“I AMAR prestar aen. Han mathon ne nen. Han mathon ne chae. Han noston ned 'wilith.”

Educated readers will recognise this as Elvish, the words being those spoken by Galadriel at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring. Rough translation: “The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.”

I’ve been thinking similar thoughts myself this week, except they ran more like this: “The world is changing. I feel it in the high street. I feel it in John Lewis. I taste it in the chips.” (Apologies for the lack of translation; there appears to be no Elvish word for “chips”).

I say “chips” but pizza might have been a better choice of pabulum (even if the Elves had no word for “pizza” either). News that Pizza Express is the latest high street institution facing financial difficulties sent shock waves around the nation this week.

The popular restaurant chain is reportedly in talks with its creditors after running up debt of £655 million. That’s £1.6 million per restaurant. How’s that even possible? They’re not giving the food away.

High rents and “changing consumer habits” are adduced as causes for the fall, the latter being a reference to home delivery apps where you have grub delivered to your hoose and don’t have to tip waiters or, in the case of Pizza Express, put up with children bawling their heids off and bunging bits of dough hither and yon.

It has to be said, too, that the drinks menu is rubbish and that they’ve missed a trick in not being like other restaurants and charging £27 for a bottle of plonk that costs £8 in Tesco.

But, apart from that, I like Pizza Express. It’s customer-friendly. The waiters call you “guys” at least twice in every sentence, though I gather this term is now considered politically incorrect. Yawn.

It’s true that they’re sometimes in your face, a bit too enthusiastic. A waiter should be somewhere between a butler and a social worker; not a salesman or someone who proselytises. They should never correct your pronunciation, unless tactfully and with humour.

But they’re always friendly at Pizza Express, as is admittedly the case widely now, though it wasn’t always so. My family had a proletarian fear of restaurants that would put Alan Bennett’s to shame and, indeed, I was never in one until I was 20 and that was a Chinese that friends forced me to attend. I had the omelette and chips, which was still my preferred takeaway (it was several years more before I was in another restaurant) for about a decade until I took my courage in my hands and switched to curry and chips.

Before that first restaurant visit, I remember taking my teenage girlfriend to the seated section of a bakery chain (where I gave her a ring that cost me at least an hour’s wages).

Since those days, I’ve been to a few right posh places, but never thought much of any of them and wouldn’t hurry back, particularly to the one where my mate said the wine was corked. And the waiter said: “But it’s a screwtap bottle, sir.”

I’d rather go to Pizza Express any day. With concerns already flagged up about the position of Markies and John Lewis on our high streets, I’m beginning to fear that civilisation is on the brink of collapse.

If Extinction Rebellion would forget weird weather and rubbishy species and take up the cause of our precious habitats and popular chains on the high street, I’d be out there in an instant, gluing my buttocks to something in protest.

Greatness in a phone box

IF ever more evidence were needed that Britain was at its greatest during the prime ministership of Sir Harold Macmillan, it was provided this week when details of his nuclear hotline emerged.

According to historian Peter Hennessy, concern was raised about how to contact the PM if there was a four-minute warning of a Russian attack and he was away somewhere. As Sir Harold didn’t want any fuss or expensive procedures, the answer was to have a radio link to the Automobile Association installed in his Rolls Royce.

The AA would tell Sir Harold’s driver he needed to reach a GPO phone box from which the PM could telephone Whitehall – provided he had the right change. A private secretary advised in a memo: “Perhaps we should see that our drivers are provided with four pennies – I should hate to think of you trying to get change for sixpence from a bus conductor while those four minutes were ticking by.”

Another official suggested “dialling 100 and requesting reversal of the charge”, adding: “[This] does not take any appreciable time.”

It was such bumbling amateurishness that made Britain Great. How sad that it’s been lost under the brutally efficient leadership of Boris Johnson.

Something in the 'air

BALDIE news, and another explanation has been provided for what has caused the deplorable epidemic that has engulfed the western world. Hitherto, the scientific consensus has been that the plague was caused by lewd thoughts in the brain or, alternatively, by washing up liquid getting into the water supplies.

However, the latest theory, published in The Scientific Digest of Shameful Diseases, is that air pollution from cars and lorries could be behind the condition. South Korean boffins believe sooty “particulates” blooter the proteins need for hair retention.

However, this seems unlikely as not every man living next to a busy road goes bald. It’s just another theory concocted for the peculiar phenomenon. At a community public meeting to discuss the crisis, a neighbour of mine said it was caused by men plastering their heids with gel but, again, not everyone using hair products goes bald.

No, I’m afraid the evidence still points to libidinous thoughts being the cause of falling follicles. In 1998, scientific experiments to stop bald men having lewd thoughts had to be abandoned after the exercise proved impossible.