"I'm all lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily;

"I came in here for the special offer, guaranteed personality," sang Mick Jones of The Clash on their seminal album London Calling.

For a few years now Britain has had a bit of a love-hate relationship with our supermarkets.

Books, documentaries and articles galore have been produced on how they are wrecking our society.

Who is to blame for a lack of variety in food, with everything looking the same?

Blame the supermarket. Shiny, red tomatoes which don't taste of much in particular, blame the supermarket.

For years farmers have complained about the buying power of the giant retailers, who have used their economies of scale to force down prices of milk, eggs and other food commodities.

Meanwhile, Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and the rest have been blamed for causing congestion on our roads.

Trucks travel all over Europe to supply them, while thousands of people drive there every day to satisfy their consumer lust.

Meanwhile, society begins to crumble as we no longer go to our local shops and get to know our neighbours.

This argument does have a bit of substance to it, because if you look around a supermarket how many people do you see chatting to each other, laughing or smiling?

Not many. Instead beleaguered parents wheel their trolleys around with grim- faced determination to avoid eye contact with anyone and a temper tantrum from their offspring in the sweets aisle.

Meanwhile, why do pensioners decide to do their shopping on a Saturday when they have got the rest of the week to do it? Arrgghghh.

As creators of stress and tension, supermarkets are hard to beat.

There are legitimate concerns about the power of supermarkets, with £1 out of every £7 spent on food in the UK supposedly spent at Tesco.

The newsagents raised their own fears yesterday; what chance do they have of competing with companies who, if they were countries, would be about the biggest economies in the world?

But really, we've only got ourselves to blame. And should we really criticise Tesco for just being very good at what it does?

The firm, which started In 1919 when Jack Cohen invested his serviceman's gratuity worth £30 in a grocery stall in London, is now well established across the globe.

They must be doing something right, because we all go there in droves.

The variety of food on our tables is probably the widest it has ever been, while it is also probably, in real terms at least, the cheapest it has ever been.

So, we have a love-hate relationship with the supermarket. We try to go to the local shop, but it might not have exactly what we want, and might well be closed when we want to go hunting and gathering at 3am.

Still, if we don't like supermarkets, we can adopt guerilla consumer tactics, and not spend our cash there. It's just easier said than done.