(Left) Bored with Kirsty Allsop on the telly, Coco wonders when the next meal might be.

“I hate the smell of cloves,” said my wife last night.

“Then don’t wear any,” I replied. Larf? I thought we’d never start.

But actually, the cloves were merely being used stuck into onions as a stock for some fish pie. And the pie was historic, though I say so myself. The funny thing is, the entire dish between three of us cost just £4.38. From Tesco.

Yes, I’ve been down Tesco again, wicked me. But listen up: I used to have supermarkets as clients for a living. This was a long time ago, in the days when screwing manufacturers and farmers was more than enough to keep them amused. It hadn’t occurred to them back then that there was any point in screwing the customers as well. I learned many things over 25 years, and the main thing was this: if you want to bankrupt a supermarket within six months, walk in and buy only from the special offer gondolas and the Reduced to Clear counter. Because these are loss leaders for them.

So those who prissily refuse to cross the Tesco threshold are, relatively speaking, doing them a favour. (Only kidding: if that’s your principle, then fine: I do know where you’re coming from. I feel the same about Newscorp. I’d rather eat glass than pay for Roopofootie).

These days, my mission is to buy loss leaders – and only loss leaders – when visiting Tesco. But it isn’t based entirely on vindictiveness. Well, mainly it is: but about 30% of it is the thrill of the chase. And that includes serving up a luxury fish pie for £4.38. We live in straitened times, and they are about to get bent completely out of shape. So this is a pretty damned good (and entertaining) way to prosper while surviving.

For the record, the contents were Fish sauce (reduced from £3.20 to 0.59) Fresh veg stock (Reduced from £1.70 to 0.12) 400g white fish fillets (haddock reduced from £3.25 to 1.09) 100g of salmon (10% of a 1kg side, formerly £20, reduced to £10, reduced to £8.55 because of being close to sellby date…0.85) Desiree mashing potatoes (£1.78 reduced to 0.79, but I only needed 0.43) and King Prawn (on a 3 for 2 offer, 200g worked out at £1.20).

Alright, we do have some chives in the garden, onions in the kitchen, and eggs in the fridge. But total new expenditure was £4.38 Mr Dixon, so ‘elp me an’ strike me darn if I should lie, it’s a fair cop guvnor.

Our new (increasingly street-wise) puppy Coco watched the consumption of this meal in rapt attention. She then watched the two elder dogs lick the oven dish clean, baring their teeth whenever she came within four leagues of their meal. But they were too busy troughing to notice me giving the tiny person a Butcher’s small-dog-junior concoction billed as Chicken Treat. Our latest canine addition is not keen on politically correct food; in fact, our conclusion thus far is that the more the additive content, the better she likes it. I have little doubt that Chicken Treat is really Kentucky Fried Avian Bum, but it disappeared down her neck with minimal use of dentures.

While I was in the supermarket today, I encountered Hyacinth Bucket. Not the actress you understand, but a woman who not only was her doppelganger, but had clearly also decided to milk the resemblance by behaving like a cross between Imelda Marcos and Evita Peron.

“Is this fish FARMED?” she asked the bewildered fish counter bloke, as I sidled to one side having spotted the vastly reduced fresh fish stock.

“Nah,” he said – his face straighter than a Sherwood Forest arrow, “that ain’t never seen a farm, madam: it comes arta the sea dunnit?”

The event reminded me of an encounter during the 1970s, when our local greengrocer (a firm National Front devotee) was asked by a plummy customer, “Are these oranges from South Africa? Only I refuse to buy fruit from South Africa.”

The fruiterer smiled at her, and replied, “Nar – course not: these are Jaffa missus – Yid oranges. Yer don’t want them Outspans, I mean, not after them blackies ‘ave ‘ad their ‘ands all over ’em, now do yer?”

She turned on her heel and shot from the shop in a flurry of Laura Ashley and leather sandals. Should I find this funny? Of course I should: the retailer’s hilarious bigotry was matched only by the arch inability of his client to see that he was a hopeless case. I do not doubt that many would castigate me for being amused. But I would prefer a world in which Jewish and black people could laugh out loud at knuckle-draggers of whatever colour. And be prepared to admit – as I denigrate my fellow whites – that some of their peers are well below perfect.