Ilike to be in Amer-i-ca! OK by me in Amer-i-ca! Well actually it won't surprise you to hear that I find the entire continent utterly sordid: a sump of cheesy, fat, bloated idiots with a collective IQ lower than Kate Moss's bra size. But it is big, and it is, I admit, powerful. All this helps explain a number of things. It explains the Disneyland-style theatrics on display at Asda, or Wal-Mart-Lite, whenever a journalist commits the basic error of getting within 100 miles of Leeds. Rather like Ronald McDonald (promoted I recall to "Chief Happiness Officer" in a press release a couple of years ago), Bentonville clearly expects Bond, Andy Bond, to clown it up in a rugby shirt or a plastic suit from George to improve his chance of getting in the paper, poor thing. Actually the hair colour is not a million miles away. It also explains why I, Donald Octavian Pumsey, have been invited over to Californ-aye-eh by Tesco's personable Tim Mason to have a sneak peak at El Tel's latest folly, Flesh & Queasy. Don't quite know what brought on this largesse, although I rather suspect the grey men of Cheshunt realised a jolly to North Enfield might not be the political influencing opportunity they're looking for as things start to get sweaty vis-à-vis the Commission for the Long Grass. What can I tell you? Not much you didn't know. You don't have to do much to convince Americans to buy more food, and painting everything green just persuades them they can eat twice as much to save the planet. It's a kind of genius - just as well considering the feeble UK like-for-likes Tesco sneaked out this week. Apparently no-one eats when it rains. Funnily enough, back at Heathrow I bumped into King Justin in the arrivals hall. He was oddly taciturn about where he'd been, but perhaps the toy camel stuffed with £40m in used notes offered a clue.