SSHHH, whisper it gently, but the yobbish worm might just be turning. Not very far and not very fast but there are some small signs that we are fed up with our graceless, grabbing, gloating modern society and yearn, though we hardly realise it, for gentler, kinder times.

The first, of course, is the cricket. It wasn't just that we won, but that it was played in a sporting sort of a fashion. Both sides being applauded generously, opposing players being nice to each other - in between, of course, bowling balls like missiles and using bats like weapons. It was a modern take on old fashioned sportsmanship and that, as well as the chance of victory, brought the crowds back in and clustering round the office televisions and radios.

I mean, can you imagine Wayne Rooney in the England cricket team?

Despite the Barmy Army, who are only playing at it, yobs and cricket don't mix. As with rugby, rival supporters tend to be good humoured rather than intent on beating each other up.

Meanwhile, up in Scotland a new finishing school has opened. That in itself would be pretty unusual, but this is even stranger - it's a finishing school for men. For £650 a year, young men will learn some social graces - with lessons in etiquette, wine tasting, deportment, dress sense and even how to play chess. Maybe even how to cheer the opposition.

It comes on the heels of the TV series Ladette to Lady, which unexpectedly sparked a flurry of interest in such courses for girls at Eggleston Hall. But now even men are longing for the finer things in life.

And then there was Bad Lads' Army, which turned some unappealing petty criminals not just into soldiers but into officers - again knowing how to behave, which knives and forks to use and how to entertain the ladies at formal dinners.

It's the sort of thing we all hooted at derisively a generation ago, of course. But that was because we could afford to - we had been drilled in the right way to behave, to dress, to hold a knife and fork; in the importance of team spirit, and so could afford to defy convention.

Now there is a generation that knows that the yobbish approach is no fun for anyone and that somewhere there must be a nicer, kinder way of doing things. Hence this yearning for self-improvement and old fashioned values. All rather touching really.

But true good manners are nothing to do with wine tasting or being able to play chess. True good manners mean thinking of other people's comfort and happiness above your own.

And you don't need a £650 course to remember that.

Mystery of the

silk scarves

WE were away last week. While we were falling off the edge of the world in the Outer Hebrides (temperatures of 82 degrees. Who'd have thought it?), the boys returned from their various summer travels on the continent - just in time for Senior Son's birthday. Our house, of course, became Party Capital.

Despite that, we returned to it all surprisingly clean and tidy. Just half a dozen bin bags full of empties clanking in the garage. Except that nearly all my silk scarves had been taken out of the drawer, washed and hung neatly on radiators.

No, I haven't a clue either. And frankly, I'm too scared to ask.

A country life

for Charles

SWEET to think of Prince Charles and Princess Anne with the Queen Mother singing to seals off the coast of Scotland. And yes, the Prince has a point when he says how we must slow down and reflect in a world that seems to go forever faster.

But he was speaking from Caithness, on the deserted top of Scotland. And yes, as in all isolated rural places, it's wonderful for those of us who can breeze in and out for a few weeks each year, unwind and relax. But for those who live and work there, who struggle with a lack of transport, poorly paid jobs and evermore expensive houses, the silence and rhythm of nature are no blissful escape from the world, but a symbol of their isolation from it.

Peaceful it might be - but only for those who can afford to pick and choose when they are there.