To the barricades, comrades, to defend your supermarket!

Isee Sainsbury’s is trying out a change in the policy over its Nectar loyalty cards, rewarding customers for the frequency of their visits rather than for the amount they spend. Apparently they have noticed that Nectar card holders have had the gall to succumb to the blandishments of Tesco on occasion or have been lured by the siren song of Aldi.

Sainsbury’s is quite right; people take their store loyalty cards far too lightly. You see the blackguards at the checkout, with their wallets bursting with cards, professing fealty to other outlets. We need to show proper loyalty – the kind where you are prepared to fight a duel with anyone who speaks slightingly of Waitrose’s own brand mayonnaise.

It should be that you only get a Boots card when you have sworn allegiance, kneeling in the Shampoos and Conditioners aisle and repeating: “I vow to be loyal to Boots and never stray into Superdrug which is an abomination. I promise not to be irritated every time I am asked if I am taking any other medication when I buy paracetamol. Even though my quest to locate razor blades may take hours I will persist to the end.”

Loyalty means dedication. If you have a John Lewis card, you should be prepared to volunteer to do shelf-stacking for three hours a week. And if you transgress at any outlet and are denounced by some anonymous “concerned shopper” for straying into other stores, the area manager should be summoned and should publicly cut up your store card and order you never to darken its automatic doors again.

A well-placed apiarist source tells me that bees are feeling specially honoured that Prince Harry and his bride-to-be insist on having bee-friendly flowers at their wedding. This is seen in the hive community as a timely recognition of the valuable pollinating work they do in society.

In certain influential bee circles, there is a belief that the arrival of Ms Markle on the scene could be a breath of fresh air that makes life in the hive more relaxed and informal. This may help to shake up the bees’ hierarchical world, where protocol is everything. As a result, even drones may have more of a say.

Everybody admires the splendid pageantry of the swarm with its centuries-old traditions, but some of the more progressive bees are open to suggestions that it should be e more inclusive. Perhaps a few of the e workers could take the lead for part of the swarm’s procession? No doubt t some diehard worker bees will choke ke on their nectar at this suggestion and a few years ago it would be unthinkable, hinkable, but things are different now. Apiarist observers are convinced that, in future, more attention will be paid to the route taken by the swarm. rm. It will be encouraged to visit deprived prived inner-city areas so that it is witnessed tnessed by a greater cross-section of society. ociety. Thought is also being given to oa a more people-friendly buzz, one ne that is more tuneful perhaps.

Some are now openly questioning the make-up of the swarm. Why only bees? Other insects pollinate, so why are they excluded? In the next 10 years, apiarists predict, every swarm of bees will include as many as 20 wasps.

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion A great fuss is made because all three episodes of the BBC Agatha Christie drama, Ordeal by Innocence, cannot be watched in one go. Surely this is what makes it authentic. Viewers are being treated like the dysfun dysfunctional family hanging about in the country mansion waiting to be summ summoned to the drawing room to be told w which of them did it.

Just getting such a dysfunctional bunch in the same room is a feat. Sulky Lady Arabella is having another cigare cigarette on the veranda, Clive, the wound wounded war hero, is tinkering with th the carburettor of his Bentley, them the matriarch is burning old love lette letters in her bedroom, and cook is wre wrestling with an outsize ham in the kitchen.

D Dodgy Ernest pours himself a she sherry from the decanter. It’s a ma major operation to get all these pe people in the same room at the sam same time. And how will they work out the seating arrangements?

It It’s a safe bet that the murderer is the person standing nearest to the marbl marble fireplace. Or the dowager on the so sofa.