The Dutch-based retailer Spar has nine stores in India and is looking to sign up five franchise partners to expand across the country. It also hopes to expand in Russia where it has plans to increase its current 40 stores to 100 in two regions by the end of the year. In China the success of Carrefour has started a debate about the adverse impact on domestic retailers...particularly smaller family-run groceries...of the foreign invasion. But Spar claims to be different.

Spar projects an ethos of embracing small family-run grocery stores by inviting them to join the club by signing up for the national or provincial Spar franchise. Retailers like Wal-Mart or Tesco enter China, India or Russia when they see a fast-growing middle class with enough disposable income to start focusing on brand, safety, quality and taste and less on price. There will be a few vague attempts to talk about branding & productivity and the economies of scale as if there were no diminishing returns. But in essence the enterprise is a looting operation whose principal purpose is to take out ever higher prices and repatriate ever larger profits. Is Spar really any different?

State and provincial bureaucrats and politicians in China, India and Russia may have done their homework before inviting in the foreign food retailers. But local people are well advised to talk to people in Marlow...where Waitrose has been stopped from expanding...or Sheringham...where Tesco has been stopped dead in its tracks...before going along with it. A walk to the seaside with Mr Ghandi is a nice way to spend a week or so. And when food is in short supply it is nice...for some...to know that small local farmers will go to the wall and the poor will starve when food distribution is under the control of foreign food stores. But who actually invited Colonialism in by the back door?

It is the summer of 1935 and Laurie Lee has been told that street-fiddlers in the Spanish town of Vallodolid need a licence. So off he goes after breakfast to the city hall where soldiers with fixed bayonets sat around on the stairs and hungry dogs ran in and out like messengers while the usual motionless queues of silent peasants waited for officials who would never appear. Doubting that there would be a queue for fiddlers that morning he climbed the stairs and opened the first door he came to. Let the young English tramp take up the story.

The room inside was large and crowded with heavy presidential furniture. At a desk by the window sat a reed-thin man...or rather he inclined himself parallel to it, his feet on a cabinet, a cigar in his mouth, and a chessboard across his knees. I could see his long hooked profile and one pensive downcast eye. He moved a few pawns, hummed a little and then swung his chair towards me. I was aware of two raised eyebrows and an expression of courtly inquiry. ‘You are lost, perhaps?’ ‘I’d like to see the Mayor,’ I said. ‘So would I. So would all the world.’ ‘Is he away?’

The man giggled, and a convulsion ran up his body like an air-bubble up a spout. ‘Yes, he’s away. He’s gone to the madhouse.’ I said I was sorry, but he raised his hand. ‘Oh no. He is happy. Who wouldn’t be in such a place? Biscuits and chocolate at all hours of the day. Nuns to talk to, and coloured wool to play with...at least, so they say.’ he looked secretively at his cigar. ‘But you see me here. If I can help...’

When I told him what I wanted, he gave a musical squeak and his eyebrows jumped with pleasure. ‘How charming,’ he murmured. ‘But of course you shall. One moment - Manolo, please!’ A swarthy young man, dressed in trousers and pyjama-top, entered softly from another room. ‘Find me a licence, Manolito.’ ‘What kind of licence?’ ‘Oh, any kind. Only make it a nice one.’ ‘Then permit me, Don Ignacio.’ The young man grasped his chief by the legs, hoisted them from the cabinet, and searched the papers beneath them. Meanwhile Don Ignacio reclined indolently, his legs stuck in the air, beaming upon me and singing ‘rumpty-dum-diddle’.

‘To sell water,’ murmured the clerk. ‘To erect a small tomb...to beat gold...to press juniper berries...ah, here we have it. Don Ignacio, with your permission...’ He replaced his chief’s legs on the cabinet and handed him a kind of finely engraved cheque-book, together with pen and ink. Don Ignacio doubled up and began to write, rolling his tongue and grunting with effort. Delicate scrolls and decorations ran over the paper, feathery tendrils in violet ink; then the things was finished, dusted and sealed, and signed with a delicious flourish. ‘There,’ said Don Ignacio. ‘The city is yours. Rumpty-dum-diddle-de-ay.’ I studied my licence and was pleased with it. It looked like a Royal Charter.

Headed with an engraving of lions and a scarlet seal, it formally proclaimed: ‘That, by using the powers attributed to and conferred upon the Mayorality, and by virtue of the precepts of the Municipal Bye-laws and the appropriate tariffs due to the said most excellent Ayuntamiento; a licence is hereby granted to Don Lorenzo Le, that he may walk and offer concerts through the streets of this City, and the public squares of the same, provided always that he does not in any manner cause riot, demonstrations or prejudice the free movement of traffic and persons...’

‘That will be half a peseta,’ said Don Ignacio mildly, swinging his feet back on to the top of the desk. Then he invited me to join him in a game of chess, the question of the fee was forgotten.