7am

While we were en route to the supermarket, Ian Devine turned to me with a question.

"Do you know what occurred in my dream last night?" he asked.

"Yes" I said as I was compelled to do.

"You do?" he replied, eyeing me suspiciously.

"I mean... yes... in the sense of 'yes I would like to know'" I told him.

"Very well" and he settled back to tell me his story. "It all started with me sitting down to eat a pie. My knife and fork - previously stout and reliable Sheffield steel - were actually rubbery and somewhat flimsy. I opted to forgo the cutlery and eat the pie manually. I put it in my mouth and was chewing it when I became aware that it was somewhat crunchier than I was expecting. I looked down at the table and saw that the pie was still sitting there and I had actually been chewing the plate. I immediately, without even stopping to write a note of apology to the other people at table (all of whom had taught me at primary school), spat out the shards of plate. I dabbed my mouth with the frock of a vicar who was refusing to let me get a napkin from his napkin pouch and looked once more at the table below. Now my pie was sitting upon a bed of teeth. I yelped with horror and, seeing that the vicar had become a perfect reflective surface, I ventured a look at what had become of my once proud mouth. Horror upon horror - where once there had been teeth there were now jagged prongs of broken plate. The reflective vicar asked my former primary school teachers if I had always been like this and they said I was an angelic boy and produced several photographs of me beaming pleasantly. I scrambled around trying to get the pottery out of my mouth and reinsert my loose teeth but was hampered at every turn by mice who wanted the teeth so they could play cricket. Apparently my teeth are as close to wickets as cricket loving mice can find. My beloved molars were only saved from use in a rather dry sporting event when Billie Piper appeared and crushed the first mouse with a hammer. "May I?" she asked. I mumbled that she could and she proceeded to squash every single mouse. Then she said "I've killed twenty eight of your mice, I must pay you for them" and she proceeded to pay me in teeth. And it was while getting used to having Billie Piper's teeth in my mouth that I found that the reflective vicar's napkin pouch actually contained previously undiscovered Captain Scarlet production documentation. When I was woken by your infernal telephonic communication I was sorely disappointed to discover that I had neither Miss Piper’s teeth nor some previously undiscovered Captain Scarlet production documentation."

"I’m sorry for waking you, Ian Devine, but my plight was serious."

"Prey tell" he offered and the remaining minutes of our journey back to Tesco were filled with a not in the least bit embellished version of my evening’s torments.

"How exactly did you persuade her to take up a more worthwhile lifestyle than performing favours for deviants?" he asked and I hastily changed the subject by pointing out that he was about to collide with a carelessly discarded shopping trolley.

I led the way - knowing the Shopco Megaplex better (or so I thought) than Ian Devine. I was just getting a small trolley when Ian Devine stopped me.

"I don't think we'll be needing that" he said. He walked over to the little man who sat in a hut overlooking the trolley rank.

"Can I 'elp you?" asked the small hut dweller.

"My name is Ian Devine and the code word is 'Pukka'".

"Gawd blimey - I never thought I'd see the day" replied the little man. He scampered from his hut and I feared some kind of commotion. What I didn't expect to see was the hut split in two down the middle to reveal a newly opened hole. Up from the hole came a platform, upon the platform was the largest shopping trolley I had ever seen.

"Shopco were kind enough to install them at all their Megaplex stores just in case" beamed Ian Devine. He took the special trolley, tipped the little man twenty pence and wished him a good morning. His hut reassembled itself and he went back to sitting quietly and drinking from a tartan thermos flask.

We entered through the now familiar doors and were accosted by the now familiar sight of a Club Card representative.

"Would sir be interested in applying for a loyalty card?" she asked. Luckily she asked Ian Devine so I was spared another round of questioning. He seemed keen but I was equally keen – keen to ensure that something as potentially lucrative as a Club Card membership remain my exclusive gratification. I took him to one side to talk him out of it.

"But she was offering me a generous allocation of points for every purchase" he blubbed.

"It is nothing more than a way of obtaining your personal details, Ian Devine, so that the evil geniuses running the supermarket can bombard you with junk mail."

"But she spoke of special offers, money-back vouchers and even private evenings where gentlemen can shop in an atmosphere of civilised discretion."

"Nothing but flimflammery, Ian Devine" I assured him. "As soon as you sign on that dotted line you will receive unwanted telephone calls every hour of the day, piles of unsolicited mail and – worst of all – your shopping habits will be poured over by mathematicians hell-bent on using your spending trends and DNA to construct the perfect supermarket customer. They’re breeding them, Ian Devine, and the next generation could be walking round with a little bit of you inside them."

"I appreciate you haven’t slept all night, Dennis Brent, but this is a terrible picture you paint and I am inclined to believe every word you say."

"Thank you. I may have lost a little self control and begun to sound like an internet message board that sees menace in every shadow but it is only because I care about you."

"Thank you" he said and he beamed at me. He may not have had Billie Piper’s rather common teeth but he was my trusty chum and I had successfully misled him for my own gain. Things were getting back to normal.

"What about you, sir? Would you be interested in a Club Card?"

I spent a moment pondering how to answer her without letting the cat out of Ian Devine’s bag. Luckily he caught the scent of the pie department and scurried off before I was honour-bound to answer "Yes."

Some time later, and with three new Club Cards in my purse, I passed by the book department to check on whether my book had sold out yet or, if not, whether autographing it would speed the process a bit. I was just admiring the cover when a voice behind me appeared to say "hoy".

"Hoy" is said. "Are you the man who left this piece of rubbish on our shelves?" He was pointing to my latest volume with a disrespectful finger.

"Yes" I said and I prepared my defence.