Tesconfession

My friends, fighting the insidious spread of Tescos across the city, will be appalled at reading this, but I have to say it.

I am a Tesco shopper.

Somehow, I just drifted into the habit. Tescos is there, twenty minutes traffic-free walk, and much less by bike. Every time I step out of the front door, I can see the bright lights of Tescos, beckoning me in. If I feel the need for the Tesco experience at 2am, the store is there, ready to fulfil my needs.

They entice me with cheap organic food - putting it on the shelves just often enough to keep me coming back. They're so thoughtful, giving me special treatment - putting some of the veg I buy into special compostable bags, knowing that's what I want. They don't do that for ordinary shoppers. Thanks to my ClubCard, they know all about my shopping needs without me having to tell them.

Once in that warm cavernous interior, it's an escape from the harsh realities of the real world. No-one worries about the usual social obligations. People wander round, quite unaware of each other, raised into a different level of consciousness in which every want can be met.

Our Tesco Extra offers opportunities for personal growth and development that you just don't find in other shops. I'm just a novice, of course. I can't yet free myself of those irritating social conventions that say I mustn't trolley-block an aisle while enjoying a long mobile phone chat. I've not yet learned how to reach the trance-state of more experienced Tesco shoppers. Sometimes my pent up aggression is too much even for the multidisciplinary team of Tesco therapists to contain - but they hold out the promise that true enlightenment will one day come.

That promise is hard to resist. So I go on paying the money.

Yes, Tesco is addictive.