Last Friday we enjoyed, not the right word I know considering the undignified scrapping and punch-ups at stores up and down the country, a relatively new phenomenon (at least for us in the UK) called “Black Friday”.

It is, of course, an American phenomenon which occurs the day following Thanksgiving when, after a surfeit of turkey, Budweiser and Football (the NFL variety), our American cousins pile into the stores to grab bargains at knock-down prices.

We already have a similar shopping frenzy on Boxing Day when shoppers, for some inexplicable reason still not sated by the pre-Christmas spending splurge, think nothing of leaving their cosy warm beds to camp outside stores on a usually cold, wet, wintry night to await opening time and a dogfight for bargains.

Why we would want to copy the Americans and do the same thing the day after Thanksgiving, a day that I imagine most of the shoppers shown on our television screens on Friday night could barely spell, let alone celebrate, is beyond me.

Still, it allowed the rest of the world to see just how far our multicultural society has advanced.