I had a go at being religious once, not so long ago; but the burden of being middle class with all its attendant feelings of guilt meant that the added responsibility to God made each decision a nightmare: Don’t pass on the other side of the street, even if you might catch fleas and give them to your children; turn the other cheek, even when the bastard has just cut you up at the traffic lights and almost killed you. I found I couldn’t even put my shopping trolley in the trolley park without reorganising the blithering trolley park so that all the trolleys were parked like with like and none of them had stray shopping lists or empty packaging from a toddler’s lunch, left at the bottom. No, I just didn’t know where to draw the line. I apologise to those of you with strong religious convictions but to me, being middle class is a bit like having a religion. The influence of peer pressure is so much more powerful than that of an allegedly all seeing all knowing Deity. (more…)