CEPHALOPOD COME-ONS

I'm a big fan of German supermarket chain Lidl. It's not just because you enjoy superior continental European quality, nor that everything is about a third of the price of the dreaded Tesco, nor that you can mingle with a better more knowing class of customer. It's a forager's paradise: you just never know what you're going to find in there since every week part of the stock changes in the most unexpected, if not downright bizarre, ways.

One week it could be motorcycling gear, another week maybe a load of equestrian stuff will come in, another women's lingerie, another space telescopes, or Scottish kilts, camping equipment, sewing machines, guitars and synths, CCTV kits, chainsaws, blood pressure monitors, even combine harvesters. OK, I made the last one up, but it wouldn't be so surprising. I even got my trusty satellite dish from there.

A couple of weeks ago it was Lidl's 'Greek Festival' (this week it's 'Scandinavia') and I felt strangely compelled to get me a tin of the musky octopus. No idea why.

EVERY LITTLE HURTS 2

After reading some of your interesting comments posted, on Philip's recommendation I checked out the low-budget documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price, a fairly devastating study on some of that company's practices. While there are some important parallels to be made between Wal-Mart and Tesco, there are clearly some differences too (one being that Tesco isn't even cheap).

Those comparisons aside, as I see it, the herds of shoppers, who dutifully provide the foundation for these voracious enterprises (without which would fail), are not making any conscious statement on any of the issues one way or another. They are not being deliberately malicious or uncaring towards Asian slave labour for instance, they just don't really care - and in fact, part of the success of the supermarket/retail giant is achieved by this desensitising and pacifying process. The battery hen of a customer is no longer able to discern any more between a flower that has a real fragrance, any more to a strawberry that has flavour, any more to chocolate that is beyond mere flavouring and sugar, than is he or she any longer capable of seeing the terrible toll being inflicted by their acquiescence, not only on others but ironically on themselves.

EVERY LITTLE HURTS

I loathe Tesco and everything it represents - the results of the Tescopoly on small businesses, our eating habits, farmers and on the way supermarkets operate in this country is possibly too late to do much about - to see it also happening in Thailand I find truly depressing.