JOAN Collins has a point. It's not just crime that's getting worse in this country - Joan's daughter was mugged recently for her watch, Liz Hurley recommends running shoes for a quick getaway from thieves - but it is something more pervasive.

"A new culture seems to have crept in which apparently applauds a lack of manners," says Joan.

OK, at first, set against the list of muggings, murder and abuse, manners might seem a long way down the list of importance. But a return to good manners could transform our society.

We're not talking about piddling little rules of etiquette but the fundamental core of good manners - which is to have respect for others, to put their ease and comfort first and not to do anything that will upset or inconvenience other people. Good manners could change the world.

Joan herself cites the example of people who just fling their rubbish out of car windows. If we all tidied up after ourselves - and our dogs - and kept our streets and town centres clean and appealing, then quality of life would improve immediately.

And all these so-called "rages" are just bad manners taken to extremes. Drivers who jump the lights, cut you up at roundabouts and then wave two fingers at your fury. Is that not just plain bad manners? Young men drinking too much, throwing up and urinating in the streets - manners again.

The constant use of foul language wherever you go... offensive T shirts and tattoos. (I once spent ten minutes at a check out queue behind a young man whose T shirt said "Why don't you just f*** off" It was all a bit disconcerting, especially as he turned and smiled politely at me as he packed his shopping)... adverts and quiz shows that pander to our nastier side.

And if that Newcastle landlady had minded her manners, she might have thought twice about putting the "Sunderland are sh***" scarf up in the bar and saved herself a £400 fine.

We might all - today of all days - worry about the state of the world. We concern ourselves with the threat of war, environmental disaster, the murder of children

But often what really depresses us far more is the minor rudeness of our everyday lives. As on the sort of day when someone pinches your parking place and gloats, when people push in front of you in queues, swear at you in the street, when the sales assistant is offhand and rude and an automated telephone system reduces you to a number and prevents you from speaking to a real live human being.

Those are the sort of petty irritations which affect our lives day in day out. No wonder our levels of stress are rising - and it's not all to do with over work. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, New York was a changed place. People were politer, kinder to one another. It made hard things easier to bear.

So let us give it a go. Let's start minding our manners. For a change, please.

Thank you.

FLAT pack furniture could soon be computerised. A cunning new system means that your build-it-yourself wardrobe will soon be able to tell you itself which bit goes where and when. Takes all the fun out of it really.

It could mean the end of the built-in wobble and slanting shelf. No more building a book case and having three screws, a piece of wood and a length of doweling left over. It could save tempers, bruised thumbs and even marriages.

Ah yes, but will it find the screwdriver that has rolled off between the gap in the floorboards? Now that really would be a breakthrough.

IT might be something to do with the new term - all those dazzling white new school shirts, shiny pencil cases and new shoes. Maybe it's to do with the season, as we pack away faded T-shirts and cotton skirts and get out the jumpers and jackets again.

Maybe it's because we come back from holidays and are dissatisfied with our homes and anxious for a fresh start. Or maybe it's just that first early morning freshness in the air that wakes us up after summer sloth.

But there must be something in the air because everyone I know seems to be having a grand sort out - clearing attics, sheds, kitchen cupboards, rifling wardrobes for Oxfam. Garden greenery is hacked back and cleared and everything inside the house is being pruned pretty drastically too as we say goodbye to summer. Virtually nobody I know spring cleans any more, but an awful lot of people have a grand autumn clearout. How and why did it change?

TWIGGY is 53 and determined to grow old gracefully, without the aid of plastic surgery or Botox injections. She might have one or two natural advantages over the rest of us, but her greatest asset, she says, is her optimism, a belief that she can make things happen. It reminds me of a beauty therapist who once told me that the cheapest facelift was a smile. Literally. Try it - you can feel all those muscles bringing your face back up to somewhere where it used to be, before age and gravity intervened.

Comparing pictures of Twiggy and the newly enhanced puffy-lipped Leslie Ash - more than ten years younger - I think optimism wins everyday.

Cheaper and less painful too.