FIVE for four', five for four', five for four', was printed on product bags and tickets all over our Tesco store today.

It was also emblazoned across the ample bosoms of our favourite Tesco ladies as the latest marketing message designed to move even more stock from their shelves at an even greater rate of knots.

As a former Playtex salesman, even I was confused.

I could only count two at a time, mostly 36 DD, and what could I do with five at my stage in life, anyway?

Clearly bewildered, my wife, Sylvia, looked for the single item price on a two-kilogramme bag of potatoes without finding one.

Her gaze went from one bin of spuds to another without success.

Now annoyed, she fumed at the frustration she was feeling as she tried to complete the extra shopping we were faced with for the visit of our grandchildren the following day.

"Who do they think we are feeding, a gang of navvies?" she asked me.

"Who wants five bags of spuds, when they can buy a sack; or five lettuces?"

These were looking tired, maybe because people could not make up their minds whether to buy them and walked on past. Other products were inadequately priced to push the promotion.

She was one of the first customers in when our local Tesco opened 19 years ago, without complaint.

You have got it wrong this time, Tesco.

George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.