So, dangling a carrot really does get people moving

Psychological research is devoted to plumbing the complexity of the human brain. Literature and philosophy is dedicated to unravelling its mysteries.

But could the truth of what makes British humans tick be quite a bit simpler? Last week saw stampedes at the low-cost supermarket chain Aldi by Christmas shoppers desperate to get their hands on the stuffed carrot toy they’d seen in the shop’s Christmas advert. You can wallow in profundity and complexity all you like but, meanwhile, masses of Britons are fixated on one thing and one thing only: taking home a Kevin the Carrot soft toy, £3.99 for the small version and £19.99 for the larger one. Both sold out in seconds online – hence the scramble.

Customers told of their trials on social media. These were not the existential grapplings of the most advanced animal on earth. There was consternation at having been asleep when Kevin sold out. One Tweeter, Sarah Stackhouse, contacted Aldi plaintively wondering if there were any more Kevins available. “I spent an hour on your website last night and although I managed to get #KevintheCarrot in my online basket four times your website kept crashing & I couldn’t pay for him, that made me & #KevintheCarrot very sad,” she wrote, while another told of how at 4am the carrots had been sold out online, with fresh stock still to be uploaded. When she checked again, all had been lost.

Those who braved the cold to stand in queues seemed to fare better. One proud parent gloated: “When your 1 mission before work was to get Kevin the carrot swag! Mission accomplished.”

There is something heartening about the delight t taken by our nation’s adults in procuring not a workable Brexit deal or answers to man’s battle with mortality, but “Kevin the carrot swag”. At the least, it shows we care e about our children. Sort of.