Most of the supermarkets have now introduced self-service check outs. I was intrigued and less than convinced when I first saw them and I’m still not a big fan. I suppose they’re ok if you pop in at lunchtime for a sandwich, a bag of crisps and a drink. It’s when you’ve got a big shop that things start getting complicated. You have to select from an on screen menu to find the correct fruit and veg and weigh it before getting a price, which can take a fair bit of time. I suppose this is why I’m so dubious of their benefits. Self service tills are designed to speed things up a bit, but in my (admittedly not vast) experience they actually seem to slow things down. As you scan your items, it’s easy to think something hasn’t gone through then to end up putting it through twice and having to work out how to take it off the bill again. Once you’ve negotiated all the different menus and scanned your shopping through you then have the interesting task of selecting your payment method which, again, seems fraught with problems.