OPINION: BEALE ON ... ASDA.

The phosphorescent tints, sloppy-grin drooling over perfectly basted turkeys, check-pyjamaed children writhing in Barbie/Harry Potter ecstasy beneath an unfeasibly co-ordinated spruce, advertising mums in cheap sequins ... ah, the joys of seasonal ad campaigns. Yep, it's 16 degrees outside, bonfires are still smouldering, that Cadbury's mini roll treat chucked by trickers on Halloween is still smearing my bay window, but in telly adland it's already Christmas.

Why is obvious. It becomes almost impossible to tell one C-list, celeb-packed Christmas retail ad from another by sherry-soaked mid-November.

So it's important to get in early, before we've spent all our money and good-will-to-all-men. Asda is one of the first off the blocks.

Your consumer view of Asda pretty much depends on your income bracket (one Asda-shopping colleague tells me people go to his local store for a day out in the 'restaurant'). But retail snobs can't argue with the figures: Asda recently overtook Sainsbury's as the UK's second-largest supermarket and its George clothing range has annual sales of pounds 1 billion (last year it bought 3,400 miles of fleece).

And if it came to a punch-up between Jamie Oliver and Asda's new but unoriginal actress-of-a-certain-age figurehead, I know who my Monopoly money would be on. You don't mess with Julie Walters when she's doing her professional common person thing, Asda's fairy godmother in a pink tracksuit.

I like Walters and here she does a fine job giving Asda some warmth and personality, something the store has lacked.

But she's a desperately safe choice and I'm not sure she'll leg-up Asda once the yule scrum kicks in. On the other hand, she does look like she knows the price of toilet rolls and how to dress up mutton for under 50 quid. And the way her eyes mist over when she sees that Asda diamond necklace is touching to ...