If they can update the seven wonders of the world to modern times, perhaps it’s worth thinking about a new list of modern sins.

A recent WordPress Daily Prompt – they seem to be on a bit of a roll at the moment – had the great idea of asking what your eighth deadly sin would be:

“Remember the seven cardinal sins? You’re given the serious task of adding a new one to the list – another trait or behavior you find particularly unacceptable, for whatever reason. What’s sin #8 for you? Why?”

Lots of scope there, methought, and indeed there is; as long as you rule out ‘serious’. But why settle for just adding one more thing to an existing list?  Times do change, after all.

Not to mention the fact that it’s an opportunity for a post containing not only a list but also a rant. Double whammy.

Firstly, though, I needed to remind myself about the current crop. I’m a bit rusty on these things, since I seem to get by without paying a great deal of attention to the strictures of organised religion or, for that matter, anyone who takes it upon themselves to tell me what I ought or ought not to do, think or believe.

Or maybe I’ve just been out of the investment business too long:

However, it’s not too difficult to look them up. Yep, all the old favourites: Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath. Plus I was interested to discover that there were a couple of other things that used to be on the list but now seem to have been relegated to the substitutes’ bench. Step forward ‘Vainglory’ (unjustified boasting – which sounds a lot like Pride to me) and my favourite of them all: something called ‘Acedia’, which is apparently best defined as ‘apathetic listlessness’ – sounds a lot like Sloth, only posher.

Now, is it just me, but are at least a couple of these so-called sins actually not that bad? Acedia is okay surely. It had better be, anyway, or there’s no hope at all of me escaping the eternal fires. Although there is maybe one downside:

So Sloth’s fine by me. As for Lust, well…

On the other hand, some of the others are clearly inexcusable. There are two I try actively to avoid: Wrath, apart from anything else, is nearly always completely counter-productive. So is Pride, which comes with the additional baggage of being a terrible hostage to fortune. They don’t say that pride comes before a fall for nothing.

Somewhere between these outliers is Gluttony, which just sounds to me like Greed that’s got a bit carried away with itself. I don’t mind putting my hand up to an extra mince pie on occasion. But a sin? No, I don’t think so.

Then finally there’s Envy. Certainly it’s not an attractive trait, although I don’t think I’m guilty of it. I’d say I have no need to be, but that might sound a bit vainglorious.

I can definitely say, however, dipping into the equivalent in the Ten Commandments, that while my neighbour does actually have an ox, I absolutely do not covet it.

And there’s another very good reason to steer clear of Envy:

All things taken together, though, it’s surely time to update the deadly sins. Not to replace all seven of the traditional ones: there’s no place, at least in my world, for Envy, Pride or Wrath, so they can stay in, but there are many things a lot worse than the other four, so here are my suggested replacements:

• Selfies: Vainglory anybody? Only good for self-administered colonoscopies. And while we’re on the subject:

• Political correctness: you forgot to remove that selfie stick.

• Celebrity: what exactly are we supposed to be ‘celebrating’ again? Is it the mere fact that you are well known for some obscure reason (unless you’re on Celebrity `Big Brother, of course, in which case you are a complete nonentity)? Or are we unaccountably grateful that you take the time to vouchsafe to us your opinions on things of which you patently know or understand nothing. #vacuous #airhead.

• Donald Trump. Loser.

Oh hang on, we were supposed to add an eighth weren’t we? So here it is, perhaps the greatest sin of all:

• Believing that Donald Trump “talks a whole lotta sense”.