How To Do The Big Shop

Over the weekend the Algorithm saw fit to inflict on me several instances of an awful video by an influencer (female) complaining about another awful video by an influencer (male) talking about doing the Big Shop. I'm reasonably sure that the latter of these was either a parody, or perhaps someone advocating for deploying weaponized incompetence, while the former was a rant about the horrors of the mental load.

Anyway, as someone who is well-versed in the arts of the Big Shop, I thought I'd offer my advice.

Step One: Plan the Meals

The first step in the Big Shop is actually nothing to do with shopping, and is instead a matter of deciding what you're going to eat in the time covered by said Big Shop (in our case, that's the next week, but your timing may vary). This includes four things: breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks of various sorts.

(I should note at this point that for us three of those are pretty straightforward - we maintain supplies of some staples for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, and add only a few "specials"; that is, maybe a different breakfast for one weekend morning, or something for a lunch, or whatever. The only thing I really need to note is which days I need to make sandwiches for packed lunches.)

By and large, the person who is going to actually do the cooking should take the lead on this. Ideally, they should review their choices with the others in the household, just in case everyone is sick of pizza every night.

Step Two: Prepare the List

Now that you have the meals decided, the next step is to prepare the list for the Big Shop. Mostly, this involves working around the key rooms in the house and seeing what's coming to an end: if you're on your last tube of toothpaste, add that to the list; if you have plenty of mouthwash, maybe skip it this week. And so on and so forth.

I generally start upstairs with the bathrooms, then work through the cleaning products downstairs, and then add foodstuffs last. When it comes to the meals decided on in the previous step, dig out the list of ingredients, check what you have, and add anything you're missing.

Once complete, double-check the list. Then it's quite important to review it with others: firstly, with the person who is doing the cooking (as above), in case there's some implied accompaniment you've forgotten, and also with the other adults in the house. That extra check is definitely worthwhile: there's a good chance you've forgotten something, and there are potentially other things that need bought that you might not know about (I don't, for example, keep track of when LC is going to run out of shampoo and conditioner).

This is also the time for people to express any key preferences that they have: if there's a particular brand of toilet paper that they simply have to have, or they would like green apples instead of red this week, or whatever else, now is the time to say! (And if you're not going to be able to remember, write these preferences on the list!)

Quite important: The person who is actually going to do the Big Shop should also be the person who takes the lead on putting together the list. (Just as the person who does the cooking should usually be the person who cleans up afterwards...) That feels counter-intuitive, as people naturally want to split the labour, and this seems like a good place, but trust me on this one - as I mentioned above, there's a good chance you've forgotten something, and there's also a good chance that the review won't catch it. But there's a decent chance that you'll see the item when going around the shop and realize you need it... and that only works if you were the person who made the list.

(The reason for the cooking/clean-up thing is that it encourages efficiency - if you know you're going to have to do the clean-up, this provides incentive to only use those utensils you actually need and to clean as you go. Lacking that incentive the "occasional cook" is likely to leave a disaster area.)

Optional: Reordering the List

Having done the Big Shop a few times you should have the layout of the store memorised. So take a few minutes to rewrite the list in the order in which you'll find them in the shop. Especially if you have the list in an electronic format, this will save a disproportionate amount of time in the shop.

(That said, there's an even higher level of mastery where you transcend the need to do even that, and can simply mentally reorder the list as you go.)

Step Three: Shop

So, you've made a list, you've checked it twice, and so it's time to go to the shop.

This is actually the easiest bit of the job: go, put the things in the trolley, check you've got everything from each zone before you move to the next (to minimise backtracking), and once you've got everything, you're done.

Now, here's the bit that those two awful influencers got themselves in a mess with: supermarkets have a wide range of products, so how do you decide which of the dozen types of apples is the right one, or which of the fifty bottles of fabric softener is just right?

