ONE night, just before Christmas, I saw what must have been one of the most amazing courtship rituals ever attempted in Huddersfield.

Sat drinking with friends, a crumpled-up cigarette packet bounced off the head of a girl in our group.

Everybody turned around to see a big, ominous-looking guy slouched in a seat across the pub looking more than a little pleased with himself.

Then, like some kind of seasoned Lothario, he called the less-than-impressed girl over with a suggestive waggle of his finger and asked her to "dance for him" - as if he was the ambassador from those old Ferrero Rocher adverts.

Despite his efforts, the results were disappointing, I think. At least for him.

Again, a friend of mine recently went for a drink with a girl after being fixed up by some considerate acquaintances.

All was going as well as could be expected - that is, unbearably awkwardly and silent.

So, desperately racking his brains for something, anything, to say he came up with: "If you had to be killed by a terrorist organisation, which one would it be?"

They didn't end up going for a second drink.

These are two prime examples of how blokes are getting more and more incapable of seducing women, who, in turn, are getting more and more fussy about blokes.

Both sexes are spiralling out of control in opposite directions.

Cave people weren't as fussy.

And I'm guessing my granddad didn't have to go to extreme lengths to impress my grandma.

A drop of Brylcreem and a fag dangling from his mouth and Bob was definitely his uncle.

Meanwhile, the modern man desperately has to prove that he's charming, intelligent, witty, financially solvent, sensitive and masculine in the space of about an hour - while some disinterested, surly, career-driven girl with her head full of Cosmopolitan articles sits like Caligula, watching her subject squirm and considering if it's thumbs up or thumbs down.

And what are the bigger implications of this?

Well, to my mind, the human race is thoroughly propagated at the moment and we need NO MORE PEOPLE!

Maybe it's about time evolution stepped in and made coupling a lot more difficult.

Maybe this is nature's way of discouraging people from dividing and multiplying and clogging up the Earth?

So, I reckon we should embrace this new age of social awkwardness.

We should cheer those miserable, drunken attempts to pull girls in crowded pubs with nose-bleedingly trite chat-up lines.

We should applaud those anxious, sweaty men with purple faces and open shirts, frantically throwing themselves around nightclub dancefloors, refusing to come to terms with the fact that they will - once again - be going home alone.

Well, maybe not completely alone.

Cos Dave and Mick haven't pulled either.

SO WHAT'S THE TSUNAMI GOT TO DO WITH CELEBS?

I DON'T mean to be cynical when it comes to charity work, but there was something really irritating about the tsunami fundraising episode that was Radio Aid.

This project saw semi- celebrities Chris Evans, Kate Thornton, Davina McCall and their ilk take to the airwaves in order to get us to give money.

So what's the problem? S'all in a good cause.

Well, it's the inference that the true horrors of the disaster can only be brought home to me when integrated into my daily helping of facile entertainment and explained to me by such random TV desperadoes like Dermot O'Leary and Sharon ``Yet Again" Osbourne, in between their own manufactured brand of vain, self-publicising jabber.

And to see Ricky Gervais on the news saying "it makes us feel better about ourselves" is too painful to watch.

No matter what the cause, it's always about the celebrities.

It's a bit like having the African plight explained in song by dour, millionaire popstars like Chris Martin or that turgid bloke from Keane who looks a bit like a girl.

Or seeing Victoria Beckham tastelessly strutting about a Third World country.

At the end of the day, the ends justify the means.

But I'd prefer it if celebrities and the media alike didn't treat us like a herd of star-dazzled cattle who have no understanding of the real world unless it's shown to us by Mel C.

THE Airbus A380 would be impressive if it wasn't so expensively pointless.

Is there that much spare money about that people want to put their efforts into making something that's a bit bigger than something else that was doing a perfectly fine job?

It's the mobile phone mentality. Keep adding extras and upgrades until your phone is a lot like Hal the computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's a pretty clever machine but won't do what it's supposed to, like make a phone call.

Then, like Hal, it tries to kill you by frying your brain. Magic!

THOUGHT for the day: If at first you do succeed - try not to look astonished.