Rudeness is the winner

It's good to have a hobby, so they say, and mine is collecting hobbies. Over the years, I've tried stamp collecting (although after feverishly thumbing my Gibbons for several months, I decided that philately will get you nowhere), and I also spent a period collecting regal guano (which I retrieved from railway lines after the lavatory on the royal train had been flushed), and my recreational hours are currently devoted to banknotespotting, which is rather like trainspotting, only duller.

To begin, simply purchase an exercise book, take out all the £5 and £10 notes from your wallet, and write down the serial numbers. Then, every time you're given new notes, check in the book to see if you've already got the numbers. If you haven't, never mind, because the new serial numbers you add to your list will increase your chances of success next time! Hours of fun!

All hobbies are a form of private madness, of course, but they overstep the mark when their practitioners turn from enthusiasts into evangelists, and attempt to force their personal obsessions onto the world at large. That's long been the case with the Campaign for Courtesy, and their appearance on last night's Bee in Your Bonnet (BBC2) reinforced my belief that they're mostly teetering on the brink of serious mental illness.

"Britain has been hit by an epidemic of rudeness," the programme thundered, but these people have been making that same alarmist claim ever since 1986 (when they were called the Polite Society), and there's no more evidence for the statement now than there ever was.

As for the Rev Ian Gregory (their founder) insisting that "we're fed up with people being rude to one another ... improved manners could make this country great again," history teaches us that this country became great through the barrel of a gun, not through politeness, and a quick trip to the US will confirm that a truly polite society is usually an armed society.

Advising the campaign on how to achieve greater success was Amanda Platell, the former Tory spin doctor who did so much to ensure William Hague's triumph at the last election. Nevertheless, she's an experienced and canny journalist who knows that it's the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease, and she tried her best to persuade them to concoct some eye-catching stunts, to get some serious media attention for their National Courtesy Day.

"You've really got to push and push for Radio Five and the Jeremy Vine show," she counselled them, but the Rev Gregory preferred instead to dress up as Sir Walter Raleigh (the ultra-polite Elizabethan who introduced lung cancer into Britain), and stand around on York station, being comprehensively ignored by press and public alike.

"The media is nowhere to be seen," observed Platell sadly, and no wonder, because during the tourist season, 50 per cent of the population of this living-museumofa-city are already dressed up in capes and cod pieces, as a matter of course.

From its flippant title to its frivolous choice of music, the programme relentlessly mocked the aspirations of its subjects, but the Campaign's general humourlessness and pomposity somehow seemed to excuse such underhand editorial touches.

"Courtesy costs nothing," one member informed us, before adding that their proposed courtesy bus would cost at least a hundred grand, and my mind drifted back to the mid-Eighties, to a time when I was young enough and stupid enough to appear on TV programmes and give out my worthless opinions unpaid, instead of writing them down and selling them to newspapers.