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From Rev鈥檇 Richard Coles, cleric and broadcaster:

We鈥檝e just come back from Italy, a country I love, for its history, for its art, for its custom of serving a great bowl of pasta between starters and main course. Downside, after a week, my circumference is so enlarged my angle of comfortable bend has significantly reduced. The effort required now is so great that I resolved not to bend to pick up anything less than a Euro. It鈥檚 just not worth it.

And I鈥檝e discovered that the world for a stoutish parson unwilling to bend, is noticeably different, not least going shopping.

It has got more expensive, about twenty percent I reckon, and the reason is that supermarkets put premium brands, sold at premium prices, on the higher shelves, the shelves you don鈥檛 need to bend to access.聽 I asked a friend in retail if the placement of the product on the shelf make a difference to its sales? Of course its does, he said, 鈥渆ye level is buy level鈥�.

Next time you go to the supermarket look at the difference in price between the premium brands in front of you, and the cheaper brands at ankle height. The truth is we are more likely to go for what鈥檚 right there, than to make the effort to seek what鈥檚 better for us.

In a consumerist world, like ours, these realities affect more than our shopping. In politics, the catchy slogan which leads to the easy conclusion, the one that is comfortably in reach and requires least effort to secure, is hard to resist, whether you鈥檙e deciding what鈥檚 best for you, or organising a political party, or, or choosing the Commander in Chief of the world's most powerful military.

Jesus Christ taught that the path that leads to where you ought to go is not the easy one, but the one that is narrow, the one that is hard (ask any athlete 鈥� well maybe not a Russian athlete). So I resolve in future to make the effort to stretch, to flex, to bend, to reach out beyond what鈥檚 comfortable.

So if you鈥檙e in the supermarket and hear the sound of a cassock button flying off and shattering a jar of pickled onions, that鈥檒l be me. Do pop over and say hello.