So much to write about today and so little time. Forgive me if this reads even more stream of consciousness than usual.

Here goes.

First of all, yet another social media controversy. This time it has been stirred up by the Archbishop of Westminster, who fears that teenagers risk being driven to suicide by the breakdown of what he sees as the transient relationships built up over socnets rather than ‘real’ human friendships. To a point I guess. But I also guess the Archbish may not have spent his early teens falling helplessly in love with the way-out-of-his league blonde lead violinist with the Salford Youth Orchestra and experiencing the tortures of the damned, or feeling alone and isolated in his obsession with T Rex and Bowie while his mates were all shuffling around in old army coats carrying ’Led Zep III’ under their arms.

On ‘Today’ another senior cleric talked in terms of the ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ societies – thick being represented by the rural living ideal where everyone knows each other and their business, leaves their back door open etc etc (I live in a village – this view is in fact b******s) and thin being the urban trend for less community intimacy but more space to be yourself.

He also outlined the benefits of socnets to teens in ‘thick’ societies, where they may feel different and misunderstood, of being able to connect with like-minded kids elsewhere.

Much reporting on the trials and potential demise of The Observer (though none in The Guardian itself who’s Media Section makes no reference to the leak from the Trust overseeing the two titles on the closure option under review). The Observer is a terrific newspaper and less arrogant and PC than its daily sister paper but it should not survive simply because of its 200 + year heritage. It should survive because it is damned good, fills a definite Sunday niche (if not in the supplements market, definitely in the news and comment market) and deserves to be part of your Sunday media intake.

Finally I was interested to read my old mucker and fellow 1997 election war-roomer Neal Lawson’s unreconstructed rant against consumerism in The Guardian. It contains such gems as ‘The gulag is replaced by Gucci’ in an essay suggesting we are all the hapless dupes of brands bleeding us dry and destroying society. I suspect these views were not widely aired when Neal was a senior guy on Sir Tim Bell’s PR consultancy team.

Marketing is the new totalitarianism claims Neal, which will no doubt interest the surviving families of brutal totalitarian regimes.

Yes we need to pay regard to saving the planet as part of our purchasing plans, and yes we need consumer protection regulation to inform consumers and protect them from sharp practice, but no-one ever lost their freedom or their fingernails or worse from checking out the Paul Smith winter collection.

Perhaps we should all heed Neal’s advice to shun marketing in this case and exercise our right not to buy his new book on which this teenage Trotskyism is extracted from.