When it comes to adventures in retail, nighttime shopping is where it all happens: the unusual and most interesting people, the prime parking spaces, the lack of queues and, best of all, the absence of germy, screamy, bored, needy, naggy children. Shopping at night is plentiful in the sticks where I live – the sticks being that area between the outer suburbs and Home Counties proper. It is where you can find both stretches of heath and woodland and still get a decent coffee, speciality breads, etc. Retail parks are open until 8, 9, or even 10, and two epic 24-hour superstores are a mere zoom away in my old car.

The British public loves an excuse for a laugh, a bit of banter, fleeting but always greasing the wheels of life

The relaxed pace of night shopping and less predictable customers makes nighttime shopping marvellous for eavesdropping. Regulars include loners, the elderly, and students. For me, the experience is part immersive sitcom, part anthropological fact-finding mission. There is also a sense of homeopathic tincture to the social contact of nighttime shopping. I have always depended on the brief conviviality of strangers – the noncommittal, spontaneous exchanges with staff and other shoppers. The warmth without involvement. The British public loves an excuse for a laugh, a bit of banter, fleeting but always greasing the wheels of life. Friendliness for the unfriendly.

For the hardcore hit of extreme night shopping, you need a 24-hour superstore. The nearest is the Tesco Superstore; the other is more of a drive, but........

© The Spectator