Roses chocolates - a bit of a con

Murtle

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Not true. The reason it is a con is that the size has scaled down by more than 50% and yet supermarkets still claim that the cost is about £10, and then run 1/2 price "promotions". I'm with the OP on this one.

Did you get out of the grumpy side of bed this morning?

Every major food retailer will disagree with you, as will Cadburys and Mars, whose production of these boxes increase dramatically for the season. A slightly different example is creme eggs - production starts in June the previous year to get enough made to meet the demand at Easter. Like it or not, anyone involved in the supply chain of poor quality cheap chocolates profits from a religious holiday.

But wouldn't that would be a 50% reduction in size not a 10% reduction as mentioned by the OP?

SwanJon

esuhl wrote: »

Social custom and tradition...?

If your faith is strong enough to know that you're a heterosexual man (assuming you are), why not wear a dress?

I'm atheist and for me the Christmas period is nothing more than something to break up the long winter; a time to spend with friends and family.

Christmas is essentially just the modern form of ancient pagan rituals celebrating the equinox. Most of the iconography is decidedly non-Christian - trees, Santa, stockings, turkey, goose, brussels sprouts, tinsel, crackers, tins of Roses. It can't be considered a fundamentally Christian festival at all. It's just the legacy of the pagan festivals after Christianity tried and failed to subjugate the population into abandoning paganism, then realised that a more subtle Orwellian re-branding excercise would be a better way to control people's beliefs.

The social tradition and custom are of a Christian society.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and I accept that how it is celebrated piggy-backs on various pre-existing local festivals.
However, this doesn't change what it celebrates.
If an atheist celebrates the birth of Christ, does it not question their atheism?
As I said earlier there are plenty of other religious festivals celebrated at the same time of year - why not celebrate one of those, or find a particular atheistic one? It is trying to change the meaning of (the word) Christmas away from Christianity that I have an issue with.

As to the dresses - many confident heterosexual men do. I assume that was your point.

Azari

SwanJon wrote: »

The social tradition and custom are of a Christian society.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and I accept that how it is celebrated piggy-backs on various pre-existing local festivals.
However, this doesn't change what it celebrates.
If an atheist celebrates the birth of Christ, does it not question their atheism?
As I said earlier there are plenty of other religious festivals celebrated at the same time of year - why not celebrate one of those, or find a particular atheistic one? It is trying to change the meaning of (the word) Christmas away from Christianity that I have an issue with.

You are being too literal.

'Christmas' is just the name we give to a (now) mainly secular festival at the end of the year. The vast majority of people who celebrate what we tag as 'Christmas' are not celebrating anyone's birth.

As to the dresses - many confident heterosexual men do.

Maybe many that you know, but I would suspect that they may not be quite as heterosexual as you assume.

thistledome

I bought a tin of Roses last Xmas and they were a real disappointment. The sweets themselves seemed huge and with not much variety of fillings/flavours. Not bothering with them this year. Another great tradition gone out the window.

texranger

Murtle wrote: »

I think you are missing a 1 in front of the 850grams. Not sure why it's a con? Surely that depends on the price you are paying for the product?

NO con. its like everything, as raw good prices go up manufacturers have to find a way to sell their products at a price consumers are willing to pay.

would you rather pay £4 to £5 for a tin of roses now or still have them give your a 2kg tin and charge you £15 a tin.

so all they have done is slightly reduced the tin size to sell at an affordable price.

heinz
kelloggs
proctor & gamble

are only 3 that have all changed ingredients and sizes in the last 12 months or more so that we can still afford their products.

SwanJon

Azari wrote: »

You are being too literal.

Not sure that when talking about the meaning of things you can be too literal

Azari wrote: »

'Christmas' is just the name we give to a (now) mainly secular festival at the end of the year. The vast majority of people who celebrate what we tag as 'Christmas' are not celebrating anyone's birth.

