A Lament Over Tesco

Fallen, fallen is Tesco the Great!

Tell it not to TE Stockwell.
Mention it not to Jack Cohen.

The aisles of plenty are empty of customers
The website has seen better days.

How she once swooped on the merchants
Demanding retro income and listing fees

She went unto the dairy farmers of Bashan
And demanded the lowest prices, trusting that the EU would subsidise them.

She strode through the streets, putting "Extra"s and "Metro"s on every corner
Adding field to field, until she had the space to build an superstore in every town.

And she reached up-market - even as high as Waitrose.
And she went down to the depths - even to compete with Aldi and Lidl.

But her arm was stretched too far
And her underlying profitability not what she thought.

Her turnover was overturned
And who could make sense of her reporting of long-term supplier agreements?

So her profits are uncertain
And her shares have gone down as unto the pit.
Her dead cat bounceth not
And her bonds are like unto junk

And so the people gathered and laughed at Tesco
And made mockery of her

And jeered and saith
"Is this was the one that would take on the World?

But her employees were filled with trepidation
And her suppliers knew their profit margins would soon be brought low
And their volume would be like unto a stork in the desert.
And your pension probably won't do too well out of it all.

So ask not for whom the self-service checkout beeps
It beeps for thee.