Inhabiting a world in which one seeks in vain for evidence of those in charge doing one thing at a time without completely cocking it up, I’m amazed at how often editorial and advertising media seem determined to persuade us that multifunctionalism is the way forward.

As I pottered about briefly in London last week, it was perfectly obvious that even the self-absorbed Alphas in our midst cannot cannot twiddle twiddle with an Android and walk walk without bumping bumping into their fellow Man at the same time. And yet despite this, for some reason expecting anything less than ‘n’ outputs from anyone or anything is seen as reprehensible.

The letter ‘n’ as applied to brand names seems to me pivotal in all of this. The ability to whack cleaning and softening function gunk on the scalp enables one to Wash n Go. A facility for wandering up and down supermarket aisles while scanning items empowers the provisioner to Shop n Go. Dumping stuff into self-service storage warehouses helps us to Lock n Go.

My only problem with all this is the degree to which doing more things myself somehow means I am better able to Go. When someone else was doing all of this for me, surely I was far better equipped to f**k off and Go somewhere, the more able to perform other tasks more efficiently? I cannot help but feel that the unwritten words here are Lock n Go f**k yourself for all we care.

I’m afraid it’s all part of of the contemporary belief that doing more than one thing at once must be a good thing. The neoliberal attitude to after-sales service cashes in on this by persuading us that if we’re doing more than we used to – and yet paying more for something – then we must somehow have more control over the service process….and thus gaining. This is of course complete bollocks.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate my point is to suggest some new n’s.

Why nor Lose n Go, for those moments when all our savings are confiscated, and thus we go off to spend the rest of our lives in a motorised wheely-bin?

Or how about Co-Op-n-Go, whereby Labour MPs sit by and idly watch as a major part of the mutual sector goes to the vultures?

But probably best of all would be Buck-n-Gold, in which the gold price falls through the floor as the Dollar goes through the roof. For this would surely suggest that a north-facing Dollar is worth its weight in gold…which is (let’s face it) about as daft as it gets.