The progressive erosion of life’s cornerstones

THE FRIDAY THING: GETTING married, going to church and shopping used to be the simple cornerstones of everyday life for everyday people.

Marriage was him and her making their vows to stay together, to be kind to one another and to start a family. Generally it lasted (not always in a happily-ever-after sort of way) and there were children, holidays in caravans at the seaside, daily work and wages.

Going to church was a Sunday ritual in many homes. There was the regular service, a sermon of varying length and certainly varying interest from the vicar, Sunday School, uniformed groups and long warm (or cold and wet) days spent in some field on the parish day out.

Shopping was a complex affair, where shops were on street corners or gathered together in small convenient groups, with grocers, greengrocers selling fish and rabbit as well as veg and fruit; a newsagent’s and a hardware store.

But you couldn’t shop on Sunday. Most shops were shut and even those that were open could only sell certain items that were on a list that no one really seemed to know and then only for a couple of hours.

Now? Well, marriage could be him and him or her and her, with some churches and faiths taking the — shall we say - modern view that if same-sex couples want to marry, then why not let them get on with it...

As for shopping, well, it has undergone the biggest revolution of all, with the likes of Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s open seven days a week, often round the clock.

We can now buy anything from anywhere and even buy anything from a hamburger to a house just by picking up the telephone or logging on to a laptop or phone.

As we near the days when gay marriage, like divorce, is the norm, churches continue to close almost as fast as pubs and there is talk of all shops being allowed to follow the splendid Arkwright in “Open All Hours” by doing exactly that during the weeks of the Olympic Games.

The question is: do we really share a universal comfort in the change and the speed of change in our everyday living?

Yes, I know, it’s evolution. It’s progress. But where the devil is it leading us?



ONE of the delicious but sometimes painful aspects of growing up is making friends.

We have all been there; feeling the warmth of being part of a like-minded band of brothers and sisters in the playground and suffering the stabbing pain of falling out and being excluded.

Fear not though, primary school teachers in parts of London are working with primary schools to establish “no best friends” policies in the school yard to save children from what they describe as “the pain of breaking up”.

A lot of daft ideas have made their way into this column and this one is surely up there with some of the health-and-safety nonsense and psychobabble that have conned their way into our culture.



FINAL WORD: When I go to the gym (yes, honestly, the gym — I know, I must be cracking up in my dotage) I come out with aches and pains in places I didn’t even know that I had.

Gym-going women, we are now told, experience what in a family newspaper I’ll have to describe as “a feeling of intense pleasure” when using some of the equipment. It’s a sort of “When Harry Met Sally” moment I suppose, that we mere men can’t hear over the groans, grunts, sobs, gasps and heavy breathing brought on by the pain we are inflicting upon ourselves.

No wonder there are more women in the gym these days than there used to be. Maybe they should pay more than men because they clearly get far more out of it than we do.

Jealous, me? What do you think?