On Mon, 3 May 2004 at 13:44:22, Terry Casey
wrote:

If you want to see really high speed checkout operation, try Auchan, Grande
Synthe (Dunkerque) or Carrefour, Cité Europe. Whatever you might think about
the French, they always seriously out-perform the queue-creating slowcoaches
I always seem to encounter in Tesco et al in this country!

The French also do a nice line in rollers inset into their checkouts which
make it much easier to manipulate, pack and remove your shopping (and they
often pack it for you - sensibly - as they go!)

Indeed, they are very nice places to shop, as the checkout operators
(being used to the English piling their trolleys high with booze, etc),
actually seem to try to be helpful, rather than the reverse! And they
don't seem to try to be hurrying you away....

I supposed I hadn't noticed that they were as quick as Lidl, since in
Lidl I usually only have a couple of items, and in Auchan or Carrefour
(the former, ideally, and Grande Synthe DEFINITELY in preference to
Coquelles/Calais), I usually have a trolley piled high (and a husband to
do the actual paying!).

This is OT, but may be of interest to some: I don't think that Auchan is
open on 31 May (which is a holiday in France as well as here), but Cite
Europe definitely is. If you're going to be there late afternoon/early
evening, see you there!
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 8 March 2004