Hogarth, thou should'st be living at this hour! Who better than the 19th century doodler of Gin Lane to depict the depraved insanity that I in my darker moments feel has become of our beloved industry. This has surely been one of the madder weeks at DRIP with the whole depressing gamut of media incompetence and corporate duplicity on display. Take the latest posturing at the Holborn Coliseum! Our friends in the fourth estate are roundly briefed that a few more quid from the Qataris may just be the magic bullet to obtain a tacit nod from the Court of King Justin, enabling the board to walk away with a crock of gold and Delta Two to turn the company into a crock of something else. And everything couched in the rhetoric of what's-good-for-the-shareholders-is-good-for-the-customers! Does it take a politician to point out that the two interests are rent forever asunder at the point of sale? Exhibit two, noble lords: the Co-op launches a brilliant campaign to, well, rid its cucumbers of shrink wrap and, erm, ask its customers what they think about it - and then goes on to accuse its competitors of "lazy thinking". Is there no sense of irony left in Wapping? Has anyone out there actually tried to do any serious shopping in a Co-op recently? Mr Monaghan, sort your bloody bakery and produce out first and then save the planet! Fear not, the Pumster is not going soft on the grocery gorillas. But was there not a deep pathos in the hurt-sounding voices of the BBC journalists as they found almost everyone likes big supermarkets? And is it so long since Peter Freeman shopped for groceries in a "convenience" store that he's forgotten how execrably inconvenient the process can be? Enough already, as Aunt Fatima used to say. My Florence & Fred suit is discharging bolts of electrostatic rage. Waiter, another absinthe.

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