Are our shops like brothels? Are our women like men?

If you expect some deep insights, sorry. All I have to offer today are a couple of random observations.

First, I try to shop locally whenever possible. As a result, many shop assistants have known me for years and usually even remember what I bought last time.

However, whenever I bump into them in the street they show no signs of recognition. When I nod and smile at them, their expressions remain vacant.

Now I know (strictly from hearsay, as I hope you understand) that prostitutes are trained not to recognise their customers when spotting them outside ‘the house’. That stands to reason: they’d lose custom if exposing their johns to interrogations by their wives, along the lines of “How well do you know this young lady, Nigel?”

However, a local greengrocer’s is hardly a den of iniquity. Someone who works there wouldn’t embarrass me by saying hello even if Penelope walked by my side. And yet they hardly ever do.

This has to say something about the nature of commerce in Britain, though I’m not sure what. I’m specifying the geographic aspect because the local tradesmen in France always treat me as a friend lost and now regained. Our comely pâtissière even gives me a kiss each time I see her. So does my barber (a young woman, I hasten to reassure you).

Anyway, while we are on the subject of commerce, over the past fortnight I’ve been sporadically watching the Australian Open. When the remote is out of reach, that inevitably involves also watching commercials, many of them for tennis equipment.

They tend to use famous tennis players to flog their wares, which is par for the course. So I don’t mind Roger Federer hinting broadly that his success is somehow linked to the Rolex watches he wears.

What I find amusing is a top player holding up a racquet and saying things like: “You want to play like me? Then buy [the advertised brand].”

So that’s what it takes? I’ve been wondering why I don’t serve many aces, but now I know. All one has to do is buy the racquet used by a big hitter, and suddenly one’s opponents won’t be able to touch a single serve.

Yes, that should work. Provided also that the punter starts playing at age three, has the best coaches working with him all his life, has a dysfunctional childhood, practises six hours a day (plus hours in the gym and endless miles of running), always eats right, hardly ever touches alcohol – and let’s not forget the minor matter of him being a supremely talented athlete to begin with.

Then there’s this point. Top players’ racquets may look like the Heads or Wilsons we see in the shop, but they aren’t, not really. Each player has his racquets customised to his specifications, and they only look like the commercial products.

Andy Murray, for example, played his whole career with the same racquets. However, each year their livery was changed to look like the current model.

In other words, those commercials are thoroughly deceitful, which makes me tremble over my final destination when I arrive at the pearly gates. I can just see the vindictive smile on St Peter’s face when I admit that I wrote advertising copy for 30 years.

Speaking of modern perversions, last night I watched the men’s quarterfinal between Medvedev and Auger-Aliassime. This morning I caught the women’s semi between Barty and Keys.

Medvedev won in a few minutes under five hours. Much to the delight of the spectators, the local girl Barty put paid to Keys in a few minutes over one hour. This gets me to one of my recurrent bugbears.

Since the men and the women receive the same prize money, the women are effectively paid several times more per hour. This is called ‘equal pay for equal work’, which yet again demonstrates the gross mendacity of any language that touches upon politics even tangentially.

And that’s not all. The expert commentator explained that Barty dispatches her opponents so easily because she slices her backhand, and “most girls don’t know how to handle that”. Excuse me?

You mean professional players earning the same money as their male colleagues don’t know how to handle one of the basic tennis shots? Yes, a sliced ball stays low, making it hard to get the racquet under it to hit topspin.

But I bet you my house against your tennis ball that you won’t name a single male pro who has the same problem.

I’m old enough to remember 1974, when Jimmy Connors demolished Ken Rosewall in the finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open. Rosewall arguably had the best sliced backhand in the history of tennis, and yet he only managed to win a total of eight games in the two matches. Yes, Ken was getting on a bit, but he still made it to those Grand Slam finals.

One has to conclude that ‘the girls’ spend a lot less time not only playing, but also training. It’s that equal pay again, although they undeniably spend more time in photographers’ studios.

The upshot of these snippets is that our nerve endings are so atrophied that we either don’t recognise lies and falsehoods for what they are or, worse still, don’t care. When no one believes in the absolute truth, even little truthlets stand no chance.