Life really is becoming unaffordable

Read Martin's column every week in the Western Morning News

- 

THE cost of living is becoming outrageous. Woe is me, and everyone else!

I wonder how many newspaper columns have majored on that sentiment since the concept of the printed opinion piece was invented? Countless thousands, no doubt - and now here’s me doing it again.

An easy option that will find agreement among the vast majority of readers? Certainly. But life really is becoming unaffordable.

So why exactly have I gone for the cost-of-living line this week? I'll tell you... because I was in a shop looking for something easy for supper this week when I spotted some largeish, and rather delicious looking, lamb chops. They were being sold in packs of two, priced at £18.50.

Eighteen-and-a-half-quid for a brace of lamb chops! Almost £20 for the centrepiece of a meal for two if you were being mean, or for just one person if they were hungry and you were being generous.

And, no, these weren't Barnsley chops, in case you're asking. Even if they were, that is a lot of dosh.

I have just asked the latest and brightest Al app to work out the price of an entire lamb carcass based on that price, which it said (quite right-ly) was a silly request as different cuts fetch different prices. However, AI has become very clever and it spent at least 2.5 seconds working out a guideline reply.