• OBSERVE how services to the public forever deteriorate – and we’re supposed to be so stupid that we don’t notice.

Remember the introduction of those terrible self-checkout machines in all of our supermarkets? There was chaos as the machines made bumbling fools of us all.

But be patient, the supermarkets urged us. It wasn’t about losing human jobs. We would get used to the technology very quickly, they said. And staff would be released from the tills to be helpful to us in other ways.

Guess what? I’ve been in two supermarkets recently where there were relatively short queues at the few remaining human check-outs.

But massively long queues at the self-checkouts. And not a soul to help out the bumbling fools who still haven’t mastered the technology. What mugs we are!

EF WILSON
NW1