SO it’s £500 for a small dollop of face cream? That’s what known as having a laugh. It’s the latest thing, apparently, among those with more money than sense – expensive face creams costing a fortune for something about the size of those titchy little travel toothpaste tubes.

Many of them blind you with science. Do you know what bio-magnetic nanosomes are? Me neither. Some claim all sort of exotic ingredients from volcanic dust, crushed diamonds to flowers hand-picked by Nepalese monks. Well really… All the beauty experts I’ve ever talked to have always said that basically, the cheaper the cream the better – because you’re more likely to use it every day and lavish it on, instead of trying to make a small expensive amount last an awful long time. And how much difference do they make?

Once long ago – in the interests of work – I went for one of these ridiculously expensive non-surgical facelifts. For about two hours I was wired up to all sorts of fiendish machines, while the photographer looked on laughing hysterically. It didn’t make look radically younger, but a few people asked if I’d been on holiday.

That’s when I realised – for the price of such a procedure or the cost of a few jars of overpriced face cream, you could have the holiday of a lifetime and return utterly relaxed and looking ten years younger –and had some fun in the meantime.

Forget the face cream – book a holiday. You know it makes sense.

SO night clubs are dying. Numbers down by half in the last ten years. Maybe because so many existed not for the music and the dancing, but just for the late-night drinking before pubs opened all hours.

When I first went to nightclubs in my teens, they were quiet and glamorous and I felt too young and not dressed up enough. By the time I stopped going to them many years later, they were noisy and crowded and I felt too old and over-dressed.

The one constant was that they were always ridiculously expensive. Maybe another reason why numbers have halved…

WHEN my grandfather inherited a useful sum of money, my grandmother assumed he would use it to extend their farmhouse – three adults and five children in three bedrooms was a bit of a squash. 

No. Instead, Grandad built a state of the art cow shed. His cows lived in far greater comfort than his children and it was years – and a much extended house – before Gran forgave him. 

The Northern Echo:
SEEN AND HERD: Cows are under pressure

If ever… Dairy farming nearly a hundred years ago was a very different beast from now. Times change. But some things run deep and cows need to be comfortable and farmers to be paid properly for their work. That’s why I buy organic milk – usually from Acorn Dairy near Darlington – so I can drive past the cows that produce the milk for my coffee .

I’m lucky that I can. If I were on a basic wage with a house full of children, I too would probably seize 4 litre bottles from the supermarket shelf and let the niceties of it all pass me by.

So yes, it’s time that farmers and supermarkets got together and had a proper grown up conversation and if takes driving a cow down a supermarket aisle to get that conversation started, then great..

Just mind where you put your feet…

INCIDENTALLY, one of my cousins had one of the most advanced dairy farms in south Wales. Then he got disillusioned, sold most of the land to a huge agri-business, turned the farm buildings into holiday cottages and put a caravan park in the bottom meadow.

More money, less hassle. Cows or caravans in the countryside? That could depend on the supermarkets.

The Northern Echo: Liam Bairstow in Mind the Gap's production of Contained
RISING STAR: Liam Bairstow is joining Coronation Street

IF you ever think the country is going to the dogs, think again. This week we learned that some cafes are putting signs up saying “dementia friendly” – a boon to anyone on an outing with an unpredictable dementia sufferer.

Increasingly, theatres and cinemas are putting on special showings for those with autism. And Liam Bairstow has become yet another actor with Down’s Syndrome to appear on peak time TV. He’s joining Coronation Street.

Can you image either of those happening 50 years ago?

Hard to believe occasionally, but in some ways we really are becoming a kinder nation.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH has asked fans please not to take pictures during his performance of Hamlet.

This is good because (a) It’s very rude, (b) Because you could worry about people so busy recording an event that they don’t actually take part in it. If reality is only what you can record, then where does it leave us? It’s a bit like those people who re-run their wedding ceremonies because if they haven’t got the video, they don’t think they’re really married.

(c) The rest of us are fed up of watching everything from behind a forest of arms waving phones. Put them away. Concentrate on the performance – or go home and let the rest of us enjoy it in peace.