YON Retail Sector Council has warned that all British high streets could end up “wastelands”. The cooncil, comprising leading chain stores – shops specialising in chains – said the urban centres were being “hollowed out”, with outlets sitting empty, and brand names such as Debenhams and Dorothy Perkins already doon yonder Swanny.

This is grim news. Grim news indeed. And many of us feel hypocritical about it. We don’t want to see them go, but we don’t go. Last time I was in Embra I never went near Princes Street proper (I did meet a pal in the mall at one end) but instead hightailed it to the high plains of an edge-of-town retail park where I could, er, park.

I did enjoy stravaiging down Aberdeen’s Union Street recently, but only went into one shop: HMV, where I bought a heavily discounted book.

In that Herald newspaper, one reads of Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street already feeling “hollowed out”. I cannot have this, and feel you should do something.

Back in the days before I lost my sense of adventure, I’d sally forth to the aforementioned P Street most Saturdays to buy CDs, DVDs, proper trousers, nose reduction potion or perchance a jaunty wig. Now we buy such things online, not just for the convenience but because there need be no embarrassment in, for example, buying a prog rock CD.

However, it’s a lonely and cold experience, perusing 2D images on a screen and praying that, for once, the trousers don’t bunch up at the knee.

Even a lone wolf or chihuahua like the present writer experienced solidarity in bobbing along with the acquisitive mob. We’d worked hard all week and deserved treats. Like all loners, I long to be part of the crowd, and though I still felt alienated and alone among it, it was better than feeling alienated and alone in the hoose.

We recall the weird episode when I was returning reluctantly to an unhappy posting in the wild and, as my bus trundled along Princes Street, a deep and visceral love for the shopping mob welled within me.

It was disturbing, and I still cannot explain it properly, particularly as I was even then jumble sale organiser for the National Union of Misanthropes.

But it was real. How could I feel love now for people sitting at their lonely laptops ordering pubic hair dye online instead of proudly and loudly buying it from Boots as they once did back in the day?

It’s high time you lot got back to the high street to save the day. As ever, I shall observe matters from a distance. But rest assured you’ll have my moral support.

Burnt toast in Hell

I’M in several minds about Burnt Toast Theory. You haven’t heard of it? Oh, do keep up. Perhaps you should get out more.

Burnt Toast Theory, according to a proselytiser for the cause, is “the idea that if you burn your toast before work and it adds five to 10 minutes to your trip, it's actually saving you from something catastrophic”.

Ingrid, a woman or burd from that North Carolina, claims the theory can be a remedy for anxiety, as it says setbacks may be “saving us from something more detrimental or pushing us in the direction that we need to go in”.

Accordingly, we needn’t worry about matters seeming out of control, which is the key motor of stress.

This is interesting. My life has been one long setback. It’s difficult to see how it could have been any worse. Well, ye ken, apart from not having a fatal illness or supporting Hearts.

But you’ve no idea of how often I lose my reading glasses. A pillock blootered form pillar to post, I’m the plaything of a sadistic deity who, every morning, wakes up from another disturbed night’s sleep and booms: “What wee, niggly things can I upset Rab with today?”

Of course, there have been big things too. But these are always the fault of other people. I wish they’d just go away. Then when they do, I want them back. It’s literally Hell on Earth. Well, not literally. But ye ken what I mean. It’s quite annoying.

Car park life

A SURVEY by insurance firm Forbes Advisor reveals that men prang cars more than women do, and that the unfair sex is worse at manoeuvring into tight spaces.

I’m sure there’s something in this. One of the worst things in this hellish life is men – always men – who in busy supermarket car parks always insist on reversing into a space, causing chaos and dismay to those behind and nearby. It’s a “look at me” manoeuvre.

I think we can all agree that men are getting beyond a joke. The bald ones are the worst, but even those with a normal hormonal balance wreak havoc. Consider the world’s leading nutters: Percy Putin, Kim Jong-doodah, Alistair Khamenei and yon bloke in Chinashire.

You can just imagine them at their local Lidl, saying “Right, ah’m gonnae show folk how brilliant I am at driving”, before reversing their Range Rover into a wumman’s car that’s been perfectly parked nose-first.