It's so symptomatic of life of instant gratification we have in this generation where people expect everything to be handed to them on a plate.

They should take a step back to what it was like in the '50s and '60s when people were required to have saved 20 per cent of the value of their home before they qualified for a mortgage.

There was no going to parents for help because they had gone through the war years and had little themselves.

I remember when I was aged 11, I had a three-mile bus ride to school. I quickly worked out that if I ran three bus stops along the route I could save ½d on the fare.

If I did that coming home too, I saved 1d. I added this to my meagre 3d pocket money and I was able to buy a 6d. savings stamp and when I had collected £1 worth I could get a Savings Certificate.

By the time I was 16 I had saved £70, equivalent to a four-figure sum today.

By the time I was 21 I had saved enough for that 20 per cent deposit for my first home, which cost me £3,350, a huge sum when I was earning only £12 per week.

What a shame those rules had not been kept in place through the subsequent decades, because, had they been, we would not be facing the credit crunch today.

For financial institutions to offer 100 per cent and even up to 125 per cent loans was stupid in the extreme.

The whole thing was driven by greed – people working on commission signing up people on mortgages which, if the slightest thing went wrong, they would be unable to repay.

It's all given the impression that kids can just click their fingers and get exactly what they want. But these "good" times are over.

This instant gratification way of life has let teenagers and 20-somethings think they can go out to the pubs and clubs every other day, blow their wages on binge drinking, fags and drugs and then trot along to the bank or building society and get 100 per cent mortgages.

Greedy pub and club owners have cashed in on the teenage drinking frenzy and society has suffered because of all the trouble it has brought in its wake.

They're still at it today, dreaming up more ways of enticing the kids into their premises – the latest is erotic, semi-nude dancing.

Add to all this the benefit culture that is so endemic in Britain with low-life having children from different men and the more kids they get the more benefits they receive, and you can see why we have a growing sub-class in this country which is a time-bomb waiting to go off.

Into this mix is a huge army of immigrants prepared to work hard for minimum rates of pay and another lot of immigrants, many of whom have got into Britain illegally, fuelling the nation's serious crime spree and welfare bill, and it all extremely worrying.

The latest figures suggest that Britons, far from curbing their lifestyles, are piling even more money onto credit cards.

We're also told that it won't be long before thousands of people are facing negative equity in their homes.

I hope governments, charities and go-gooders won't be taken in by the sob stories which will be coming, big time, soon.

Related to the same subject, we enjoyed a good night out at a town centre restaurant and were walking past F Hinds jewellers, and standing by the grille at the entrance was a young man urinating.

In front was a teenage girl who loud-mouthed us because we dared to look at them.

What sort of people are these who think nothing of urinating in public when they could so easily use public loos or those in numerous pubs and clubs in the town centre.

I know these kinds of people are in the minority and there are many, many good, hard-working young people around, who do save for the future and don't go binge drinking.

But there's a hard core who do – breeding the next generation!