Here's the answer: either at the review at the end of Step Two, or perhaps at some time in the past, a strong preference may have been expressed on exactly what is wanted - as noted, it may be green apples this week; it may always be crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth. If so, that's the thing to get.

If there is no expressed preference, or said preference can't be fulfilled (because they don't have crunchy peanut butter), the person doing the Big Shop makes the choice. That may mean getting an alternative (a small jar of smooth peanut butter, or the store's own brand instead of the "good stuff", or whatever), or it might mean not getting anything ('cos you'll manage without, or pick it up somewhere else later).

Step Four: Take it Home

Once you've got all the stuff, paid for it, and packed it, it's time to take it home. You then get the joys of unpacking and putting it away. All of which is pretty easy: it's just work.

Responsibility of the Other Person

Where it seemed to go wrong for both of our awful influencers was a set of unreasonable expectations: on the one hand, the male influencer was apparently heading to the shop with a list, but also with a knowledge that his partner expected each and every item to be exactly the preferred one, necessitating a constant cycle of phoning home to check every decision. Meanwhile, the female influencer was complaining that their partner didn't have that exact list of preferences memorised - she objected to the mental load of having to maintain that knowledge.

Which, in both cases, is fairly idiotic.

In a sensible environment, here's how it works: where there are a reasonably small number of Important Preferences, the person doing the shopping should be able to memorise and apply those. Or, failing that, get them written down somewhere so they can be checked. If you partner hates Chardonnay, it's reasonable to expect that you'll know that and shop accordingly (I make no comment on how reasonable, or otherwise, that preference is - people are allowed to like or dislike things).

Beyond that reasonably small number of known preferences, it needs to not matter - if the choice of diluting juice isn't one of the Important Preferences, then when faced with the choice between "Summer Fruits" and "Apple & Blackcurrant" the person doing the shop should just make a choice (because it doesn't matter), and when they get back that choice shouldn't even warrant a comment (because it doesn't matter). Chances are the difference won't even be noticed.

However... If it is actually the case that one person have a large set of Important Preferences (because they must have green apples, and they must have "Apple & Blackcurrant" juice, and they must have a particular type of cheese, and and and...) then the solution is this: that person must be the one to do the Big Shop.

In short, then, the main responsibilities of the person who is not doing the job are to clearly express their Important Preferences beforehand, and then afterwards to accept that the person who is doing the job will then act independently on everything else.

(And, incidentally, that applies to just about everything else. The way I pack the dishwasher won't be exactly the same as the way you pack the dishwasher. Or batch clothes up for the washing machine, or wash the car, or whatever else the task is. But as long as the job gets done, the finer detail over preference doesn't really matter... and indeed needs to not matter. If for some reason it does really matter to one or the other, then that person needs to be the one doing that job.)

Two Last Notes:

1. I feel the need to reiterate that this post is entirely motivated by the two awful videos I referenced at the outset. Funnily enough, we more or less manage to get the Big Shop done without LC and I passive-aggressively sniping at one another. (Basically, I'm hoping that this will clear a bit of headspace that those videos have been filling over the past couple of days.)
2. Yes, pretty much everything here is, or should be, the bleeding obvious. I do hope that at least one of those videos was intended as a joke, because I'm increasingly finding myself wondering how supposed adults actually manage to get through the day.

Optimus Prime's Weakness of Leadership

Through a slightly bizarre sequence of events, that I'm not going to elaborate on, I found myself thinking once more about my great role-models for leadership. There are several of these, but two stand head and shoulders over the others: Jean-Luc Picard and, of course, Optimus Prime. Each of these has many fine qualities that tend towards exceptional leadership, including the ability to motivate and direct a diverse team so that they become more than the sum of their parts.

However, last time I found myself musing on Optimus Prime's leadership technique I found myself unavoidably recognizing one key weakness (and it's one I was reminded of again today). Ironically, it's something that I suspect the writers included thinking it showed the character's strength as a leader, not realizing it was the opposite.

