My enthusiasm for the supermarket chain Aldi, expressed a couple of times recently here, took a slight knock on Tuesday following an experience in the store off the Botley Road.

Arriving at the till to pay for my shopping, I was dismayed to find that my bank debit card didn’t work. I tapped in the pin number and awaited the presentation of my receipt. It was not forthcoming.

The young lady on the till told me that the pin number had been wrongly inserted three times and now the card was no longer active.

“But I have only tried once,” I said, as other customers eyed me suspiciously from along the conveyor belt. “The other times could have been days ago,” she replied.

Actually, I knew this not to be the case. I had possessed this new card for a little over two weeks, during which time it had been used only twice, for trouble-free extraction of cash.

Fortunately, I had enough money to pay for my shopping. But I left the store thinking there was clearly something wrong with Aldi’s machines (and I have seen others in similar pickles there) rather than with me or my card.

But you can’t argue with technology, can you?

That’s one of the unhappy features of modern life.