The perils of Lidl’s middle aisle are all too real – I should know

You may stop by your local supermarket for some eggs or a pint of milk, writes Will Gore, but you end up leaving with a saw... or some garden furniture... or a hedge strimmer...

We all love a bargain, right? Indeed, so much do we love a bargain that supermarkets have effectively driven thousands of independent shops out of business, turning scores of town high streets into wastelands that we then grumble about. However, that’s another story...

Lidl, which has disrupted even the business models of the old supermarket powerhouses, takes bargain-hunting to another level. Want some butter that reminds you of Anchor but is 35 per cent cheaper? Be Lidl’s guest. And here’s a case of French wine, with a four-quid-a-bottle price tag that just about allows you to overcome the lingering question of whether it’s actually any good.

And while you’re at it, why not pick up a strimmer and a wooden toy from the fabled middle aisle – a place where there is neither logic nor sense, but where hungry bargain-hunters might strike gold (or fool’s gold).

Lidl’s middle aisle, as we have learned this week, is particularly attractive to men. Ryan McDonnell, the supermarket’s UK chief, described it as having a “big male following” and suggested it even causes domestic disharmony.

“We often get partners at odds with each other,” he told the BBC, “because men have disappeared up the aisle and are buying things they maybe already have.”

There is plenty of evidence online of the unusual items that people pick up in the store. As one Reddit user put it: “Lidl is dangerous – you go in for a few basics and come back out with a chainsaw and a ratchet set.” Another described their grandfather returning home with a neon yellow jacket.

For one customer, the middle aisle inspired a poem:

“It doesn’t make sense

It doesn’t make sense

Wanted some milk

Came home with a fence.”

Once upon a time, I’d have been sucked into this madness. As a teenager, I was an inveterate collector of many things; a buyer of souvenirs and hoarder of stuff that might come in handy.

I had bookshelves crowded with tat, a corner of my bedroom full of Second World War memorabilia and all sorts of bits and pieces under my bed for possible future emergencies. Half of it is still at my parents’ house, gently festering in mouse-nibbled cardboard boxes under the eaves.

When I first lived in a flatshare, I was a glutton for a nice throw or an arty candle-holder. And as soon as I moved into a place with a garden, I was forever picking up new plant pots and useful hand tools.

These days, however, I do all I can to resist the temptation. Our house already has enough clutter to last a lifetime, and I spend more time trying to dispose of things I don’t need than I do getting more of them. In fact, as I typed that sentence, I spotted on my desk a phone stand that I’ve used twice since I was given it last Christmas. It’s been summarily binned.

Given that both my children seem to have inherited my collecting instinct, I may be fighting a losing battle. And since I am always loath to get rid of books, there remains a very major hurdle to a less cluttered existence. Still, at least I’m no longer adding unnecessary bumph – for the most part anyway.

Lidl’s middle aisle certainly catches my eye if ever I happen to be in a branch. I could do with a new pickaxe to be fair. And you can never have too many cupcake baking trays, can you? Argh! No, this is why it is important to resist. And I’m afraid the easiest way to do that is to keep away.

Instead, I do all my supermarket shopping in Waitrose, where the word “bargain” takes on a slightly different context, and where a standard weekly shop has my eyes bulging as I tap my credit card at the checkout. For good measure, I’ll buy meat from the local butcher, fish from the man who drives four hours from Lowestoft every Saturday, and fruit from the greengrocer at the market whose motto is: “We may not be the cheapest, but we are the best.”

After all this, I’ve no cash left to buy peculiarities that might in the past have grabbed my attention, which, for the sake of my marriage, is probably just as well.