It never ceases to amaze me how the huge supermarkets control our buying. This seems especially evident to me when there is a national holiday or "special" day.

My first example being Easter 2021. 6 weeks before Good Friday, the supermarket shelves were crammed with chocolate eggs and chocolate treats galore - often with decent special offers. Yet 10 days before Good Friday, the same shelves are cleared of anything relating to Easter and instead overcrowded with summer products, mainly barbecue related.

10 days! I'm pretty sure people will still be wanting to buy their Easter treats that far away from Easter but no! The supermarkets aren't going to allow it.

It has been the same with Hallowe'en; in September the shelves are overrun with Hallowe'en related products, yet when I have been paid 9 days before hallowe'en I find that the shelves have been restocked with Christmas items and no more hallowe'en items can be purchased.

So how did we reach this situation? At what point was the decision made that people will have bought all their hallowe'en decorations, costumes, make up and party food treats (many of which will have expired before the day) a month ahead of the actual day? Who made that decision? Why has it now become "the norm"?

In some ways it depressing and ridiculous in equal amounts - should we start buying our Valentine's Day gifts in August of the year before? It's nonsense. But how do we stop this? The only way would be to simply to longer buy these products from the big supermarket chains - but that only works if we all stick to that plan. The one thing you can be certain of is that will never happen because people can never unify - there is always someone who will break ranks and turn the situation to their advantage and say bollocks to everyone else.