Welcome to the Temple of Twaddle

I AM DRAGGED, kicking and screaming, to the horribly fashionable and hugely expensive organic supermarket, with Mrs B. determined to persevere in her quest for healthy eating.

I have come equipped with a large wad of banknotes and a bad attitude, both necessary in this megastore of middle-class smugness. Everywhere you look Timothys and Tabathas squeeze the discoloured onions and nod sagely, while little Oscars and Ophelias run riot amongst the free-range firelighters. It’s like a Guardian readers’ day trip. On an ecologically-friendly charabanc of course.

This really is a Temple of Twaddle, a Palace of Platitudes, a Shrine to Self-Righteousness.

I will admit that the meat looks good, although it’s astronomically expensive. To feed a family of four on such exotic and organic fare would require a substantial public sector salary. Maybe that’s who all these people are. Outreach workers and BBC executives. Senior social workers and council managers. OFSTED inspectors and NHS box tickers.

But the vegetables … what are you supposed to do with them? Mis-shapen, lumpen, angrily scowling in their beautifully-designed displays. The minute you pay for them, they start to decompose with an almost malevolent spite. I started to peel potatoes for tea, and by the time I’d cut away all the grey scars, I’d ended up with a collection of small white starchy marbles.

It might be organic, but that’s no bloody good if you never get to eat it. Two days after my visit, I actually tasted tinned peas for the first time in many years. I have to say that they were very, very good. All that was missing was the Fray Bentos tinned steak and kidney pie. And some Smash.

OF COURSE, Mrs B’s healthy eating plan might have been all in vain if she hadn’t managed to dodge the stupid cyclist who came whizzing along the pavement as we left Dick Turpin’s Vegetable Emporium.

For once, this one wasn’t one of the notorious Lycra Louts. It was just a silly girl, complete with wicker basket and college scarf. But what on earth made her think it was safe to ride at speed into a blind corner on a busy pedestrian street?

The car-hating council apparatchiks have spent millions of our hard-earned pounds on sticking red-tarmaced cycle lanes on every road in the city, yet the more these two-wheeled morons are catered for, the more they invade our space. What is going on?

At a time when innocent motorists are being persecuted for such heinous crimes as “picking their noses while stationary at traffic lights” or “listening to Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 with the windows open”, cyclists literally ride rough-shod over every traffic by-law in the business.

When did you last see one of these flying fools actually stop at a red light? When did you last see them signal on a roundabout or respect a box junction? The world’s gone mad.

And worse than that – yes, worse than that – when they get to the office, THEY DON’T EVEN SHOWER!!! So they’ve sweated all the way in from their organic lentil farm 12 miles out in the countryside, wearing hand-knitted cycling pants made out of re-cycled yoghurt pots, and then they expect to sit unwashed next to fellow employees for eight hours?

Have you ever smelt a bad case of Pedallers’ Crotch? I’d rather keep a tame Scotch tramp in the office. And his one-eyed lurcher.