Anyone with a memory better than mine will remember that Lisa and I had a traumatic experience ten days ago. After which we went to Asda. Well naturally I was in the mood to complain (which is so unlike me), so driven by my deep dissatisfaction (and great love of compensation), I wrote a letter to the headquarters (of Asda, not the Conservative party) the following day, and I'm pleased to report that as of this morning I've received a response. It's from Joanne Hardwick at 'Asda Customer Relations'. That's the Complaints Department to you and me.

Joanne, who's not only Hard, but gets on my Wick, clearly took on board everything I had to say, considered it carefully, then decided to completely ignore it and assume I must be lying. She informs me that "When we see queues form, we have fully trained colleagues working elsewhere in the store who are happy to help out on a checkout." So my experience of being told repeatedly that there were no trained staff members anywhere in the store, and that nothing could be done, was obviously some kind of hallucination brought on by my encounter with David Van Day an hour earlier. As was the lack of milk, which Joanne also chooses to ignore.

But having failed to apologise or admit responsibility for anything, Ms Hardwick does manage to home in on the most important point of my letter:

"I'm sorry to hear your ice cream had melted; I have enclosed a gift card of £6 to cover the cost of the product and also a gesture of good will on our behalf."

The ice cream cost £3.78, so that's a £2.22 gesture of goodwill. I've heard of "Every Little Helps" (admittedly not at Asda), but this is ridiculous. I bet Victoria Wood got more than that for baking their hedgehog loaves.

But still, having only managed to extract £5 from McDonalds for their treatment of diabetic pensioners in Essex two years ago, I suppose I can't complain. Literally.