ONE advantage of being over a certain age is that you don't have to worry about avoiding temptation; it starts avoiding you.

So it is with an element of self-satisfaction that I can remain indifferent at the current furore over the admission criterion of the newest, albeit revamped, Swindon nightspot venue, Soda.

I've always regarded dancing as an anthropological rite, a belief that can be attributed to the fact that the village dances of the 60s invariably followed a time-honoured and prescribed pattern, the dance floor being sporadically occupied with the usual dribble of girls dancing together and a drabble of self-conscious married couples dutifully waltzing around for a few circuits.

The unattached 'gentlemen' would of course frequent the bar until after the obligatory interval, during which, mercifully, the band would cease long enough for people to converse with each other normally for a few minutes instead of having to communicate by means of semaphore-like gesticulations.

And so to the last waltz, when some random factor would precipitate the mandatory stampede for the dance floor.

Fred Astaire I am not. I harbour no nostalgia for the dance-hall era, my attempts at shuffling around the dance floor invariably resulted in a dispiriting and agonising bout of trying to put my plates of meat on the floor without encountering my partner's dainty appendages.

Regarding the anatomical gyrations that passed as the cutting edge of discotheque culture during my wedding suit years, they would appear positively quaint and antediluvian on today's dance floor, where current artistes all seem to me to be on fast forward control. Tempus fugit, et nunquam revertitur!