THERE has been much hand-wringing in recent times about the “death of the high street”. The high street, I guess, is the modern equivalent of the Roman forum, a central place where citizens might gather.

Back in those ancient times there was commerce for sure, but also performances, oratory and public discussion. Today, the threat to the “high street” is all about shops, as it is shopping that now defines us. We are consumers, ever exhorted to consume more, and implicitly castigated now for doing it in all the wrong places. That is to say, online, or perhaps in out-of-town malls.

This week, the high street minister – there’s a high street minister? who knew? does he cover Scotland? who knows? – Jake Berry exhorted punters to stop watching box-sets and get off their butts to waddle forth into the high street, there to spend money on clothes, coffee and, er – since it’s pretty much all that’s there – more clothes and more coffee.

It seemed a somewhat inept demand, since we watch box-sets in the evening when the shops are closed, but it was ostensibly prompted by a poll showing that less than half of the apparently important 45-54 age group visited the high street every week.

I found the idea that they ought to do so quite peculiar since, when I lived in Edinburgh, I never visited the “high street” – or city centre – from one year to the next.

Parking places were few and hideously expensive; I never had the massive pile of change necessary for the bus; and, besides, the city had authorised large malls and open-air shopping venues on the outskirts of town, where parking was free and plentiful, and a chap could stravaig from shop A to shop B without being molested by chuggers, buskers and indigent inebriates.

It all depends on where you live. Residing temporarily in Aberdeen for the last couple of months, I find that nowhere is really that far from the city centre, so every other day I waddle in to look at shop windaes, browse in Waterstone’s (a lovely experience that I’ve rediscovered after years of Amazon), have a cup of peppermint tea in John Lewis, shop for my dinner at Markies, and accost passers-by for spare change so that I can buy alcohol.

It’s always busy in Union Street and in the nearby malls, so what’s behind the “death of the high street” is a bit of a mystery, even if the culprit is usually revealed as business rates.

At any rate, Mr Berry announced the launch of a high street task force this week, which amounts to experts – aye, thaim – advising cooncils about how to breathe new life into toon centres.

Other great minds have been whirring incessantly and one of these, belonging to Mr B. Johnson, a British leadership contender, came up with a great solution: Brexit, after which everything on the high street will be just dandy. Phew, glad we cleared that one up.

Amazon, which is largely blamed for the decline of the high street, is also doing its bit, with the launch of pop-up shops putting new small business on the high street. It’s something at least, but by definition ersatz and impermanent. I may be wrong (readers’ chorus: “Almost certainly”), but I think we appreciate solidity, ken?

That’s why it’s disturbing to read about institutions like Boots, Debenhams and even Markies closing stores.

If you’d have taken the Forum out of Rome you’d have taken the heart out of the place. The same goes for “high streets”. Ironically, many newspapers (not The Herald!), government offices and big stores moved out of town centres, creating a feeling that life was elsewhere, often on soulless industrial estates.

Banks and post offices have gone. Grocer’s? Don’t be daft. But here’s a plan: bring ’em back. Provide free daytime buses in from the suburbs. Put on proper free concerts in large, green public areas. Honestly, we want to come back, to get away from the computer screen and oot the hoose.

But we want to feel welcome and comfortable. We want to make a day of it. We don’t just want to shop – because we’re more than just consumers.

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LIKE most patriotic Scots I was rooting for England in the women’s World Cup football tournament. So it was a shame when they went out to the USA.

It was also a shame to see the scorer of the winning American goal mimicking the drinking of tea in her celebrations.

As a dig at English morés, it seemed woefully out of date as most Englanders these days – like most Scots – would rather have a creamy frostino, but I guess you could also make a case for it being harmless, even amusing, certainly compared to male footballer celebrations, which often involve irresponsibly taunting opposition fans.

Personally, I deplore all the silly dances and heavy petting that now follow a goal. Perhaps it’s because I’m not an exuberant person.

Were I to score the winning goal in a cup final – something I dream about hourly – then I would permit myself a wry smile before accepting a couple of manly handshakes and then returning to my own half timeously so that the other side might have a sporting chance of evening the score.

That said, if I were on a massive bonus for scoring, I might indulge in a triple-somersault and some light snogging.

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AS regular readers know, I spend large parts of my day thinking about what should happen to my body after I’m deid.

I won’t be leaving it to medical science, and certainly not to students that they might poke aboot in it. Neither do I want it cremated, as I’ve a feeling that might still hurt a bit.

I think the last time we discussed this issue, we’d narrowed the choice down to being tied in a hessian sack and bunged under a tree, or put into a cylinder until I’d turned into compost, which might then be used to fertilise the soil. As I’ve often been likened to a kind of fertiliser in the past, that does seem apt.

This week, with graveyards and crematoria now choc-a-bloc, John Ashton, former president of the Faculty of Public Health, suggested that the sides of motorways, cycle paths or even former industrial sites could be used to house the dead.

Not me, mate. Imagine the noise at the side of a road. As for cycle paths, I’d only consider that if I could haunt the people who use them. Nope, when it comes to burial, I’d prefer to have a tree on ma heid.

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LIKE most decent ratepayers, I’d consider a trip to the Glastonbury Festival a terrible punishment. I’ve been to one pop festival, that one in Fife (if it still takes place) and, in a surprise development, I hated every minute of it.

I was sent thither in the line of duty and recall little of the experience beyond impudent delinquents tittering at my Tupperware box of sandwiches, a mob forming on the suspicion that I was an undercover police officer (probably shouldn’t have worn a suit), and the fact that, this being Scotland, everyone seemed to be drunk.

I thought these events were supposed to be all about drugs. If so, in Scotland, the drug of choice seemed not to be heroin or cocaine, but Buckfast.

If you’ll permit me to be candid, I’ll confess that I spend a large part of my leisure hours inebriated. But I prefer to do so in the privacy of my own home where there’s less chance of arrest or marriage.

Why anyone would wish to get drunk in a place where home is a tent and the lavatory a metal shed overflowing with dubious fluids, I will never know. And as for that awful music …

Read more: Give folk free pants and they'd still sniff them with suspicion