So which supermarket is really the best value? All of them, isn't it obvious?

Happy to add to the gale of derision which met the Which? survey finding that Sainsbury's is the UK's cheapest supermarket.

Anyone who belongs to that spectral army of austerity-stricken citizens hanging on in there on scraps of income from McJobs, freelance gig economy zero-fun contracts, swindler-sold private pension schemes, shrivelled benefits etc, knows that dear old J Sainsbury is far from the best value place to do your shop.

We have to shop around.

At least in the cramped suburbs of London the less-well-off can easily visit all the big name supermarkets in a short time to compare prices.

I am part of an anonymous circle of bargain-hunters who trace ceaseless circuits from Aldi to Asda to Tesco to Morrisons (Camberwell branch, as you ask) to Iceland and of course to Sainsburys and even on occasion, just for a laugh, to Waitrose.

Laugh? You have to, unless you'd rather cry. You heard, supermarkets are one of the few places an alarming proportion of the UK's population get any form of social interaction. It's usually just "How are you today?" "Fine thanks. And you?" And that can be enough.

Please don't ask us to do our comparisons online. The best thing about in-real-life shopping is the realisation that store managers are still human, and therefore unpredictable. Well, some of them.

Of course we nearly always end up buying most of the regular stuff at Lidl, which remains the cheapest, and surprisingly often the best quality (if you don't believe me, compare their fresh garlic with the miserable little things at Tesco, etc).

There's an obvious rule: avoid the "local" branches of all these places if at all possible. If you have time, it is possible.

But - look again. The Which? survey was based (mysteriously so far as I am concerned) on a basket of branded goods.

Madness. Why buy Mr Kipling cakes, when they're over twice the price of the German supermarket rip-off?

Well, I couldn't be bothered anyway, as I  subsist on cheap red wine,  nuts, spinach, oatcakes, bananas,  olive oil, garlic and the cheapest French, Spanish and Italian cheeses anywhere in the EU (may god preserve it). Mostly from Lidl, Aldi and Asda.

(Aldi, however, entails a sortie further south, until recently al the way to Tooting Broadway. Now there's a new one two stops closer, on Balham High Road, occupying the space vacated last year by Poundland).

For some reason I am always cheered by the high visibility of The Morning
 Star when you walk into Sainsbury's Clapham branch. Shop on, comrades!

Perversely, I do still go to Sainsburys on Clapham High Street quite a lot. This branch has a good feel to it. The first thing I usually see there is the Morning Star, displayed prominently on the newspaper rack: I love this fact.

In truth, Sainsbury's is not cheap, their discounts are rather mean, but they do regular 25 per cent off six bottles o' wine deals.  And if you take full advantage of Nectar cards and the occasional promotions, you can walk away feeling un-ripped-off. And their own brand sardines in olive oil are great.

Most of us cheapskate shoppers could use supermarket pricing policies as our special subject on Mastermind. I know the different approaches of Sainsbury, Tesco and other branch managers to cutting prices of fresh produce near closing time - though, mercifully, this practice is diminishing as more of the big stores donate their short-life stock to local food banks.

So, on we go, the hunter-gatherers of the SW postcodes swarm around that golden parallelogram.
At its western extremity, the shining duo of Asda and Lidl at Clapham Junction.

Ah, Asda. Now that it's owned by US retail monster, WalMart, perhaps we should avoid it. But this branch offers such a fine range of interesting food and drink, at good prices.  The staff are sweet as sweet, amazingly given the dastardly tricks of their employers.

But why does this store go to such lengths to deter cyclists?  It was built in the 80s, when the car was still king. It has a two-level car park (currently being re-surfaced). There is no way of penetrating it by bike without dismounting, carrying your bike down the steps from Lavender Hill entrances or up the travelator from the car park.

Retail fortress? Asda at Clapham Junction: a good value store once you get
inside - but what an uninviting prospect for anyone NOT arriving by car.

Their tiny bike-rack area does offer the compensation of fitted carpets. Does that swing it for you?

No. So more and more often we visit the nearby Lidl instead.

At the north eastern extremity - a 15 minute spin or 87/77 busride over Lavender Hill and Wandsworth Road - is the big Sainsburys at Nine elms.

This used to be a delightful meeting place: shoppers flocked here from Battersea, Stockwell, Oval, Clapham and beyond. But now it has been re-developed, engulfed by the ugly apartment blocks of the new Nine Elms, the shop itself raised to a first-floor, stuffy trading hall.

The strange magic of that 1980s shop has gone. It is now thoroughly unpleasant, unless, I suppose, you arrive by car - but who designs inner-London supermarkets to meet the needs of motorists in 2020? Answer: Sainsburys. It has a car park on the ground floor, just as bad as the Lavender Hill Asda (but that one has the excuse that it was built in the 80s).

