OF all the hells that surround Christmas shopping, Black Friday is the worst. Unless, of course, you really like fighting in the aisles for a cut price TV…

The worst thing about it is that Black Friday – coming up this week if you want to hide – is no natural phenomenon, but the cynical invention of greedy stores wanting to whip us up into a desperate frenzy of spending money in the sad delusion that we’re getting a bargain.

It started in the USA where at least it had some legitimate provenance – it makes sense to start thinking about Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. But not here.

We don’t have Thanksgiving, so Friday is just a random day on which big business thinks it can take us for suckers.

It represents everything that’s so wrong about shopping, a nice balance of greed divided between store and customer.

Because of course, if there really are bargains to be had you’d be daft not to take advantage of them. And yes, it’s nicer to have the sales before Christmas than seeing everything marked down to half price the week after you’ve paid top dollar for it.

After last year’s chaotic scenes of customers brawling in the aisles – peace and goodwill? spirit of Christmas? Bah Humbug – Asda has said that this year they’re not taking part in Black Friday. Good for them. Other big stores say they’re spreading their bargains out all through the pre-Christmas period. Even better.

But Black Friday will still draw people into town.

It will be busy. The buses will be crowded and probably late. It will be tricky to park the car. You will get pushed off the pavement by people struggling with half a dozen huge sharp-cornered bags and an attitude problem.

The shops will be too hot and the streets too cold. It takes ages to pay, your ears will be assaulted by gloopy carols in American accents, every shop seems to have glittery variations on the same theme and the chances are that you won’t find anything you want to buy and if you do, someone else will get to it first or rip it from your arms.

But those hardy souls who truly love shopping will be in their element. They will emerge victorious from the crowds bearing their bargains triumphantly. Good for them.

I shall stay at home in warmth and comfort, cup of coffee to hand. On the biggest shopping day of the year, the last place you’ll catch me is in a shop.

C’etait magnifique!

It was fantastic to see Wembley lit up in the blue, white and red of the tricolore, amazing to hear the garbled but stirring rendition of La Marseillaise from all sides. A marvellous display of defiance.

But won’t it be wonderful when the world returns to normal – and we can go back to our centuries old traditions of being rude to the French?

SIMON Cowell apparently paid £2,000 for a bath. His boiler at home was broken so he checked into a swish hotel – £2,000 a night – and had a bath. By then, his boiler was fixed, so he went home again and didn’t stay the night after all.

£2,000…!

Why couldn’t just have had a quick rub down with a wet sponge as the rest of us would have done in the circs?

£2,000 – at that price I’d expect the bath to have gold taps. And to be able to take them home with me.

BBC reporter Graham Satchell broke down into tears when reporting from Paris. Fair enough. Even BBC reporters are human. So are judges. Last week Mr Justice Dingemans was in tears as he passed sentence on the killers of Becky Watts.

Satchell and Dingemans were only doing what most decent people would probably do. But it still makes me uneasy.

Judges and reporters are meant to be professional and impartial – in work at least – and emotions only get in the way.

And what next?

Tears – like poppies – could soon become compulsory. If you don’t break down then you’re not a neutral observer but a cold, uncaring person and will be torn to shreds on Twitter. And before long it will be just like North Korea – weeping and wailing on every occasion, lest anyone suspect you of not caring.

So best to keep it dry-eyed and professional, please.

A TOP doctor has called for smartphones and tablets to have a “bed” mode so their very bright lights are dimmed in the evening so they don’t disrupt children’s sleep patterns.

They already do. It’s called the Off switch. Or, even better, leaving the phone in another room.

“Manufacturers should show more responsibility,” said the professor.

Maybe. But so should parents.

DAVID Beckham has been voted “People magazine’s sexiest man alive” by the audience of a live TV show in America. Really?

I’m sure he’s a lovely chap, good dad, husband, footballer and all that. But the sexiest?

Even stripped down to his tattoos and his undercrackers, posing solemnly in larger than life posters ”sexy” is never the first adjective..

Maybe I can just never forget him in that passion-killer of a sarong..