Spend, spend, or spend . . . the choice is all yours

I'M LOST, completely adrift, in a new, enormous Tesco superstore, in the pre-packed salad aisle, and I've retraced my steps a couple of times, way over towards my original starting point, which was Pet Food and Kitchenware . . . with no success. My mental trip meter, my aisle-memory, is only as large as my local Safeway; they've built this new Tesco to put the Safeway out of business, just like they built the Safeway a decade ago to shaft the sweet little Lipton and International stores, which in their day must have seemed pretty novel and large, pretty predatory, to all those poor souls in the High Street with their bloodstained aprons and dirty fingernails.

But this place is great. It's the future. At the new Tesco, you don't just have pre-packed salads for when you can't be bothered to make a salad yourself. Here, when you can't be bothered to make a salad yourself, you enter a whole new world: French, Italian, Continental, Crisp Mixed, American, Mixed Endive, Country. This is the way out of the recession. Get people to spend money. Give them inspiration. Right now, I just want to buy loads of pre-packed salads. It's not even that I want to eat them. The sheer choice has got me hooked. But how can I choose between a mixture of lollo rosso lettuce and lollo bionda lettuce on the one hand, and red oak-leaf lettuce and lamb's lettuce on the other? I'll have both. No, I'll have the crunchy one as well, the American, which, as the packet says, goes so well with mayonnaise. And then I'll have all the fun of choosing a mayonnaise. A mayonnaise? What do I mean, a mayonnaise? Some mayonnaises. Several mayonnaises. Maybe I can get some new kitchen units built.

A woman behind me is saying: 'No, this is not the right kind of broccoli. What we want is florets of broccoli.'

But something's bothering me. Why limit myself to three pre-packed salads? Hell, these things look so nice I could give them as presents. Is it anybody's birthday? You really have to have willpower in a supermarket like this. They know what they're doing here. Deep in the recession, with everybody in debt, losing their jobs, frightened to go on holiday, supermarkets are doing better than ever. And look at that, over there: lavatories - or 'customer toilets'. That's a good move. You come here, you can spend as long as you like, is the message. Take your time. Look around. Have a cup of coffee] It's not going to kill us if you make yourself comfortable, if you attend to your human needs. My God, shops used to be so arrogant, so complacent. Well, they'll suffer for it now.

No, something is nagging at me. But look at that shelf of dog-shampoo. That looks great. Rid-Flea, Medicated, Extra Mild for puppies. And I don't even have a dog. I hate dogs. But just think of being able to say, casually: 'Yes, well, I use the mild shampoo these days, and wash him with the medicated if he goes swimming . . .'

What a marvellous thing choice is. Can you imagine how dull people's lives were when they could only choose between muffins and crumpets? Now I can buy croissants, mini- croissants, all-butter croissants, not just crumpets but also pikelets, bagels of all kinds, potato cakes . . . but not only one type of potato cake, oh no. I wouldn't be so crude, so socially inept, as to offer my guests potato cakes without asking them if they wanted round ones or square ones.

I'm still lost. What was it I came here for? Ah, yes. Food. Well, here's a section devoted to food-wrapping: clingfilm, non-PVC film, Roastabags, non-stick baking paper, greaseproof paper, food bags, sandwich bags, cooking bags: what fun, the kitchen experience turning into a series of moments requiring highly specific gear, like a camping trip. And here's a lot of barbecue paraphernalia, stuff designed for when you're sick of cooking indoors, so what you do is set up a miniature kitchen outdoors, and all the equipment is here, the fuel, the grill, the pokers and prodders. And what happens when you get sick of cooking indoors and outdoors? A great retail opportunity, that's what. Cooking underwater? Cooking in the swimming-pool? Waterproof microwaves, snorkels, flippers . . . that's the way out of the recession. That's how to get this country back on its feet.

But what does it do to the world as a whole? Wrecks it. Let's get this straight. The point is, Norman Lamont wants us to buy more things, rather than saving our money. That way, more people will keep their jobs, fewer businesses will go bust, people will be more likely to want to lend money, more tax will be paid. Then the recession will end.

So how do you get all this to happen? You offer choice to people with money; you try to get people like me to buy things in fancy packets. Look at this on the fruit-juice shelf: this isn't just juice - this is Five Alive, five fruit flavours mixed. But it's not only one combination of five juices - Five Alive comes in three flavours. Jobs for hundreds of people in the cardboard-packet factory. Jobs for people in the package-design industry, in the ink factory, the printing plant. Jobs for people chopping down trees, for people digging landfills and burning trash, maybe even jobs for people making anti-pollution masks.

There she is] I finally catch up with my girlfriend, back in Pet Food and Kitchenware. As usual, we have a crisis at the checkout. We've forgotten the beer. So I rush up the aisles, up through Breakfast Cereal, which is a wrong turn, along a bit. Frozen cod, haddock? Wrong again. A whole section devoted to cola in plastic bottles - diet, diet decaf, regular . . . eleven kinds of cola. Finally, the beer. I stand, mesmerised. I can feel my inspiration as a consumer coming back. Beer from 18 countries, trucked in from all over. Jobs for truck drivers, oil riggers, people in petrol stations. Jobs for people in glass plants, breweries. I choose Canadian beer and one I haven't had, from the Bahamas.

On the way out, we visit the Tesco recycling centre, out by the car park. What a cheek.