SUPERMARKETS get a lot of bad press.

They have wiped out battalions of small grocers and farmers, destroyed our affinity with seasonal food, imperilled dozens of varieties of English fruit and veg while replacing them with dirt-free, pesticide-coated tasteless alternatives, and hooked us on salty TV dinners.

But that's okay. Because they're so convenient, aren't they?

Actually, no. Supermarkets are not at all convenient. This lie is so blatant, it is astonishing that we have swallowed it, along with our Tesbury's individually-wrapped microwaveable dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget (product of more than one country; may contain chicken).

Quite how inconvenient supermarkets are hit home the other Sunday. Against my every instinct, I'd decided we should pop into the new, engorged Asda.

What a mistake. If there is a more miserable way to spend part of the weekend than being stuck in a traffic jam in a full supermarket car park, I have yet to experience it.

There is absolutely no point to a supermarket without enough parking. Space for customers' cars is something of an imperative when they are built so far out of the way.

Without that single advantage, the whole edifice of convenience crumbles. My eyes were opened to a simple truth: supermarkets are the most inconvenient shops imaginable.

For a start, you have to make a special car journey to visit them. How inconvenient is that? It means you cannot just "pop in" to Asda, Sainsbury or Tesco. To make the journey worthwhile, you must plan ahead, checking each cupboard and fridge shelf to draw up a list of everything you need.

If you don't, you find yourself "popping in" three or four times a week until you know the names of the checkout assistants better than those of your family. And every time you go, you are susceptible to the stores' psychological shopping warfare techniques: this is why you leave the shop with a battery-operated train set and five butternut squashes when you only popped in for a pint of milk.

How much better life would be if there were a few grocery shops in York city centre. Then I could drop by at lunchtime, or on the way home, and buy a few bits and bobs without any hassle. That would entail no car journeys so no pollution. Genuine convenience, in fact.

Such shops used to exist (there is still Marks & Sparks, if you can face the crowds and the prices), but they have all been put out of business by those damnable supermarkets. And there is no sign of Tesco's et al opening a branch in the city centre, despite clear demand.

A few corner shops do battle on to serve York's suburbs. But they lack the buying power of their big brother supermarkets, so they are often left with inferior fresh produce at higher prices.

Moreover, supermarkets go out of their way to hinder rather than help their loyal customers. They do this by dropping favourite lines without notice. Or by waiting until you have just mastered the internal layout and then switching it all round overnight. So you reach out for your weekly consignment of Swiss muesli and instead pick up a bag of cat litter. You might only discover your mistake with your first spoonful at home; and perhaps not even then.

York's Asda is always one for a zany scheme to make life supposedly easier for its customers. Doctors giving flu jabs, chaplains delivering sermons, a baby-naming service; soon women will be able to give birth on aisle three and then watch the in-store chef whip up a meal for four with the placenta.

Yet a truly shopper-friendly add-on, the crche, was closed some time ago. How typically inconvenient.

Updated: 11:17 Wednesday, November 20, 2002