Wonder of Woollies' staff

Hope you all had a good Christmas.

Just in passing, hats off to Woolworth's staff who seemed to have remained cheerful and friendly over the Christmas period amid the buying frenzy where, I must admit, a few somewhat ill-mannered customers could have shown a little more consideration for the people working under the most difficult conditions.

It can't have been easy carrying on knowing that before the left over turkey is finished and the mince pies have gone stale you are out of a job in a sector where no one is going to be hiring. I have not studied the demise in detail but I am sure if the shopworkers saw a decent lawyer there must be something in the Human Rights Act the covers a lack of duty of care by a management which seems to have made incompetence into an art form.

Meanwhile my son and his wife had a festive wreath on their front door. nothing too grand but a gesture towards Christmas in their neighbourhood. On Christmas morning they found the wreath, or at least bits of it, scattered along a hundred yards or so of road after seemingly being involved in some perversion of football - a sort of moron's World Cup.

Once that would have made me angry but now I just find it sad to think what a third rate excuse for a nation we have become. Prisons full, crime figures fiddled and a Government who think honesty is a border plant with pretty seed heads.

Look at any league table for things you would not want in a modern, caring society and we are up there at the top whether it is teenage pregnancy, sex crimes, drug abuse, vandalism, muggings, thefts of mobile phones and sat navs, shoplifting, infection rates in hospitals or whatever.

Anything that you would expect a civilised society to manage to be reasonably good at such as cancer and heart treatment, healthcare in general. care of the elderly, a reasonable standard of education, housing and so on and there we are in the relegation places.

Happy New Year.