I staggered into work this week after a hectic trip to the US of A ­ Arkansas, to be precise ­ the home of retail giant Wal-Mart. Its annual shareholders meeting is unlike anything I've ever encountered ­ and I've been around, readers. Directors and store workers jostle for the best view in a stadium which seats 20,000. Celebrities "pop" in for a chat with chairman Don Soderquist, and the Walton family (no, not the John-Boy variety from the telly re-runs, but the wife, sons and daughter of Sam and Bud Walton, the founding brothers of Wal-Mart) make star appearances on stage to standing ovations. So you can imagine how Asda's Allan Leighton felt about making his debut speech in front of the masses, even though a good 200 of them were from his own team back in the UK. When I ran into him backstage he was frantically stuffing himself with blueberry muffins and looking a mite worried. Of course, he rose to the occasion, even though a valiant attempt to speak German to his new charges from that neck of the woods went down like a lead balloon. "What was he on about?" asked my neighbour from Cologne. Good question, that. Any comment Allan? After the Wal-Mart cheer ­ yes, even those suited and booted directors were giving it some welly ­ we were routemarched off for a well earned lunch. After all, the meeting started at 6am. And, what a delight, it was paid for by our kind chaperones. Now, before I get any angry letters, I must remind readers that Wal-Mart's policy is to pay their own way at all times. Say a supplier asks you out to dinner? Uh-uh. What about tickets to that ball game? Certainly not! Okay, flights to Honalulu, then? Right, call security! In fact, my host, José, thought it slightly odd that we hacks didn't have to share our Thelma and Louise style motel rooms: "Even the execs do here," he lamented. Wal-Mart's Bentonville HQ, called the home office (hell, even I was calling it that after three days) sounds like the FBI, and looks like it. It's packed with 12,000 employees and enough sophisticated IT equipment to sink a battleship. When suppliers pop in to flog their latest product, they deal with buyers in the Supplier Negotiation Rooms. Let's just say the words Fort and Knox spring to mind. These are not cosy rooms with flowers ­ these are rooms to do business in. But, hey, the benefits to this Every Day Low Cost operation are equally visible. In which other town can you pop into your local diner to find the chief financial director sitting down for pancakes and muffins on a Sunday morning? Or the vice chairman getting his first coffee fix? Or the chief people person (that's HR director to us) bantering with Rhonda the waitress? Exactly. And that famous US hospitality means I need to take a trip to Mr Buyrite for a new suit to fit my portly frame. Because as Rhonda reminded me: "In the south, if it ain't deep fried, it ain't food, darlin'." {{COUNTERPOINT }}