TODAY I shall mostly be writing about love, sort of.
Starting point: we are living through confusing times.
On the one hand we Brits are now much ruder to each other than we were in the recent past.
We are also more prone to seriously anti-social behaviour – and we are generally much thicker too, thanks to the huge failure in schooling.
But in other ways we have become much warmer human beings.
The old stiff upper lip has gone. We find it easier to show affection for each other than we used to.

I’m aged … well, never you mind how old I am … but I remember when British people were much more repressed and buttoned up than they are now.
Nowadays, grown men will readily hug and even on occasion kiss each other. These things are quite common sights and they are not sexual behaviours, merely social.
I’m talking about straight men here, not gay ones, though I think social hugging and kissing is probably on the increase among gay men as well. I don’t really know enough gay men to be able to tell, but good luck to them whatever they are up to.
Women are also huggier and kissier with each other these days, although English working class women in the North-West have always (in my observed experience, growing up in this region) been inclined to show each other physical affection.
Not everybody likes all this hugging and pouting and opening up of the emotions – but on the whole I think most folk do.
That headmaster in Cornwall who recently banned teenagers from hugging in school is a fool.
Another idiot is Tory Leader David Cameron, who reckons young people need “love� to stop them turning to crime. No David, what young tearaways need is discipline and the fear of God putting up them.
However, the little signs of everyday affection that we all see in our otherwise troubled society are helping to bind us together in solidarity. That's just great, a sign of hope for the future.
It is certainly a good thing to hug people or pat them on the arm or the shoulder with affection.
Because although such social contact is not sexual, it is certainly about love… love of our fellow human beings, that is.
Human beings are the only truly intelligent living creatures we know, and, of course, they (we) are a fascinating lot.
Whether there are other equally interesting, subtle, beautiful and infuriating beings on other planets is perhaps the most important question we face in the near future. Personally, I think there absolutely must be intelligent aliens out there somewhere.
But getting back to what it means to be human, well, this is rightly the hottest topic in modern literature.
Two authors who are particularly good on addressing this compelling theme are William Boyd (if you only read one more novel this year, read his “Any Human Heart�) and Michel Houellebecq (read his “Atomised� and “The Possibility of an Island�).
The books I mentioned will raise your view of humanity and make you think what amazing wonder there is in our world despite all the problems facing modern society.
Whenever I feel jaded, perhaps by the deadening politics of the workplace, I have only to visit my local pub in New Brighton, Hell’s Waiting Room, to realise what inspiring, funny, infuriating, depressing, uplifting, peculiar animals are human beings.
In this pub I encounter: amateur philosophers, quiet sages, kind hearts, bores, wits, sex bombs, serious drinkers, one-man laughter machines; one-woman laughter machines; people who are intensely irritating (no names, no pack drills, they know who they are!); folk with smiles like saints; folk with faces like Satan; people who always want to be the centre of attention; people who are always up at the bar buying you a drink; people who never buy anyone a drink; women and men whose smile can light up a room; people who speak pure poetry and people who speak the most appalling gibberish.
And don’t even get me started on: the sneerers; the grinners; the jokers; the fantasists; those who cast dirty looks at others; those who are always cadging my cigarettes; and those who are plainly as mad as a bag of snakes.
The point is, everyone is capable of behaving badly one minute and brilliantly the next. That changeability is part of being human too – and I love it.

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