Today, as yet another glossy pamphlet listing all the local supermarket’s latest deals came fluttering down onto the doormat, I wondered why none of the major UK chains are on Twitter yet.

Tesco: there is an account billing itself as @tescodeals, but as it has no avatar, one follower and its updates are protected (!) I’m not sure that this one is bona fide.

Sainsburys: there is an account called @sainsburys, but it has no avatar, one follower and one update from July 2007. Hmmm.

Morrisons: there is an account called @morrisons, with 23 followers. However it has no avatar – hey! I see a theme developing – and no updates.

What do you think are the chances that these are Twitter Sitter accounts? They may well have been set up by people who have no connection to these businesses, other than the idea that they can sell these account names further down the line. (Recent evidence suggests that they may be on a hiding to nothing: to date, Twitter has been fairly scrupulous when it comes to transferring account names to their rightful owners.)

Anyway, moving on:

Asda: there is an official Asda Twitter account, called @asda_official. It has 97 followers, but appears to be nothing more than a listing of February 2009 press releases from Asda’s PR people. Tweets include blurbs about profit forecasts and plans to tackle packaging waste. This may be useful for journalists but it’s a missed trick, in my opinion.

Wouldn’t it be great if every time your local supermarket announced a new special offer, promotion or BOGOF, it could ping you via Twitter? I’d jump at this one. I certainly pay more attention to my Twitter feed than I do to the (expensively produced) junk mail that comes flooding through the letterbox.

How can I live without Twitter? I might as well speak to people in real life then. DO YOU KNOW HOW BORING THAT IS?

This is my favourite Hitler/Downfall mashup to date.