Security first as shopping channels fight The Fear

Trust me, at present nobody is more concerned with our security than our shopping channels. On high alert, they think of little else but ways to diminish The Fear. 

Bid TV, for example, has begun to operate as though we were three minutes from a pogrom. It knows that to trust in sterling in the present climate is to wander into the fog proffering our children to oncoming strangers.

"This really does look like 24 carat gold," said presenter Peter Simon, holding up a large bracelet during their jewellery clearance sale the other night. "It's 22 grams, it's Italian, it's the best of the gold we have."

Earlier in the evening he'd had trouble shifting a Swarovsky crystal arm clasp. It was a statement piece, and very pretty too, but he had to get it down from £299 to £22 before people would bite. But what can a person forced to leave their house at a moment's notice do with crystals? Sure, they can be squashed into bread and swallowed whilst other members of the family stuff firearms into their garters, but remember what happened to Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man – his life-saving diamonds falling like dust from his briefcase, light on the breeze, too easily lost.

Peter is like King Ferdinand watching Columbus sail away to rip off the Aztecs

"Just think what you might do with all that gold at a time like this…" crooned Peter, holding the bracelet up to the light. "But then that's the Italians all over isn't it? They'd go and make a profit selling this by the gram weight alone." I'd love to have seen Yorkshireman Peter's face the day of Gordon Brown's clearance sale of 400 tons of British gold bullion back in 1999, when the price was at a 20-year low. And then his face when the Chinese snapped it up and made a billion.

Peter is peeved at the best of times: pereptually someone who's had the plate removed before they've finished eating. But tonight he's utterly magnificent, electric. He's King Ferdinand of Spain standing on the shore rubbing his hands as Columbus set sail for the New World to rip off the Aztecs. "Treat yourself!" Peter shouts. "Think of it as security!" His manner suddenly softens. "I imagine an Italian woman wearing this with her long dark hair saying, 'Ciao, mwah, mwah' like that. She's all in white. Can't you just see her? A handbag on her arm. It's a very heavy piece, this. Buy it: get it valued. You can't lose with gold."

Meanwhile, over on Ideal World, presenter Shaun Ryan was selling a portable internet device. He's a nice chap, Shaun, lives a quiet life, is always talking about his mother. He recently turned forty and it's rattled him to the quick. There has been talk of golf. Maybe he'll get into pilates too, I don't know, but something's got to give.

The other day when he was selling memory foam mattresses he mentioned the one he'd bought last year for his spare room rather too many times, quietly, as though any dates he gets back to the house tend to end up there instead of in with him.

"I don't know about you," he said on Thursday, holding up the palm-sized device to Ideal World's technology expert Janice, "but there are so many times when I'm on holiday or on a day out with my Mum, and I'd just suddenly love to get on-line to find out some information. But is it safe? I don't know about you but I need to feel secure." (Shaun makes no bones about being a neurotic. His tooth once fell out on air whilst eating a crusty baguette during Customer Choice. Since then his anxiety has had a veneer of absolute authenticity.)

Janice is a stocky woman, with gardeners hands. One can imagine her on an automower fiddling with the pre-programming panel. "We live in the digital age, Shaun," she shrugged. "The snail mail will stop. We must bank on-line."

With a voice as soft as a persistent moth, Janice explained there was no hacking

Shaun smiled an anxious clown smile. He could just see his mother looking at the product in its box and asking why does God mistreat us all thus? Which is the on button? "Yes," he said. "But when I started banking on-line, Janice, I was so worried because I thought - how can it be secure? I mean there's got be a possibility that somebody who knows what they're doing can hack into my information…"

Janice explained in a voice as soft and persistant as a moth, that there is absolutely no hacking on Ideal World. That the device was specially encrypted - using the same technology as the army. The army. Men in black being lowered on ropes. Authority figures scurrying to bunkers. Gold being traded for jam and train tickets.

"And look!" she said. "If you go to the satellite function you can see houses and roads and even a cow in a field..." She peered at the little screen. "It is absolutely mind-blowing isn't it?" said Shaun, stilling her soliloquy. "Really it is. But it's safe, everyone. I promise you will be safe with this." ·