Thanks be for Easter eggs! As I chomped through a few too many at the weekend, I excused myself the indulgence by reflecting on the basic simplicity and integrity of the egg shape– before, that is, you break one open. There’s little you can do with an egg: you can fill it, decorate it, but when all’s said and done, it’s going to remain an identifiable egg.

In the natural world, for generation after generation, the same device produces new life with merely a hint of Darwinian modification of its contents. Maybe that’s because it’s shaped by nature, and the mere intellect of mankind can brook no improvement.

All the more reason therefore to compare such an enduring example of a natural efficiency, with the obsessive tinkering which blights our man-made fabrications. Have you noticed that you can never buy a repeat of a normal household product?

You get used to your toothbrush, but when you need to replace it, it will inevitably come with a different shaped handle or bristle pad. As one who chooses to shave, the incremental addition of yet one more blade to the razor head either casts doubt on the original cutler’s art, or suggests the quest for the perfectly smooth chin is mere illusion. And it’s got nothing to do with health and safety! In my bachelor days, I was well practised in the art of ‘economical shopping’.

Once I found something I liked, particularly in the clothes department, I used to buy several identical items. This didn’t escape sartorial derision, but I happily sacrificed boring for practical.

One of the greatest benefits of our consumer age is choice. It underpins the market place, is driven by competition and – in theory – keeps prices down. But there is a darker side. Consumerism operates less to cater for customers’ needs or wants, more to support an army of inventors, designers, advertisers, researchers and consultants making a lucrative crust by enforcing change for change sake.

Now, if it were pharmaceutical drugs you would expect advances in medical research to be incorporated in repeat prescriptions, but in the market place, it’s all to do with fashion and making a fast buck. Of course, we readily buy into the conceit. British Fashion week, the ‘new collections’, TV role models all force us to believe that we’ve got to sign up to the complicity of change. It’s a crude form of social engineering – creating a need where none actually exists, other than as a result of pressurised advertising. The bottom line being no customers – no profit.

Every replacement bit of a motor-car, washing-machine or kitchen floor mop is unlikely to fit after an ever shorter interval from the original purchase. Built-in obsolescence is a vital ingredient of modern-day economics. How many things do we throw away, not because they are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ – an ugly modern dismissive expression – but simply because someone has thrust a newer version at us – bristling with added extras we’ll never use, costing far more than the original, and impossible to repair if it goes wrong?

You really have to wonder why our roads are always packed with new cars. Is it because the ‘nearly new’ examples have all broken down? What an engineering indictment that would be. No, I’ll wager it’s because the cunning salesman you bought your last one from a year ago has either made you an offer you can’t refuse to satisfy a commission opportunity, or a neighbour, work colleague or wife’s gym partner has ordered mark III to your II, and you’ve just got to have a better one. It won’t matter that what you discard is perfectly sound; it will simply oil the wheels of the crazy carousel called commerce which passes the same thing around for others to make money out of.

Any long-time observer of main-stream national politics will recognise a similar philosophy at work. In the perpetual confrontation between painted ideologies, red administration replaces blue as night follows day. Never mind previous hours of thankless negotiation and background effort, or even whether there is any merit in alternative stratagems. It’s a macho-prerequisite. Things have got to change. And so long as spending other people’s money is so easy, there is little to restrain the practice.

The latest pressure tsunami to sweep across the unsuspecting and the upwardly–mobile alike, has been the exhortation to join the on-line revolution. From, purchasers to pensioners, twitterers to kindlers, the opportunities for personalised contact and individualism are being marginalised.

The government is pledged to draw the population into the e-net from classroom to care-home. It’s not because the technology is necessarily more efficient, or any more comfortable – particularly for older folk. It’s because investing in new technology looks good, provides lucrative contracts and conceals that we no longer manufacture ‘real’ things. Beware, PCs, mobile phones and anything that begins with i- are now the fastest kids on the obsolescent block.

Now, whether you like them or loathe them, you can’t ignore the current national focus on weddings. You might subscribe to the Henry VIII approach to model update and bride replacement, or the ‘celeb’ game of trading-in spouses for publicity purposes.

But others will certainly be reflecting on an institution which – for better or worse – can, in the right hands, stand the pressure of time, operate efficiently and, when necessary, be patched up when in need of tuning or refocus. Next time you’re tempted to throw something away when glitzy packaging has led you into temptation, ask yourself whether what you’re swapping it for is really any better than what you already have.