Ground Floor: Supermarket shopping is not my favourite pastime. In fact I hate it, writes Sheila O'Flanagan.

I'm usually in a temper before I ever get through the doors owing to the fact that my local supermarket has a car park clearly designed by someone who was turned down by a computer games company on the grounds that the rules of his new game, 'Supermarket Car Park', were totally incomprehensible.

The poorly placed signage means that you haven't a clue whether or not you're obeying the one-way system, while the one-way system is so senseless that if you miss a turn you have to lap around the car park all over again to find an alternative space.

Meanwhile, the ramps were clearly built with Range Rover shoppers in mind.

I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised by the fact that most of the consumers then abandon their cars in the spaces in a variety of parking poses, which take up more than one space or make it impossible for another driver to get in or out of their car, but it's enough to tip you over the edge most of the time.

Maybe, however, I'm just doing the wrong sort of supermarket shopping.

Perhaps, instead of buying the household cleaners and oven fries, I should be setting my sights a bit higher and buying the supermarkets.

Because even if retailing generally is girding its loins for shoppers who have a keener eye than before for the cost of the items they're loading into the trolleys, the supermarket owners are looking at each other with more than a speculative gleam in their collective eyes.

Until recently, the action was all in the fashion and DIY arenas but suddenly the weekly shopping emporia have come into play. This has sparked interest in people who normally take no notice of mergers and acquisitions because the players involved are household names to many of us.

This is the case with the recent flurry of bids for Safeway, Britain's fourth-largest supermarket chain.

Now I know that we have our own range of supermarkets in Ireland but we're almost equally familiar with the UK multiples (because you can't avoid the incessant ads for them on TV) and, of course, when retailing giant Tesco bought out Quinnsworth it gained a significant foothold in the Irish market.

In fact, almost half of Tesco's floor space is now outside Britain (it has shops in 10 countries) and it was the best-performing chain over the Christmas period with sales in the seven-week period to January 4th up by just over 11 per cent.

The second-best performer was Safeway, and it's Safeway that's sparked off the big interest in supermarkets - courtesy of the £2.6 billion sterling (€3.9 billion) offered by Morrison's a couple of weeks ago.

I suppose it's like waiting for the bus - none for ages and then they all come together - because, before you could blink, there was a rival offer of £3 billion on the table from Sainsbury. And then, trundling round the corner, came Wal-Mart, the US giant that already owns Asda, suggesting that it would be coming to the table with an all-cash offer for the company.

Then takeover firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, also approached Safeway to inform them of their interest. BHS is hovering and then, the coup de grace, Tesco joined the frenzy.

There's a feeling that Tesco has been forced into bidding because it can't be seen to stay away when Sainsbury and Asda are involved. It's all very reminiscent of people bidding for those third-generation mobile phone licences a few years ago - you weren't convinced there was value there but you sure as hell didn't want the other person to get it!

You'd imagine that the retailers were jewels in the crown of profitability, what with all the interest, but, in fact, almost half of retailers in the United States reported that sales over Christmas had fallen and European superstores aren't showing things in any more positive a light.

So the interest has less to do with buying up very profitable rivals and more to do, perhaps, with the whole idea of cutting costs and increasing presence by a merger.

However, to keep the Competitions Commission happy, Tesco would have to sell at least a quarter of the Safeway stores, but that would still increase its market share to more than one-third in the sector.

Given the impossibility of me actually bidding for a supermarket myself, I turned my attention to lesser gambling fun in the past week. I was told about a new trading game that can be accessed on the BBC's website. (I don't honestly spend all my time looking at things that go on in the UK, it just happens that way occasionally!)

Anyway, if you want to try your hand at trading, but are turned off by the idea of buying and selling supermarkets or industrial companies, then the Celebdaq is the thing for you. Basically, you are given a notional £10,000 to splurge on celebrities and you buy and sell them as their price goes up and down.

The factors that affect their price are things like news coverage and mega-deals with, well, the kind of corporations that celebs do mega-deals with! The celebs on offer vary from total 'Z' list model/actress/whatevers, to diva J-Lo types and, of course, the footballing superstar David Beckham.

I signed up on Sunday and so haven't really got into the swing of things yet (owing to the fact that I'm supposed to be working this week and deadlines are whizzing by with alarming regularity) but I'm hopeful on turning a profit with GoldenBalls at some point.

Maybe this is just the sort of thing people need to get their interest in the market up and running again. Although I'm wondering if it means that I'll have to start reading Heat and Glamour on a regular basis instead of the Financial Times and its like. Now there's a hard call!