Shambles

The economy's in a shambles, as is the airline industry (we can blame Iceland for both), as is my study (should I blame Iceland for that? O, go on then.) My kitchen cupboards have been tidier - all right, they're also in a shambles. I'll skirt over the state of my sock drawer (shambles) and knicker drawer (drawers' drawer?) Do I really need to spell it out? S.H.A.M.B.L.E.S.

And guess where I was yesterday? In The Shambles - in fact, due to the crowds of people who hadn't gone to the Harrogate Flower Show, I was shambling in The Shambles - looking at the shrine of Margaret of Clitherow who was pressed to death for her faith and not buying fudge. To clarify: Margaret wasn't pressed to death for not buying fudge. I wasn't buying fudge - which was difficult as every other shop in The Shambles sold it. (I won't tell you what the shops in Whip-ma-whop-ma-gate sold.)

I apologise if you think I'm being irreverent about Margaret. In my defence, it is as nothing compared to what the junior bugs in the Foreign Office have said about the Pope recently.

Yesterday, someone told me that in ages past, The Shambles were populated with slaughtermen and butchershops: shambles were the innards of butchered beasts which tumbled bloodily onto the street and made a mess - or a right shambles. However, research suggests that a shamble was the table or bench the beast was butchered on. No matter, shambles has come to mean mess and muddle, clutter, ruin or a scene of bloodshed, carnage and great devastation.

Perhaps because the airplanes were grounded and the airline industry propelled into complete shambles, we were saved - quite literally - from complete shambles.