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.

I'm not even a little bit keen on Waitrose: there, I said it.

I was going to use a harder-hitting headline: I hate Waitrose.

I was moved to do this by discovering that La Bella Sicilia in Warwick Way, Pimlico, one of the few decent, unpretentious Italian delicatessens remaining in London,  has been replaced by a "Little Waitrose".

It's quite a big little Waitrose, and it's directly opposite, as is so often the case, a small Tesco Metro, and just around the corner from a big Sainsburys. So, badly needed, then.

On reflection I realised that it's almost impossible to hate Waitrose - even a class warrior, who might

well despise it for its unapologetic middle-classness, middle-of-everything approach (and its mystifying support for Duchy Originals) - would have to admit it's got a better record on employment rights and ethical behaviour than any of the other supermarkets.

So it supplies a decent dollop of middle class guilt along with the hummus, if, like me, you avoid it for purely selfish reasons.  By which I mean the fact that it charges a great deal more for most of the things I like (notably red wine but also cashew nuts, figs, Pecorino cheese, and red grapefruit). Waitrose is just too nice, too honest, to clean, too well-intentioned, too fair, too sensible, to be entirely true.

 But that does not stop it muscling in on high street slots where it is not necessarily welcomed.

Another reason I object to Waitrose is that it's possibly the worst offender in the use of annoyingly unnecessary adjectives in its marketing and labelling.

It's not just basil but "majestic basil". Not plain oregano, but "sun kissed" oregano. Their own-brand chocolate spread has, it seems, to be "seriously chocolaty".

Please!

Why does everything have to be given silly little adjectival pre-fixes? Why can't we just have tomato and basil soup,  rather than "aromatic, heart-warming" soups?

OK, this is all minor stuff. They say, what would you prefer, a scuzzy old cornershop with mouse droppings under the biscuits and cockroaches around the chilled cabinets, stale bread and manky fruit, or this sweet little Waitrose?

I'd rather have the scuzzy old cornershop, thank you very much indeed.