse poor, maybe I'd only buy avocados when they were 50 cents each. Heck, if I was busted arse poor and living in a lower socio-economic area, I'd be forgoing the fruit and simply eating at McDonalds.

Anyway, fruit and vegie people are smart. They are switched on. They know what their customers want intimately, as what they can't sell after a few days goes in the bin. They have to be on their toes. A vegie guy in say Logan in Brisbane is not going to be stocking hyper-expensive fruit. He knows all his customers have big-arsed mortgages and no spare cash and are living on white bread and vegemite sandwiches. He'll stock the basics, and it will all be fair-average quality. Nothing ritzy. People don't have the money to pay big prices in those areas.

So what are those dumb fucks at TT suggesting? That we create a Socialist marketplace (there's a term that's totally fucked up) where the rich subsidise the fruit bought by the poor? Get fucked.

What the story should have said is that poor saps like me in expensive suburbs are getting ripped off by being given no choice when it comes to fruit and vegie quality. We only get flashy fruit with no blemishes etc that costs a bomb, since lots of slightly blemished or damaged stuff gets ditched to meet our supposedly fussy tastes in fruit appearance.

Let's replace the word "fruit" with "cars". The story then says, "People in poor socio-economic areas are driving crappy old cars whilst people in rich suburbs are driving Mercedes".

And your point is??? When you put it that way, Today tonight looks like a pot of Marxists wearing too much makeup.