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Update: This should now work properly. It didn't work before because I forgot to upload the file that actually changed the text size. Oops.
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Our society faces a grave crisis. Far more serious than either the credit crunch (surely "repayment crunch?") or global warming is the gradual increase in the amount of smugness that smug people are beginning to pump into the atmosphere with reckless and carefree abandon. It is estimated that by 2010 the level of irritation caused by smug people will have soared to a record high and that the current astronomically high levels of annoyance may be irreversible. 
Smugness emissions are caused by an increasing number of people who, out of a desire to appear morally superior to everybody else, zealously promote their latest lifestyle choice to anyone who is willing to listen (and many more who are not) in the belief and expectation that a) you actually care and b) they have done something so morally wonderful that you ought to immediately take off your sandals and lay prostrate before them in reverent wonder.
You probably know the kind of person I mean. You pop round to their house for a coffee and a conversation like this takes place:
"Would you like a tea or a coffee?"
"Go on then. Coffee please."
"How do you have your coffee?"
"White, one sugar."
"Ok. The coffee is fair trade by the way."
At this point there is short pause while the smugness-emitter waits for you to burst into wild applause: "It's fair trade! Wow! Oh my goodness! You're such a morally upstanding person! Hurrah for you!" I mean seriously, what do they want? A medal?
It seems that such outbursts of pseudo-moral smugness are occuring with ever-increasing frequency. In the wake of the collapse of more traditional moral values, more well-to-do people now invest inordinate amounts of moral worth into various trendy fads in an attempt to attain some kind of moral and social superiority over the less smug members of their social circle.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s things were a lot better than they are now. The buses ran on time, children were polite to grown ups, police were allowed to thrash teenagers in the street for the slightest misdemeanour, the riff-raff knew their place, and the only thing you had to worry about was being annihilated in a global nuclear holocaust. Not everything was as rosy as it seemed however, for back in these halcyon days of yore, men were marginalised and oppressed and were forbidden by law from doing anything in the kitchen, as this advert from 1961 makes clear:
See how desperately the man in the advert wants to cook but how he is forbidden to do so by the outdated social dogmas of the time? Nowadays of course, men have been liberated from the repressive matriarchal yoke and are free to pursue previously forbidden pleasures like staying at home and looking after the children or cookery. While I have no plans to indulge in the former, I do enjoy a bit of cookery and I intend to publish a few of my better recipes on this blog from time to time. Here's one of my recent concoctions:
Salmon Fillet in Lemon Herb Marinade
Serves 2
Preparation time: 90 minutes (most of this involves doing nothing, so don't worry)
Cooking time: 30 mins approx.
Ingredients: 
2x salmon fillets
150ml olive oil
2 fresh lemons (one squeezed, one sliced)
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
1 tsp fresh chives (chopped)
Salt & pepper
Serve with:
Spinach
Asparagus
French Beans
1. Place the salmon fillets in a shallow dish or tray (must be deeper than the height of the fillet).
2. Pour the olive oil, lemon juice, thyme, chives, and rosemary over the fillets. Make sure you use olive oil and not sunflower oil or the recipe will end up tasting like fishy margarine. Add a pinch of salt and pepper (see picture).
3. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for 90 minutes to marinade. In the meanwhile read a book, listen to the radio, or go for a stroll. It's up to you really.
4. Remove fillets from from the fridge.
5. Pour half the marinade into a frying pan on medium heat.
6. Sprinkle a pinch of salt onto each side of the fillet, fry it in the marinade for one and a half minutes on either side. This seals in the flavour from the marinade and makes the salmon a little bit more crispy.
7. Remove the fillets from the frying pan and wrap them in tin foil. Place in an oven (200 degrees celsius) for 20 minutes until cooked.
8. Steam (not boil, you heathen) the spinach, green beans, and asparagus. Pour the remaining marinade over the veg after draining. Add butter according to taste.
Serve vegetables and salmon with a slice of lemon. Remove the tin foil from the salmon first, obviously.