This morning we went to the dreaded Coto at 0950 to beat the queues which normally build up later and so that we could buy booze early at the stroke of 10.00 (you can’t buy it before then).

Anyway, we achieved most of the objectives in what I normally handle as a military operation and just as we were leaving the cheese area I spotted some tasty Cracker Barrel US cheese, so I threw one into the trolley hoping they could price it up at the till. That’s when the premonition flashed through my mind.

Anyway, the miserable bloke at the till – you know the one that has the ‘I couldn’t give a fuck’ look on his face – couldn’t get the Cracker Barrel to register on the bar code reader, so he called a woman over who may have been a supervisor. She then waddled over as slow as you like with a quick upward tilt of her head as if she really couldn’t be bothered, took the offending cheese and plonked it on the customer service counter, then started chatting with her mates.

When we’d paid for everything else (eventually) we wandered over to customer service and said ‘The cheese?’ ‘Oh yes’ came the reply and then she waddled, cheese in hand to the other end of the building. Five minutes later she returned saying that they couldn’t sell us the cheese as it hadn’t been entered into the system yet.

I then asked why it was on display in the first place and she replied ‘I wouldn’t know since cheese is not my sector.’

I then asked when precisely I could buy the cheese. Maybe tomorrow was the I couldn’t give a fuck reply.

I kid you not and this episode is just another example of the complete and total apathy in this country. They simply do not care any more.