In this world which is increasingly full of uncertainty — for example, the stock market — it is comforting to find some definite measure to which we may cling. A firm standard.

In this case, five feet. Sixty inches. That’s the distance Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty needs between his person and the assorted media people who seek his comments. Too close is too much.

So McGuinty and his advisors have picked a safe distance with no one crowding into his personal space. No hordes of reporters thrusting microphones and cell phones and recorders in a classic media scrum.

If the premier can enforce the distance rule, it follows that he is setting a precedent. For if the premier of a have-not province such as Ontario is entitled to five feet, how much space should be accorded to the leader of some wealthy province, such as Saskatchewan. Perhaps seven or eight feet?

(I’m guessing here that the premier of Saskatchewan is mobbed by the media from time to time. But perhaps not. The last premier of Saskatchewan I ever reported on was T. C. Douglas and I was a scrum of one. Indeed, it is possible that I was the only legislative reporter in the province.)

If the head of a province can require minimum space from the media, imagine how much space the prime minister of the country can now demand. Likely it could well be measured in yards. For the more powerful you are, the more space you can have.

I can’t recall any photos or TV coverage of that chap who runs North Korea being mobbed by reporters. Nor when I look back into the past century do I find images of Stalin struggling through a media scrum. His personal space was measured in miles.

It is easy to smile at McGuinty but most of us are upset when someone crowds into our space. Although crowding has advantages. Years ago, when ordinary people like me were able to borrow money, I had a friendly bank manager and a line of credit. When I needed that credit limit raised — which was frequently — I would enter his office and sit by his desk. Then I would tell him I needed another $10,000.

Sometimes, this would make him sit back in his chair and fiddle with his pencils. At that point, I would hitch my chair alongside his desk and loom into his personal space, and he would sign the papers just to get me out of there.

(This was a handy tactic 20 years ago but my bank manager has long been retired. His replacement is a woman, like all bank managers, and I would not dare encroach on her space. Indeed, I haven’t been inside that bank in seven years, and I like to think they don’t even notice me and my debt.)

While I have butted into the space of others for my own purposes, I have also been made extremely uncomfortable when people have been thrust into my space. That’s why I have struck a number of restaurants off my list. On those rare occasions when I dine out, I may stroll into a restaurant, look around and stroll straight back out. The reason: tables too close together. It’s like trying to eat on the subway.

My permanent dislike of being shoehorned into a table was born years ago in New York when I was seated in a fancy restaurant at a tiny table one inch from its neighbour. So far, so bad. And, at that neighbouring table, a man and a woman were playing out a seduction scene. Would it be his place or hers? Would it be tonight or never? Would they ask my opinion, since I was nervously eating their basket of rolls? Could I slurp my soup loudly enough to blot out their conversation? Would this evening never end?

I have no idea how that scene ended. I figured I had two choices — either stuff my ears with bread or drop a bundle of money on the table and flee. I fled.

And I don’t think they noticed.

You know, maybe Dalton McGuinty is on to a good thing. IE