Step away for a moment from the glum argy-bargy of news. Here is a picture of shoes lined up in our hallway. It is controversial in ways that may not immediately be apparent.

Look closely and you will see some shoes with the toes facing outwards, while others have the toes pushed up against the skirting board beneath the radiator.

What we learn from this is that someone in this house is a person of obvious good sense, while someone else is a shoe barbarian.

Whose shoes face out and who puts the heel to the fore; and who is right?

Here is the case for the defence.

The shoes with the toes facing outwards are as god intended shoes in the hall to be arranged, neatly mobilised as if their (invisible) wearers had their backs to the wall. Looks tidier and the shoes just seem right that way.

Here is the case for the prosecution.

Shoes are more useful with the toes facing the wall as that way they are ready to put on.

I know, I know – nobody puts their shoes on while standing up against the wall, slipping their feet into footwear so conveniently located that they bang their forehead on the wall. So that argument makes no sense at all, leastways not to the man who places his shoes with the toes to the front.

So, yes, the big reveal is that my shoes are like little ships with the prow out, ready to sail. And my wife’s shoes are docked back to front with the stern facing outwards, in no fit shape to sail.

Incidentally, the prow, from the French word ‘proue’, is the forward-most part of a ship’s bow above the waterline, although ‘prow’ and ‘bow’ can be used interchangeably.

Incidentally times two: the bore is the backwards-most partner who witters on about which way round the shoes in the hall should be arranged. And then, after many months of genial argument, decides to write about this important matter.

In short, we both insist we are right.

Such small disagreements are cogs in a long marriage, tiny disputes being better than big ones.

Or perhaps my wife knows nothing about shoes in the hallway, or I am just a teeny bit obsessed about something of absolutely no importance at all.

Another anniversary fell the other day: 36 years. An unfeasibly long time, and yet nothing but a flash in the universe’s pan. We spent the morning filling a skip with broken concrete from the garden. And nobody mentioned shoes at all. There was a meal with white wine in the evening, and a game of Scrabble (I lost, as usual).

To conclude this important discussion, here’s what happens when I tidy up the hall.

After the vacuum cleaner has a wheezy guzzle, the shoes are arranged so that they all toe the line. And then, one by one, my wife’s shoes end up facing the wall again.

What’s wrong with this picture of modern life?

According to a report on the BBC and elsewhere, one million smokers will be given a free vaping starter kit to encourage them to give up tobacco.

“Fake smoking” being better than actual smoking. Fair enough. Smoking is uncontestably bad for you, while vaping is – what exactly?

Better than smoking but probably not that good for you in ways that have yet to become fully apparent; perhaps. Better than smoking yet just as addictive in other ways – and horribly attractive to children and young people, thanks to the sweet-flavoured ‘smoke’; perhaps.

Then I spotted a TV advert that hinted at a collective social madness. A company that makes products to break your addiction to tobacco has now introduced a new line to break your addiction to vaping.

That was a head-scratching moment. Vaping is ‘good’ – but you may become addicted and will need this product to get you off the thing that’s stopped you smoking.