Specifically, there are a number of times when Optimus is absent or unavailable: he gets injured, or captured, or dies, and at these times suddenly the team starts to unravel - there's no clear direction, everyone starts pulling in different directions, and nothing much gets done. Then Optimus (or in one case Rodimus) steps in and pulls things back together and all is well again.

I think that's supposed to show just how important the good leader is to the team. And it's true - a good leader is of huge importance to a team and can indeed cause the team to become more than the sum of its parts.

But...

It's also the case that there will be times when the team has to function in the absence of that leader, and one of the attributes of a good leader is that they will have prepared for exactly that eventuality. I can demonstrate this most effectively by referencing the other paragon on my list: in "Best of Both Worlds" Jean-Luc Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg, and the crew of the Enterprise have to manage in his absence.

And so what happens is that Riker, the nominated First Officer, steps up and assumes command. And for the remainder of the story he provides the direction and leadership. But even there, it's not quite as simple as one person replacing another - prior to that event Picard has established a clear culture within the crew such that everyone knows their role, everyone knows the expectations of how things need to be done, and so when Picard isn't there things just click into place.

Having a good leader in place is invaluable. But a big part of that is how they prepare the team for their absence. And, unfortunately, that was a weakness I was forced to recognize in my hero.

Experimental Cookery 2026: Chicken, Tomato, and Chickpea Stew

This one came from the Tesco magazine. It was dead easy to put together, although I made a crucial mistake by buying chicken drumsticks instead of drumstick fillets - this necessitated a fairly long bake instead of a fairly short simmer.

The end result was very nice, but would have been better without the bones and without the greens - I always like the idea of these, but they never live up to their promise (not to mention making me ill to at least some extent).

All in all, a success, and one we'll have again (albeit with the modifications mentioned above).

Two To-Dos

As I mentioned in my previous post, two of my goals are to update the church website and to sort out our garden. Each of these is a task with several subtasks, and as I may have a window of opportunity for dealing with some of these, here is the current state of affairs:

For the Church Website

I left this with the church calendar and sidebar up-to-date and the pages for discontinued groups disabled (meaning that at least there is no superfluous information on the site). My next steps are as follows:

1. Generate shell pages for all the new groups that don't currently have one.
2. Clean up the site menu - for some reason this is now not accepting updates, so I may need to generate an entirely new menu and insert that instead.
3. Clean up the "contact us" form and possible the maps.
4. Reach out to the various groups to get information to properly populate the individual pages.

For the Garden

This is the more likely to see progress in the near future. The steps for this one:

1. Dispose of the old gas canister. Since switching to the new charcoal BBQ, this is now superfluous.
2. Dispose of the old kids slide and seesaw - Funsize and Surprise! are too big for these now, and they've seen better days, so it's time to get rid.
3. Fix the stairs at the side of the house. The top step, in particular, needs properly fixed back in place.
4. Remove the lawn leading from the patio to the aforementioned steps, and replace with stones to provide better grip and/or drainage.
5. Fill to two holds Lion has recently dug into the lawn.
6. Fix the huge hold we dug for Lion's sandpit - this was a disaster that now needs undone. This requires laying a mesh, then a layer of small stones, then successive layers of soil until it's properly filled.
7. Reseed the lawn so it has actual grass rather than various versions of mud.

The BBQ will also need cleaned, and there's a certain amount of weeding and of cleaning up the borders, but I'm not capturing those are distinct steps - they're just general maintenance.

