TODAY, it is Day Five of a brave new world, where our nation now insists that you must pay the total of 5p to place your already-purchased shopping into a previously-complimentary plastic carrier bag.

Civilisation still exists, thankfully. Our infrastructure has not collapsed. The economy hasn’t gone to the dogs. We’re doing alright.

Though some people can’t seem to grasp the concept of a simple levy on something that is proven to be environmentally-damaging in a bid to reduce their use and promote the concept of reusing bags. These folk feel that a free carrier bag is the last privilege of a once great nation and its removal is some kind of attack on our basic human rights.

So now, rather than dealing with trillions of plastic bags floating around unloved and discarded at the bottom of landfill, supermarkets are now facing the issue of their customers taking their baskets from stores to carry their shopping home. Because that is the mature response.

England is the last part of the UK to impose the mandatory 5p surcharge on plastic carrier bags.

In Wales, they have been charging 5p for a bag since 2011. I’ve a friend who lives in Cardiff who used to make regular trips over the border just to stock up on free bags.

As a family, we have been preparing for this day, anyway. The anti-plastic movement has been a slow-building thing. The shops have been more reluctant to hand them out in recent years. We’d feel the judgemental looks from the checkout operators as we attempted to put a month’s shopping into the three bags which the store have provided.

They’d roll their eyes as we asked for two or three more to prevent the inevitability of the bag containing three two-litre bottles of milk splitting and shedding its load all over the place moments after leaving the store.

So, for the last five years or so, we’ve used mainly fabric, jute-style bags on our big shop. There’s a dedicated heavy duty plastic one for meat. I call it the ‘meat bag’ and sing ‘meat bag’ along to the tune of 1990s hit single Pig Bag which never fails to get funny looks while out shopping.

At the last count, I have about 500 old plastic bags from days gone by in the cupboard under the stairs. A life’s collection. I’m sitting on a fortune here. At least £25.

There’s no denying that the bags are environmentally unfriendly, and the 5p charge is a useful deterrent to reduce their impact.

According to the internet – and when is that ever wrong? - the amount of petroleum used to make a plastic bag would drive a car about 115 metres. It would take only 14 plastic bags to drive one mile.

The 500 or so bags in my cupboard, in theory, should buy me 35 miles in the car.

Well, that’s rubbish. Because I’ve stuffed the lot in my petrol tank and now my car won’t go anywhere. Thanks a bunch, internet.

AS A youngster, I dreamed of one day being on Match of the Day.

Ideally, it would have been to save the decisive penalty, or to be the goalkeeper that scored a last-minute winner in a title-deciding season.

At the age of 32 I’d pretty much given up on the dream. Until Sunday when my name was called out during the programme. I was half-asleep and I almost spilled my mug of Ovaltine over the dog.

It was to do with a tweet that I wrote on Sunday about Sunderland using the same wording for every manager that they have availed themselves of over the last few years.

It’s not a penalty or a winning goal, but it’ll do for me.