I'VE been trying to make sense of the stag-in-Wilko's affair. Haven't we all?

What on earth was a wild deer doing careering round the aisles of a Newcastle household goods store?

I feel entitled to ask because I'm a regular customer and I'd like to know what species of beast I can expect to encounter when I next pop in for a tube of Sensodyne.

The creature in Wilko's was, we are told, a young male roe deer, although that's scarcely relevant.

Had the intruder been a mature moose or an elderly caribou, its appearance in the shop would not have been more extraordinary.

You just don't expect to see wild animals when browsing among the deodorants and loo rolls.

Shopping is fraught enough without having to leap out of the way of hoofed, ruminant mammals.

In the nearby Bull's Vaults pub, theories as to whence came the roe deer were as numerous as they were far-fetched.

An old lady in the corner said the incident was yet another sign that the country was going to hell in a handcart.

"This would never have happened under Margaret Thatcher," she said.

The barman blamed it on climate change.

"Global warming has got the animals so confused that they've forgotten where they belong," he said. "Deer used to know their place, which was in the woods. Now they think national chain stores are their natural habitat. Don't be surprised to find badgers in Boots and wild boar in WH Smith."

"It's obvious if you ask me," said a man of military bearing with a Kitchener moustache. "Rustlers. That stag escaped from a gang of deer rustlers. These swine go out and kill deer for venison."

He went on to outline his theory that rustlers shot the deer and threw it into the back of a pick-up truck.

"They must have driven over some speed humps because the deer, which was only stunned, suddenly regained consciousness and in one bound was out of the truck and into Wilko's. It's my guess that the rustlers didn't even know their quarry had legged it until they got to where they were going."

This was deemed by the clientele in general to be a reasonably plausible explanation, and markedly less disquieting than the theory put forward by a youth in a black leather jacket. He linked the deer's appearance in Wilko's with another mystery – the River Trent at Stone flowing bright green.

"These two phenomenon are obviously connected," he said.

"And, trust me, we can expect more of these strange occurrences in the next few days – birds flying into walls, electrical appliances going berserk, trees turning inside out, fish yodelling."

He went on: "This can mean only one thing. An invisible UFO is stationed immediately above us, playing havoc with the natural order."

Unsettled by this grim prediction, several of us nervously sidled over to the window and looked into the sky.

"It's my guess that by the end of the week they will have sown enough chaos and created sufficient panic to come down and take over," continued the youth.

"Resistance is futile. Enslavement is inevitable. We are all doomed."

"It would never have happened under Margaret Thatcher," said the old lady in the corner.