NEWS that a leading supermarket is to offer “relaxed” checkouts raised my blood pressure alarmingly.

However, on reading further, I was relieved to learn that the plot wasn’t such a bad idea as it was aimed at customers who have medical conditions and might need a little more time: two extra minutes in fact, during which they’re invited to chat to the cashier.

This initiative, being tested in Forres, is typical of the caring, almost Marxist attitude that we’ve come to expect of our big supermarkets, and Tesco is to be commended for it.

It eschews the prevailing speed-‘em-through philosophy, and should serve as a warning to those irritating cashiers who put folk’s stuff through so fast they’re left with a big pile to pack as the operative sits there drumming her fingers.

Controversially, I say “her”, as it’s usually teenage girls who do this, and they’ve always struck me as preternaturally cruel, thus qualifying them admirably for working with the public.

However, this well-meaning initiative still has alarming implications. First, it assumes people with difficulties want to speak to the cashiers, suffering the agonies of small talk rather than being free to exeunt with their dignity intact.

They have my sympathy, though I’ve some tactics that have at times worked for me.

Cashier: “How are we today, sir?

Your hero: “My syphilis is giving me gyp.”

Cashier (whispering urgently to colleague on adjacent till): “Please help me.”

Already, all customers familiar with their local supermarket’s cashiers will, when scientifically selecting a check-out, avoid the over-chatty ones, as well as those with peculiar laughs, baldness, inappropriate crushes or a history of sneezing on one’s comestibles.

Sometimes, I wait half an hour before an appropriate operative appears.

Another alarming aspect of the Forres Experiment is that it’s open to all customers, which I read as a threat that it might in future become compulsory for every shopper.

You say: “Robert, you have an apocalyptic mind, ken?” Unhand me, madam. Rather than apocalopie-wotsname, my approach to life is based soundly on rational suspicion. By and large, the only real conversation I have with supermarket cashiers is when my card is declined, which happens about once a week.

Usually, they’re unsympathetic and, back in the days when I used to be embarrassed by this, I’d blather over the shame, making it even more excruciating.

The other day – this is actually true; no fake comment here – I had a particularly bovine female cashier, who silenced all other background noise by bellowing across the till area floor to a supervisor: “It’s declined his caird! Declined, ah tell ye!”

This was followed by the usual Walk of Shame, accompanied by a supervisor taking my trolley full of packed bags to the service desk, where I promise I’ll solve the little difficulty instanter by making a few calls to, in order of respectability, the Mob, a local witch-doctor, and my financial adviser, who says he cannot hear me for all the noise in the bookies, then makes some fake interference noises before the line goes dead.

The declined card has happened so often now that I don’t even blush any more, and the staff say: “I take it you’re a freelance journalist, sir?”

In this instance, I’d ensured before setting out that there were sufficient funds for a tin of sardines and a loaf from the “Reduced” stack.

But, at some time in the ensuing hour, the bank had removed a sum willy and, arguably, nilly.

And, so, where was my tea? Correct: oot.

Och, I shouldn’t worry so much. I live so far removed from the hurly-burly of reality-style life that I find everyday interactions stressful.

Seriously, before nipping out for an afternoon sherry with a pleasant neighbour recently, I found myself squinting American hero-style in the mirror and saying: “Let’s do this!”

Perhaps it’d do me good to spend two minutes talking to the cashiers. But what about?

The novels of Hamsun, great cup finals of 2016, the irritating but undeniably proven relationship between beer and flatulence?

Just as chemists are now expected to be GPs, perhaps supermarket cashiers could also dispense medical wisdom.

Me: “I’m a martyr to ma’ haemorrhoids.”

Cashier: “Case of the Nobby Stiles, eh? Aisle three, middle shelf: there’s an unguent there that will restore full tranquillity to your bum.”

Me: “Thank you, madam. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”