• WITH every month that passes, I notice that we human occupants of Camden become ever-more like robots, queueing up in an orderly way to replace the check-out staff in supermarkets as we scan in our shopping.

There’s not much cheer in these queues or casual small talk that briefly bonds strangers in a live check-out queue.

And for all our help, we’re told the supermarkets are in financial dire straits. Who then is benefiting from our gradual social impoverishment?

J MANN, NW3