ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Co-op and Costa Coffee are among retailers declaring they will not challenge customers who do not comply with the rules in stores today, despite the failure to wear a face mask/covering in shops and supermarkets in England carrying a potential penalty of a £100 fine.
ASDA said it will “strongly encourage customers to wear a face covering”, but added that “it is the responsibility of the relevant authorities to police and enforce the new rules.”, Costa said it would “not be challenging customers who enter our stores without a mask since they may have a legitimate reason as to why they are unable to wear one”, and Sainsbury’s said while it is asking everyone to continue “playing their part” in helping to keep everyone safe in store by following the rules, “our colleagues will not be responsible for enforcing them”.
Similar statements have been echoed by Co-op, Tesco and Waitrose.
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Tesco will be selling face coverings at the entrance, and Waitrose said staff would be at the entrance to stores reminding customers of the requirement.
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John Apter, the National Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, has this morning urged shops to refuse entry to anyone not wearing a face covering.
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He said: “As face coverings become a mandatory requirement in stores, police officers are yet again adapting to a new set of unprecedented laws and guidelines which they wouldn’t have even dreamed of before lockdown. It is our members who are expected to police what is a new way of living and I would urge retail outlets to play their part in making the rules crystal clear – if you are not wearing a face covering, then you are not coming in”.
“Officers will be there to help stores if needed, but only as a last resort, as we simply do not have the resources.”
“The vast majority of the public have complied with the lockdown rules so far and I would hope they will continue to do the right thing and wearing face coverings in stores to help protect fellow citizens to minimise the spread of the virus.”
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The College of Policing has also added that officers “should only be required as a last resort”, but that it intends to work “in partnership with relevant business owners and their staff to ensure face coverings are worn when they should be”.
More information on the mandatory face covering rules in England can be found here.
For further information and guidance amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, do refer to official sources via gov.uk/coronavirus.
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Aldi launches mystery hot cross buns and you can win £1,000 if you guess the flavours
Emily Sergeant
Aldi is launching a range of mystery hot cross buns, and there’s a cash prize up for grabs if you correctly guess the flavours.
Easter may be more than a month away at this point, but chocolate eggs, themed sweet treats, and, of course, hot cross buns are already stacked on supermarket shelves nationwide – with loads of different varieties to choose from.
Long gone are the days when the traditional current spiced hot cross buns are all you could find, as now there’s everything from chocolate orange and coffee, to lemon, blueberry, and even chilli cheese to try out.
But would you be brave enough to try a mystery hot cross bun?
In what is thought to be the first taste challenge of its kind by a supermarket, Aldi is giving shoppers the chance to win £1,000 worth of shopping vouchers if they manage to correctly guess the secret flavour of its three limited-edition hot cross buns.
Aldi launches mystery hot cross buns and you can win £1,000 if you guess the flavours / Credit: Sarah Horrigan
Launching in Aldi stores every Thursday for three weeks starting this Thursday (20 March), the mystery hot cross buns will come in eye-catching colourful packaging to tempt daring shoppers to put their taste buds to the test.
To be in with a chance of winning, all you need to do is pick up a pack of mystery hot cross buns, at just 99p for a two-pack, then spend some time tasting, smelling, and pondering over what the flavour may be, before submitting your guesses to [email protected].
You must be over 18 to enter, and can only enter once per flavour of hot cross bun.
There’ll be three winners in total, one for each mystery flavour, who’ll be chosen at random from correct entries.
Shoppers have until just before midnight on 6 April to get their entries in.
Featured Image – Freeimageslive
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Leaked ‘Knebworth 2026’ teaser has Oasis fans losing their minds
Danny Jones
The Oasis reunion still feels beyond surreal but Britpop fans are preparing to lose their minds all over again as the Live ’25 comeback tour looks like it could be followed by Knebworth 2026.
We really don’t want to get ahead of ourselves only to be disappointed but we can’t help it, we’re absolutely getting carried away at the mere thought of it.
You can’t trust everything on social media, we all know that, but after a seemingly legit but premature post from the official Knebworth House X account appeared online, you’ll forgive us for thinking this just might be real.
Sharing nothing more than the iconic picture of the Knebworth crowd from back in 1996 (the same one that features on the Time Flies… 1994–2009 singles compilation) with the caption, “This is history” and the date August 2026, it looks like the Hertfordshire estate could be set to host Oasis for a second time.
Oasis (Definitely Maybe) returning to Knebworth in August 2026. This post was taken down as quickly as it went up but some of the beady eyed faithful spotted it – dare to dream? pic.twitter.com/uJ6Jv4pgCJ
As shared by Clash Magazine, the post was deleted almost immediately. The question is was it a technical error, a mistake on the admin’s part or just a very clever way of teasing the masses?
Either, it’s succeeded in sending Oasis fans into a frenzy – ourselves very much included.
There has obviously been no update from the band themselves nor the Gallagher brothers themselves; we wouldn’t put it past Liam to comment on it as a way of toying with his followers but, sadly, there’s been nothing yet.
Burnage’s finest are set to play over 40 dates on the world tour and there was some speculation that their reunion could spill over into Glastonbury, but with the lineup now announced we can confirm that was far too much wishful thinking for one comeback cycle.
That being, Knebworth 2.0 was very much filed under our pie-in-the-sky daydreams up until we saw that deleted post but now we have, we can’t think about anything else over than another quarter of a million Oasis fans, if not more, descending upon the parish and its Tudor gardens for another biblical festival.
It’s up their with Woodstock as one of the most iconic festivals ever. (Credit: Mewerlackvia Wikimedia Commons)
Put it this way, if it does indeed happen and Oasis return to Knebworth is confirmed for August 2026 or any date for that matter, it’s single-handedly the only piece of music news that could possibly outweigh the gravity of their reunion tour this summer.
Plus, if it does, there’ll be one very big closing act to round off that upcoming documentary which will capture these highly-anticipated shows on film.
The Manc -
24th July 2020 
