h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes I quite like the Sainsburys Fast-track system, where you scan the items in yourself as you shop. The only trouble I find is in getting the scanner out of its holder - it often seems to jam and I have to call a house elf for assistance!

I've never seen anything like this in a store here. I guess they don't trust us not to cheat.

They do carry out random re-scans! And high value items such as alcohol and elctronic goods have a tag on them, which the cashier has to remove.

But coming up to Christmas last year, especially on a Sunday when my local shopping centre was packed with southerners, the old fasttrack was a godsend!

Maybe some stores have them here? I can't tell, it's been years since I did my shopping in a large store.

ARgh! Fast track is just as bad. I went from having a rescan every now and then, to every 3 weeks to every other time, yet one person would tell me I was 'level 5' so for the least amount of rescans, then someone else would say, there's no such thing.

When we got to EVERY SINGLE BOBBING TIME I walked out the shop with my trolley WITHOUT PAYING.

Fasttrack takes longer to shop, so if I then have to have a rescan every time anyway I can't see that 'fast' is the correct description.

I tried the self service tills at Tesco once. Couldn't work it without a person so didn't bother with that either. Then just switched to online shopping.

I've never heard of the Fasttrack system before, but, like Bel, I do most of my shopping in small places.

TRiG.

They do have a fast track in one store here, you can have a maximum of ten items. But there'll always be those with a full trolley, so it's not any faster at all. Although they may be told to go to another checkout.

We call those the express checkouts.

Oh, OK. They're called 'Schnellkasse' here, schnell translating as fast.

Express means fast too I guess, but you still get really long queues and always someone who doesn't see the sign, or has, say, 11 things in their basket.

It's the same problem here, which is why I usually don't bother.