How much do you take for granted? It's an interesting question. We all bcome comfortable with our daily routines certainly, but the extent to which we assume we understand our world is astonishing. Let me explain.

Fifty years ago a British astronomer said that spaceflight was impossible. A hundred years before that, powered flight was impossible, or that travelling more than thirty miles an hour would kill you. A few centuries earlier, we all knew the Earth was the centre of the universe and all stars and planets revolved around us. A couple of centuries before that, we all knew you would fall of the edge of the world if you sailed too far. Any earlier than that and everything was an act of some divine entity.

At each stage our world was fixed, certain, and unbelievably wrong. Now mathematicians are telling us that our rules of arithmetic might be wrong. I must admit, I was pretty certain my maths teacher was right, and that our ways of doing sums worked brilliantly. He always made it look so easy on the blackboard, but with all the sacred cows that have been butchered over the last two thousand years, who knows? Perhaps in another century schoolkids will scratch their heads at the clunky and old fashioned method of counting beans we use today.

It seems then that rules are only fundamental untl you prove that they're not.

At The Check-Out

Supermarkets are fast becoming places to socialise. Some host singles nights for crying out loud. On your own? Come and shop this monday evening. Dance the night away to muzak in the aisles....

More often you get a pile of volunteers waiting at the end of the check-out who leap upon your purchased goods with a view to competitive plastic bag filling. They ask you first of course, so you've only yourself to blame when some twelve year old enthusiastically crushes tonights dinner.

Yesterday was now exception. A group of young girls waited and asked me whther I'd like my bags packed. Since the goods were crushable, I decided to risk it. A few quick instructions and lo and behold, they got it right. Who says the education system doesn't work? I've met three shoolgirls who speak english.

I asked them what all this assistance was in aid of. They told me they were involved in a cultural exchange with India, though I have to say quite why that means they needed to volunteer for bag packing at the supermarket is beyond me.

That said, I wonder if these kids realise how lucky they are? Cultural exchanges with schools elsewhere in the world? Nothing like that ever happened when I was young. Then again, even with all these things laid on, extraordinary opportunities for character development at a young age, why is it so many of them paint graffiti near my home? Ride bicycles in a manner liable to frighten pedestrians? Smoke, drink, bonk, steal, shout taunts and insults, and wear ridiculous fashions?

I suppose our generation is to blame. We're responsible for teaching these kids how to be mature sensible adults and useful members of the community. So I apologise profusely to those three shoolkids, who will now grow up bitter and twisted because I showed them the wrong way to bag shopping.

Aww man, I feel really bad about that. I think I need to drown my sorrows with a pint of cider...