Home, sweet home. Back from my globetrotting and it's heartening to see that even without me the UK grocery trade can descend into a bugger's muddle. I will confess that on hearing of the creation of Asco I nigh-on swooned, envisaging Bondandybond and Tel jumping into bed together Morecambe & Wise style. I assumed that a merger had gone through while the David Saunders' Commission for the Long Grass was off on one of its regular away days in the Stroud Travelodge probably a course to show them what work is like.

In a funny way, it would make sense after all a 50% share of the UK grocery market would only be the logical extension of the strategy of either company, but I dare say the whining from Holborn and Bracknell never mind the absurd gaggle of NGOs committed to plunging us back into the dark ages would be deafening. But it turns out that Asco is just another doomed parvenu, and will no doubt find itself in a similar position to the late lamented Pumsey's Price Palace once it attracts the attention of the big guns. Namely, Shit City.

Yes, it's been the silly season all right. In my in-tray was a hand-scribbled letter from no less than Kerry Katatonic, but I'm afraid her pleas for cash have fallen on deaf ears since I don't want to be indirectly responsible for filling the former Nuclear Pussy (subs pls check) with dangerous and habit-forming junk. Mind you, you'd have thought she'd be used to it after all those Iceland nibbles.

On a similar note, Morrisons has employed a gaggle of poets to promote its tawdry wares. You couldn't make it up. Odes to Odour Eaters? Doggerel for boggeroll?

And, curiously, I received a note in the impeccably foppish handwriting that could only belong to that most limp-wristed of former Etonians David Cameron, inviting me to an informal get-together in godawful Witney (Cameron's gritty urban constituency, nestled between badass High Cogges and the brutal ghettos of Ducklington). Watch this space.