#11: "The Autumn Republic", by Brian McClellan

#12: "The Fox and the Ghost King", by Michael Morpurgo

Day 100: Update on Goals

Day 100, so time for the second update of the year. I should note that this is being written quite a ways in advance, and so may need an edit after the fact. Anyway, here goes:

• Books: The on-track target for day 100 is 9.86 books. I'm somewhat ahead of target on this, and so am pretty happy with it, all in all.
• Weight: There has been something of a reversal since the last update, and then a reversal of the reversal. All in all, not great but not terrible.
• Church Website: Eh. I've made an update or two to the website, but can't say I'm noticeably closer to completing this goal.
• Garden: The new goal for the year, this hasn't seen any tangible progress, but I do more or less have a plan on how to tackle it. So that's good, I think. Obviously, with the weather improving (hopefully), I'd expect to deal with this in the next six months, with the goal being complete before the clocks go back. We'll see if that happens.
• Blog: By day 100, I would expect to have posted approximately 33 times. I'm a bit behind target here, but expect to catch up in the next few days.

So that's that. Basically, everything is going nice and steadily. Can't complain... but no huge breakthroughs either.

Wonder Man

This was weird. I enjoyed it, but it was certainly weird.

"Wonder Man" is an 8-part Disney+ series about a super-powered actor trying to hide his powers in order to have a career (for insurance reasons, super-powered individuals cannot work in Hollywood), and Trevor Slattery trying to get past his previous role as The Mandarin. And the basis of the show is that unlikely friendship between the two actors.

I didn't care for the first episode. After that, however, it very rapidly found a groove, built largely on the chemistry between the two leads (Ben Kingsley, in particular, is always reliable). Though the single funniest part is an extended cameo by Josh Gadd in a flashback episode.

All in all, I recommend this. Though my usual caveat applies: if you have Disney+ then check it out; if not, don't subscribe just for this.

I'm also not entirely won over by the notion of a second season. The ending of this one suggests to me that any second season would be sufficiently different as to lose something crucial. I might be wrong, but...

#10: "Until August", by Gabriel García Márquez (apparently, the author concluded that this one didn't really work, and should be buried rather than published. While I don't necessarily agree with the second part of that, I'm afraid I do agree with the first)

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

This is a film I'd been wanting to see for some time, and we finally took the opportunity this weekend. It's a bit of a frustrating film - I enjoyed it, but also have to acknowledge that it could clearly have been a lot better.

Apparently, the film spent a lot of time in development hell, suffering multipel rewrites, changes of director and cast, and general messing around. And, sadly, it shows - it feels like it could have done with either one more, or several fewer, rewrites, a bit of tightening up. Oh, and some humour, at least in the first section.

The other thing to note is that we already know going in that this is a doomed voyage - even for the occasional viewer unfamiliar with "Dracula", the title of the film gives that away. So the film might as well lean right into that. It's a feature, not a bug, so perhaps the crew should acknowledge their fate a whole lot earlier and start making plans based on that fatalism. But that doesn't quite happen.

I don't really have much more to say than that. As I said, I enjoyed it, and it could have been better. Given the chance to view it as part of an existing subscription, I would recommend it as a decent use of two hours, but I wouldn't recommend subscribing just to get this film.

#9: "The Two Towers", by J.R.R. Tolkien

How to Create a Shortage

Here we go again: with the US attacks on Iran we now have the Strait of Hormuz closed, and some disruption to the global supply chain for fuel. And so now we have rumours of petrol shortages, which will no doubt be followed up with panic buying, actual shortages, and all the troubles that that entails.

And, as usual, there's no need for it. We actually have plenty of fuel (for now, at least), so if people just keep calm and carry on things will sort themselves out. (Now, if the disruption carries on too long, that would no longer be the case. But that's a longer-term problem.)

But of course, that's not what's happening. Instead the media are playing up that fear (since it's the story), which means everyone needs to act (because you can't afford to be the one person who runs out), which means that there's a run on petrol, which means there's now a shortage.

Which is really frustrating - the issue isn't a lack, but rather that the rate at which people consume is faster than the rate at which the pumps can be restocked, and so we run out. At least for a while. And then there will come a period where the pumps are restocked and everyone has a full tank and egg on their faces.

In the meantime, though, we're still stuck. As I said, you can't afford to be the one person who runs out, so you need to play the game the same as everyone else. And so we create a shortage. Great.