So. We migrate south, to the Tesco on Acre Lane and the conveniently close Lidl; or the smarter, bigger Lidl near Stockwell tube station. I used also to go to Tesco on Kennington Lane, near Vauxhall: a lovely bread counter. For a long while I avoided the Tesco at Clapham South, as it is housed in the old women's hospital, which closed only after long public protests.

Now - shame on me - I can be found there, on occasion, popping two bottles of Tesco Sangiovese into my rucksack, two for £9. It's good Italian wine.

Has anyone ever been fined for breaking the 20mph speed limit in Lambeth?

If you're cruising down this street at 55mph in your
Audi - as you do, don't deny it - would you even notice
this little roundel hiding in the shadows?

Does anyone make a cheap, reliable hand-held speed camera? During 2019, that grim year now blessedly over, speeding vehicles became one of the worst of hundreds of other daily annoyances that further depressed all quality-of-life measures in the stinking rich slums of south-west London. Yes, we need something to fight back with, us beleagured pedestrians.

If such devices exist, they should be bought in bulk by local authorities and handed out at libraries, doctors surgeries etc so that people can give lunatic drivers a little scare as they blast down residential roads at two or three times the speed limit.

So tell me, has anyone ever been banned, imprisoned or even fined for going at 24mph in a 20 mph limit  area?

Tell me, honestly, have you ever seen anyone driving at less than 25mph in a 20mph limit area? Really? I cycle at more than 20mph in some parts of London and clever signs start flashing at me furiously, kill your speed! But not round here.

In this wide,  almost straight street with no speed bumps, we're used to rat-runners paying no heed of the pathetic 20mph limit signs, and having no thought for pedestrians (who include kids going to and coming out of the local primary school).

Lambeth introduced the 20mph limit all over the borough a few years ago. Seems putting up a few inadequate signs was a cheap solution to residents' demands for traffic calming measures, rather than adding bumps or chicanery, speed cameras, planting trees etc, as requested at various "your voice counts" meetings with the planners.

This flimsy little 20mph limit sign looks more like one of those
horrible pennants used by property developers to guide people
to their "marketing suites"

I regularly have to get out of the way of cars and even big trucks going three times that speed....and perhaps more.  Trouble is the road is also used as a sort of drag strip for drivers who like to prove their manhood by shattering everyone else's peace. Not just boy racers but plump 40-year-old city types giving their silly McLarens, Mercs and Maseratis a bit of an airing.

Then there are the speeding delivery vans. Don't get me on this subject, which is at least 300 of the other 364 things wrong with the past year. These huge boxes on wheels, whether scruffy old white Transits or shiny new DHL vans, are one of many reasons we should all stop using Amazon, Ocado, and all other delivery services, unless we really can't use our poor fat little legs to make it to a London's quite good variety of retail outlets.

There are 20 mph speed limit cameras on Wandsworth Road and Acre Lane and probably loads of other places in the borough. I've seen those two flashing four or five times in the space of five minutes. Are these drivers getting speeding tickets and fines? I've never even seen police doing spot checks on these streets. Presumably they couldn't spare the personnel.

Other things which made 2019 shit and will probably make 2020 even shitter:

• Linked to the above - the ever-increasing girth and ghastliness of SUVs.  Who on earth believes a fat black Range Rover is something to aspire to?
• Linked to the above - the ear-splitting loudness of car horns, the sort people pay extra for in order to add to the fuck-off factor of their vehicle. A possible legislative solution to this dreadful form of auditory pollution was suggested on this blog many years ago.
• Linked to the above - small motorbikes that make more noise than even big trucks and buses. And luxury cars that have clearly had their exhaust systems expensively tweaked in order to emit a much louder roar when the driver revs it at lights.
• Linked to the above: why is Lambeth still allowing so many of its super-rich residents to pave over their front gardens, or worse still, to dig out underground cinemas or swimming pools or whatever else it is they need, thereby wrecking their neighbour's lives for months with endless flotillas of four-axle dumper trucks, skip deliveries, and even those revolting portaloos for the poor workers half-blocking pavements?
• Linked to the above: more and more trucks, vans and even car-sized pick-up trucks displaying "Cyclists Beware" signs on their rear panels. Honestly, if you can't see what's behind you or alongside you on the nearside of your vehicle, from your driving position, should that vehicle be legal in this congested city?
• Linked to above: often the silliest most trivial things annoy most. Last year it was the proliferation of those multi-LED indicator lights on the back of the newest SUVs and other flash-harry vehicles - the sort that seem to lick their way around the back of the car. Like the flicking tongues of some venemous reptile.
• Linked to the above - over-use of phrases such as "linked to the above"; proliferation of old farts using blogs to evacuate their spleen into the idiot wind of the internet, which merely blows it all back into their own twisted faces?
• Case rested.

Two London blights for the price of one photo: the crazy congestion caused by delivery vans thanks to Amazon, etc; and the

continuing madness of paving over front gardens...removing green patches, adding to flood risk.