Thirty years! That's probably a lifetime for some of you. Maybe even two.

Back in the olden days of supermarkets, they used to open at 9 and close at 5.30, and were never, ever open on Sundays. We used to carve our shopping lists on stone slabs with a chisel and hope that we didn't need anything with too many letters because we'd get blisters on our fingers (I dreaded running out of Worcestershire sauce) and instead of trolleys, we used to weave our own baskets, strap them to our husbands' backs and get them to crawl up and down the aisles on their hands and knees.

I'm not joking. You don't know how lucky you are these days with your 24-hour stores, self-checkouts, and trolleys that could accommodate every single one of the Von Trapp kiddies and still leave room for a jumbo pack of loo rolls

But, as usual, I digress. To break up the god-awful monotony of the weekly shop, I have been conducting a little informal investigation. I usually shop in Sainsbury's - the one at Bretton, as opposed to the New Sainsbury's over at Eastfield (yes, I know it's not new now, but it was new when it opened and so to me it will always be the New Sainsbury's.) But I like to play the field, so I also shop in Waitrose, Asda, M&S and Tesco.

And the results of my survey are these: the customers in Sainsbury's are by far the nicest. Followed by Asda, Waitrose, Tesco in that order and finally - way down there at the bottom - M&S. This has nothing to do with the staff, you understand: the shop assistants at all these places couldn't be lovelier. ("Green peppercorns, madam? No problem. Allow me to immediately stop whatever I am doing and lead gently you by the hand to the Land of Greenpeppercorns. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Some ironing, perhaps? Or maybe a foot massage?")

But the customers at M&S are the rudest, most inconsiderate fellow shoppers I have encountered so far. They barge their trolleys into you, ignore your consideration if you allow them to pass, take up all the aisle space, and never, ever smile. Whereas Sainsbury's shoppers are sweet, smiley and polite (after you, no, after YOU, no, please I insist, after YOU....and so on - until your frozen yoghurt has melted and you've forgotten exactly what it was you were looking for).

And while I'm venting my retail spleen, I'd like to vent a little bit over Queensgate: I feel quite cheated. They had those signs up around the old sunken seating areas for ages, promising a New Look Queensgate and then Ta Da! It just turned out to be a boring old flat space, and now there's hardly anywhere to sit and eat your sandwiches or wonder if that River Island sparkly top you've just bought isn't perhaps a little bit too young for you.

And - in full flow now - I'm also fed up with perfectly decent shops closing down.... only to re-open after a couple of months as yet another phone shop. Don't we have enough phone shops by now? How many phones can we buy? Surely more than two - one for each ear - is just plain greedy?

Anyway, enough spleen vented. I really must get on. I've just noticed that we're nearly out of Worcestershire sauce...