*THE couple on the next table in this Cotswold pub are virtually eating one another.

Presumably, the simulated cannibalism will cease once the rump steaks arrive.

Judging by the intensity, they’ve obviously just met.

Thankfully, there’s a fire extinguisher handy if necessary.

I’m not really sure why, but this feeding frenzy just across the way suddenly makes me think of Facebook, arguably the latest contributor to the sum of global human confusion.

The growth of social networking means that no one need ever be alone any more and the Serengeti-style ferocity a few feet away is probably an indicator of this new consumer age. For the chances are that the praying mantis pair opposite didn’t meet across a crowded room, a train, on holiday, or in the office. It was most likely to have been a brief encounter in cyber space.

These days many people cast their lot in with others on an electric rather than a human impulse… a flick of a finger rather than the flutter of a heartbeat. Ah well. At least we’ve already eaten.

*SMALL traders are the backbone of society, the glue that keeps the fabric of our commercial life together.

It is this nation’s tragedy that there are fewer of these entrepreneurs about these days.

So many corner shops have been beaten into fiscal submission by the supermarkets.

Where are the ironmongers and other specialist outlets we used to know?

Thankfully, though, some things never change. And because of the irrefutable fact that people’s hair will always be a growth industry, Worcester has such fine institutions as Mart’s traditional barber’s in Bath Road.

Down the years, my periodical trim has become more and more of a polish. And although he’s been following his trade for more than half a century, I still hope for a few more years of being called ‘sir’, gazing at his huge collection of shaving mugs and listening to vintage rock and pop while those famous scissor blades are flashing away.