Marks and Sparks became the latest retailer this week to announce its Christmas trading figures, and again the online channel proved to be a major factor in the success. In fact, in M&S's case, the turnaround has been more dramatic than most, with online sales up 70 percent and contributing to a general revival in fortunes that seemed unlikely when chief executive Stuart Rose took over in 2004.

Perhaps it's all down to the Bassey factor. Some commentators have suggested that those lavish TV ads in the run up to Christmas may have helped attract customers, but I can't see how a septuagenarian Welsh crooner singing a song about popping a pill in a nightclub could have appealed to the kind of customers Marksies was after. Maybe Next could similarly revive its fortunes by getting Tom Jones to do a cover of the Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up. Or how about Daniel O'Donnell covering the Dead Kennedy's classic Too Drunk to F**k? If you don't do it Next, Woolies will...