John Lewis Christmas advert 2014: Monty the lusty penguin seeks mate from department store

JL is back to shred hearts this festive season

(John Lewis)

Twas a good seven weeks before Christmas and all through the house, a CGI retail penguin was stirring in search of a spouse.

John Lewis' Christmas advert is here, increasingly as much of a Christmas tradition as wreathes or drinking your way out of Harry Potter film boredom, and it's perhaps the most mawkish one yet.

Cute Little Boy for reasons unknown has a best friend who is a penguin. He and Monty go everywhere together. They get up to japes.

But the department store's latest mascot is lusting after more than just a 42" Sony Bravia with a very reasonable warranty and a Cath Kidston tea cosy, he wants a girlfriend.

After a series of sentimental shots of couples making out and Monty looking forlorn out of bus windows, his human friend eventually finds a mate for him and wraps her up for the penguin to find under the tree.

The apparent moral of the story: Buy love at John Lewis this Christmas!

But what of the music? Watering down a rock song is tried and tested for the brand during their festive campaign, with past adverts seeing covers of "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Somewhere Only We Know" and this year John Lennon's "Real Love" being re-visited, covered by Tom Odell who was presumably handsomely paid in saffron and Egyptian cotton bed linen.

"Monty's Christmas" is the £1m sequel to last year's heart-rending "The Bear and the Hare" and did not need wait for television broadcast, being released through John Lewis's Twitter feed at 8am (not @JohnLewis mind, that guy must be having a terrible morning).