I read in The Sun ­ where else? ­ that Tesco has hired a seven year old boy to explain the Pokémon craze to them. Laurie Sleator ­ for it is he ­ gives his unique briefings in return for Pokémon goodies (and, I assume, a bodyguard to see him safely home). Now, all of this is not as daft as it sounds, because the Pokémon hype is as baffling to me as it is to Tesco bosses. Taking my son to the cinema to see Pokémon: The First Movie put me in a foul mood. It was cruddily animated gobbledygook. I have rarely endured such suffering since sitting through The Phantom Menace. And then it struck me. Why bother with lavish special effects when you can make megabucks out of primary school drawings and sub-Scooby Doo plotting? Everywhere you go you see clusters of feverish kids trading Pokémon cards. The children of the nation have fallen head over heels for the not particularly brilliant tagline "Gotta catch 'em all". This says something important about the future of marketing. And it made me think that David Simons had perhaps got it wrong: he should have sold off Somerfield and made Kwik Save even worse. Thinking of rubbish, I was amused to see that one of Lidl's top Easter non-food offers was a compact paper shredder ­ yours for just £29.95. Two questions: why did its buyers think this was a quality item? And have they actually sold any? Mind you, Lidl's Vermouth was tempting at £1.99. A final thought: the country's first supercentre is open under the snappy name of AsdaWalMart. Good job the store is a whopping 90,000 sq ft ­ it needs to be that big just to get the logo across the front. {{COUNTERPOINT }}

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