Do you ever yearn for a return to the days before supermarkets, when shopping meant a separate trip to the greengrocer, the dry goods grocer, the butcher, the baker and the delicatessen?

Me neither. Life has become busy. Two-earner families shop at one-stop shops because we no longer have time for repeated stops.

Except for chemists, where we are forced to.

Hours after last week's Harper Competition Review recommended an end to pharmacy ownership and location rules the Pharmacy Guild defended them by appealing to nostalgia.

"By ensuring that pharmacy ownership is widely spread, the major supermarket chains are prevented from securing the high degree of market dominance they have obtained in other areas such as grocery retailing" it said, apparently under the delusion that we would prefer our groceries to be sold by someone other than the big supermarket chains.

For more details, go to: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/harper-competition-review-finds-bitter-pills-in-pharmacy-industry-20150406-1meykg.html?eid=email:nnn-13omn654-ret_newsl-membereng:nnn-04/11/2013-news_am-dom-news-nnn-age-u&campaign_code=13INO008&et_bid=23079228&promote_channel=edmail&mbnr=NDk5MDMw