I remember being disappointed a couple of years ago when I popped into my local Poundland store on the hunt for a cheesy Christmas jumper. I did find one that was suitable but it did cost me a tenner rather than a mere quid. To be fair, it has served me well for several occasions where I’ve needed such garb and, of course, I realise that even the raw materials would have cost over a quid. To be honest, even if I could have had it knitted for free, it was still probably cheaper than the consumer cost of the raw materials.

Perhaps because of this incident, my eyes were caught today by the story that the whole chain has itself just been sold for the princely sum of … £1. I don’t suppose many of the 16,000 or so staff are basking in the irony though. The cheap end of the retail market is a hard place to be for all sorts of reasons and that is a lot of people who will be feeling that acutely at the moment.