Retail therapy

To the Grosvenor House Hotel in London for the 2007 Retail Industry Awards sponsored by Mars, Seafish, GlaxoSmithKline, Cadbury Trebor Bassett, and others too numerous to mention. I am here as a guest of one of the companies (none of the aforementioned) and from the moment we sit down in the Great Room (Europe's largest ballroom), we are bombarded by a wall of noise from Blayz, a high energy string quartet. After dinner - and a brief interlude that includes an unexplained appearance by a pair of Laurel and Hardy lookalikes - it's time for the awards, compered by Frankie Boyle, star of BBC2's Mock The Week.

As an impartial observer it's hard to get excited by categories such as Supermarket Store Manager of the Year, Multiple Convenience Community Retailer of the Year, Independent Training Initiative of the Year, Global Convenience Format of the Year, and Independent Company Owned Forecourt Retailer of the Year, but I do my best, whooping and hollering as representatives from Morrisons, Sainsbury, Asda, Spar and M&S make their way to the stage to receive their awards.

Eventually, we're allowed a 15-minute "comfort break". For many guests that means a smoking break which is why, had you been driving down Park Lane at approximately ten o'clock, you would have seen scores of people, in evening dress, lighting up outside. Welcome to Blair's Brown's Britain.