Recently by Patrice John

While visiting a favoured high-street retailer for cosmetics I noticed a few women huddled around one of those ghastly height/weight machines lamenting about how their actual bodies compared to the guidance on the machine.

One of the women told a friend in a what I could only describe as an extreme moment of clarity: "Love, if you only weighed that much, all that would be left is boobs and hair."

I'm a slave to convenience.

This fact was confirmed to me when I emerged from my last shop at ASDA with fruit and veg, a large bin, an £8 sparkly top and a pair of shoes.

With my mouth I bemoan the expansion of globalisation and the fact that the big shops are crippling the little shops.

But my shopping basket says something completely different....