New kid on the block

As part of opening up my laptop in the morning, I open up Edge, the policy being Edge on the laptop, Chrome on the desktop, thus keeping a foot in both camps.

Edge opens up a window containing lots of small panels, some containing real news, some containing junk news and some containing advertisements - it sometimes being hard to tell which is which. I dare say that is the idea.

And we have a new kid on the block in the form of advertisements from Anchor Pumps, a company that appears to specialise in the distribution of the sort of pumps you might find in houses, office blocks and blocks of flats. Pumps mainly to do with heating, air conditioning and swimming pools, rather than the sort of pumps you might find in an oil refinery or a water works. A company that has been popping up for several days now. Why on earth would they want to advertise their wares to a retired civil servant? Presumably the Microsoft advertisement server knows something about me and my habits? Was it just a random visit, renewed because I clicked on it?

From where I jump to Anchor Butter which I had thought was a market leading brand of New Zealand butter, a butter my family used when I was a child, but whose clothes are now being used to clothe tubs of a confection of butter and rape seed oil sold in Co-ops in the west country. Together with a lot of stuff about being proud to be British all the way through.

A quick peek, takes me to Anchor of New Zealand, a dairy flavoured cooperative at reference 2. Who seems to be part of the larger cooperative at reference 3. Then we have the Anchor of the UK at reference 4, the people who produce butter cut with rapeseed oil under Anchor colours, but called Spreadable. Who seem to be part of another dairy flavoured cooperative at reference 4. With Arla foods not to be confused with Kallo foods of reference 6, who are into peanuts rather than cows. All terribly confusing.

Maybe, one afternoon when I have nothing better to do, I will try to get to the bottom of it all. Maybe the British Virgin Islands will have a bit-part in the story. Maybe the whole lot of them will turn out to be owned by some gang like Unilever.

References

Reference 1: https://www.anchorpumps.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.anchordairy.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.fonterra.com/nz/en.html.

Reference 4: https://www.anchorbutter.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.arlafoods.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/01/nuts.html.