"I scribble furiously. This is gold dust. The Wal-Mart subsidiary is secretive about its numbers. I could win a Pulitzer"

It's 8:30. Darren Blackhurst, the guitar-strumming food trading director at Asda, is making a gung-ho speech at a Christmas conference for Asda's 350 store managers . And up pops a powerpoint slide that is every journalist's wet dream....