I WAS talking to a friend the other day, who is now more than 80 years old. He was telling me that his elder brother, who has lived not more than 30 miles from the coast for most of his life, had been to the seaside only twice, and those visits were more than 80 years apart.

I am not very fond of the sea. I never was. Sand gets between your toes and is difficult to get out. I was once made to ride a donkey at the seaside, an experience neither I nor the donkey enjoyed.

I have not forgotten.

Lately I have made a habit of seeing the sea once a year. Often it is from a warm car in February while driving down the front at Filey.

I prefer that time of the year because it means that there is little traffic and I also have an excuse not to get out of the car.

Sometimes, if I am really lucky, it is from the York to Edinburgh train, which has the added attraction of having a super city, and perhaps a rugby match, as my destination.

These days, when mobility is taken as a right and not a privilege, there cannot be many who have travelled so little as to not have seen the sea in 80 years.

It may be an aversion to the sea, but it is more likely to have been an aversion to travel of any kind. Some citizens just do not like going anywhere. Home is familiar and comfortable.

There is a balance to be struck between the amount of travel undertaken by the busy international executive, who is hardly ever at home, to the detriment of family life, and those who stay at home and see little of the world around us.

When one looks around the world, whether as a tourist or as a television viewer, there is a great deal of damage caused by travellers of one kind or another.

Inappropriate development in pursuit of tourist currency ruins countryside worldwide.

Wild animals, who only want to continue to live their lives in peace, are in danger of extinction from destruction of their habitats. That is the damage that is seen.

It seems clear that there is unseen damage caused to the ozone layer by jet aircraft. There is certainly a contribution to global warming caused by travel in general. Stay at home and save the world is unlikely to be a popular slogan, but it may not be too far from the mark.

The difficulty is that we have now built into our expectations of life a series of assumptions of what it is reasonable to expect. The media constantly reminds us of the lifestyle of those with more money than we have and leads us to believe it is fair to think that we might aspire to such a lifestyle.

Advertisements do the same. Tempting cheap loans, which are not really especially cheap, offer us all the means of paying for the lifestyle. Long term, disaster awaits.

As a nation we pay ourselves more than we earn. That applies from the top earners to the lowest paid.

Final salary pensions, especially those index-linked to be paid to some Government employees, look increasingly unaffordable.

Every so often something happens to draw our attention to these unpalatable truths. We soon forget and return to our old ways. The slogan seems to be Conspicuous Consumption Rules. Well, it may rule but it is certainly not OK.

Updated: 09:53 Tuesday, October 14, 2003