Whatever Waitrose says, dinner still tastes better with the TV on

Supper is no longer taken to the screen, but the screen is an inescapable part of supper

Knowledge about nutrition is disappearing among the young (Getty)

So farewell then, TV dinners. According to that bellwether of modern times, Waitrose, the nation has abandoned the habit of assembling an entire meal to have in the living room, in front of the screen. No more will we sing about a “Smurf TV Tray” alongside Al Yankovic in his paean to eBay, because nobody will know about TV trays any more. Mark Price, the managing director of Waitrose, triumphantly decrees that, along with the cathode ray television, the custom-made tray, with its moulded hollows for cup and plate (and, sometimes, little legs), has vanished into the “dustbin of history”.

Well, knock me down with a Radio Times. Frankly, the middle classes have always regarded eating in front of the television as being as dangerous to civilisation as smoking, vandalism or illiteracy (and, quite probably, responsible for all three). Steph and Dom, the drink-in-hand posh pair from Gogglebox, abhor it. Drink like fishes in front of the television? Bring it on. Eat while watching? Never.

The only people eating food while simultaneously watching a large screen nowadays are those in hospital, or anyone on a long-haul flight. Everyone else, Waitrose claims, has gone back to lovely suppers around the dining-room table, full of banter and discourse. Why? Because modern television sets with their pause and record facilities, and modern television companies with delay and store features, mean we don’t have to arrange our lives around “unmissable” shows any more.

It’s a great line for Waitrose to push, but anyone who lives in the modern world, particularly with children, will realise that it is total rubbish. Nobody has swapped munching in front of the telly for eating while trading Augustan epigrams. Television shows are being watched by families at different times thanks to iPlayer and Netflix, it’s true. But all meals, from breakfast to the midnight snack, are now served up in the presence of the ubiquitous electronic device. Supper is no longer taken to the screen, but the screen is an inescapable part of supper.

So what if family meals are not conducted on the sofa? The use of mobiles at mealtimes has taken its place and is now so common that it seems strange even to remark on it. Guests come to supper and, though I cringe at the sight, all four of my children can be found tapping away on devices underneath the table. You can insist on dinner-table bans as much as you like, but drop your guard for an instant and the gadgets are back.

It is actually easier (and calmer, for that matter) to accept that people have developed the facility to text, eat and carry on conversation at the same time. The only place where my children – and this applies to me too, I must admit – do not dare to behave thus is during heritage meals, namely Sunday lunch in their grandparents’ formal dining room, with its linen and silver.

And it ill behoves Mr Price to warble on smugly about “saving family dinners” when Waitrose has, along with its close rival M&S, almost captured the entire market for ready meals. Which, you will not be surprised to learn, is booming, as many of us run out of time and energy to cook entire meals from scratch on a nightly basis. I warrant quite a few of those whom Waitrose has earmarked as dining-room returners are doing so in the unthreatening company of a Waitrose Spaghetti Carbonara (640 kilocalories per pack) or a Waitrose Chicken Korma (560 kcal per pack), either of which might quite possibly be presented On A Tray. Alongside an iPhone. Where’s the victory in that?

I mention the calorific intake of these dishes, which in a middle-class household will almost certainly be served alongside a glass of wine, because we are heading back into the dining room at our peril.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we will be demented – particularly for those of us aged between 40 and 65. That nightly glass of red could hasten the onset of Alzheimer’s, says the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). Nice doesn’t care where you eat, and whether your meal is accompanied by an iPhone or not, but it would like you to monitor seriously what you are putting into your mouth, particularly in terms of booze. In my view, the fear of Alzheimer’s is far, far worse than the notion that my children might be addicted to Snapchat.

So stock up on the sparkling water, Waitrose, as I predict a run on it. And Steph and Dom, our weekly role models, need to practise abstinence.