Today I ran to help Ms G by visiting her local Tesco to get some essential food supplies.

I believe it was Niccolò Machiavelli who said ambiguity is the enemy of a successful supermarket shopping mission. Some would argue he said no such thing. They’d be correct but they’d also be missing the point: Machiavelli was right.

Fortunately today there would be no uncertainty involved with my supermarket experience. That’s because Ms G had prepared a superbly annotated shopping list. It separated the fresh produce from the non-fresh. It noted normal price ranges to expect. Where necessary, it specified desired brands and weights. What’s more, when I picked up the list, Ms G took the time to talk through the items, explained what I should do if something was on special or discounted in bulk, and even showed me an old packet of the Polish pâte she wanted so I'd know what to look for.

Quite simply it was a shopper's dream. I was so pleased. My subsequent visit to Tesco Metro was a precision guided ballet of purchasing prowess. I could sense the other shoppers watching me as I swooped through the aisles, indifferent to their indecision, caught up in a whirlwind of my own efficiency. They were thinking to themselves, what’s his secret? How does he make it look so easy?

To them I would say - and, again, I would be misquoting Machiavelli - “at Tesco, as in life, it is better to have a list than to be listless”.