Under the counter

Here’s your shopping…

…in a plain brown paper wrapper.

Lads’ mags in supermarkets are now being tucked away in ‘modesty bags’. The top shelf of the magazine section will soon look like a stack of football managers’ motorway services tax free payments.

The fags have already disappeared behind closed doors.

How long before other stuff deemed undesirable is marketed in modesty packaging, or from behind closed doors. Will we have to sidle up to members of staff in ASDA, WWII back market spiv style, and whisper:

“Pssst. Got any bacon?”

Will there be segregation down the aisles? Catholic sections: condoms hidden, buy one get one free fish on Fridays, buy five loaves and two fishes on miracle day feed the five thousand. I’ve just got a mental picture of packs of bacon and sausages in little modesty burkas. Will demi-vegetarians have the meat behind shutters while the fish remains on display, while the out-and-out veggies have the fish hidden away, too, and the vegans insist the eggs, cheese, milk and leather shoes are by special request only?

Obviously, the booze section is under threat from the temperance society. But what about coffee (standard, and fair-trade) and tea? Is Coke on the list of banned substances while dandelion and burdock is permissible? What about water? Is sustainably-sourced still better than artificially sparkling? Will the soil society and pesticide protesters have only the organic fruit, veg and salad on display, with the rest under those grass-alike mats and available by special request only?

I’m no sort of expert, but my guess is that there’s some sort of mainstream or obscure flavour of religion that has every species of animal, vegetable or mineral either sacred or untouchable.

Are the big evils, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, and saturated fats, going to be by prescription only?

Kill the badgers?

Prof Rosie Woodroffe, at the Institute of Zoology in London and also part of the team that conducted the 10-year culling trial said: "Cattle TB is a major problem for farmers but despite the urgent need to act, evidence suggests that badger culling is not an effective solution. Scientists agree that culling is unlikely to have major benefits for cattle TB control and risks making matters worse, and Defra predicts that the costs will outweigh any financial benefits."

But there you go. Prof Rosie’s a scientist and, it seems, some sort of rational human being. Who’s she to stand against the cruel and irrational politicians and farmers?