I'm not sure that's true (although I may be biased). I think if you asked people what Christmas celebrated they'd agree with me. I suppose it depends on how you define 'we'.
I've not got a problem with Christmas-time, or as esuhl used 'the Christmas period', just the redefining of a significant religious ceremony to suit another belief system.

Azari wrote: »

Maybe many that you know, but I would suspect that they may not be quite as heterosexual as you assume.

Again, how many is many? But in this case the comparison would be a confident man who thinks he looks good in a dress having the confidence to wear a dress. I'll await the results of the census but I believe that the majority of British society remains Christian, as such the (confidant) atheist is the minority. Thus the true comparison is with a minority (men who think they look good in a dress), not an unrelated sexual preference.
Shame that you feel dress-choice and sexuality are so strongly linked.

Azari

SwanJon wrote: »

Not sure that when talking about the meaning of things you can be too literal

Yes, you can.

It happens all the time.

Just look at the various definitions of 'free'.

I'm not sure that's true (although I may be biased).

Evidence is that it is.

For example, count the number of people in your local Tesco at Christmas. Divide by the number of people in your local church.

But in this case the comparison would be a confident man who thinks he looks good in a dress having the confidence to wear a dress.

Your friends may be different but most men don't really have any idea how good they'd look in a dress.

Trousers are so much more practical.

Pockets, you see.

Shame that you feel dress-choice and sexuality are so strongly linked.

It's not what I feel, there is very little evidence that many straight men want to wear dresses. Why would we give up all the pockets?

Sharon87

thistledome wrote: »

I bought a tin of Roses last Xmas and they were a real disappointment. The sweets themselves seemed huge and with not much variety of fillings/flavours. Not bothering with them this year. Another great tradition gone out the window.

Try Quality Streets. They seem the same to me as they did when I was 5. Except one new sweet they brought in a few years back (that really hard toffee one).

Quality Streets or Roses have been tradition in my family since I was little. I know the tins are getting smaller, but prices have gone down, there were rarely promotions on the tins, I think the smallest amount you could get them for when I was a teenager was £8. Now the usual price for them is £4 or £5. I remember getting the boxes of quality streets for £3/4 with a lot less in them than the tins when I was in school (about 10 years ago now!!)

esuhl

SwanJon wrote: »

The social tradition and custom are of a Christian society.

But we are not a Christian society (and, I suspect, never were - I'm not sure how one would define "Christian society" any more than one would define "Christian country"). The majority of people who celebrate Christmas are not what I would consider Christian!

SwanJon wrote: »

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and I accept that how it is celebrated piggy-backs on various pre-existing local festivals. However, this doesn't change what it celebrates.

But it does, really. If any people who celebrate Christmas aren't Christian, then clearly Christmas isn't exclusively related to the birth of Christ - it is a social tradition abstracted from a previously religious festival.

If pagan festivals morphed into Christmas, then isn't it feasible that Christmas has morphed into a secular social custom?

It may go against the original meaning of Christmas, but Christmas goes against the original meaning of the-festival-henceforth-known-as-Christmas.

SwanJon wrote: »

As to the dresses - many confident heterosexual men do. I assume that was your point.

Errr.... no! My point was that, even in the absence of a pertinent belief-system (i.e. that it is "wrong" for men to wear women's clothes), social custom prevails.

I am quite comfortable with my sexuality, and (although I'd find it unusual) I wouldn't have a problem with a man wearing a dress. I also find no logical reason to object to the existence of dresses. Therefore, I should be quite unconcerned about wearing a dress, and would dress in traditionally-female clothes equally as often as I dress in traditionally-female clothes... But I don't. I always wear clothes "appropriate" for my gender. Not because I'm trying to conform, and not because I fear non-conformism, but because of the sheer inertia of tradition...

Azari

esuhl wrote: »

I always wear clothes "appropriate" for my gender. Not because I'm trying to conform, and not because I fear non-conformism, but because of the sheer inertia of tradition...

And the pockets.

Don't forget the pockets.