Those Old Playpenitentiary Blues (2/3) by The Silver Fox

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3)

But now, as we career helplessly towards another Great British Summer - sun, testosterone, chip-spice, lager, and racial tension - the infinitely more nourishing pastures of Silly Season are thrown open to the more discerning columner. Stories abound that may be a little light on global import, but do offer those insights into the grotesque tragicomedy that is the Human Condition and impart useful - if not always edifying - moral lessons.

Weird surveys; the emergence of another generation of Living TV presenters courtesy of Big Brother; speculation as to which ostentatious and emblematic gift the Swiss Government will present to Roger Federer in the event of him winning Wimbledon again (my money's on a cache of Nazi gold)...it's enough to get even this most jaded observer/participant's fingers dancing 'cross the keyboard.

And it is to a particularly demented tarantella that Foxy's digits are twisting and writhing to on this occasion; a dotty - yet ineffably catchy - melody penned by some berk at the Home Office. According to The Sunday Times, they have issued a report that claims that teachers and associated child-care professionals can expect to see clear and unmistakable harbingers of criminal behaviour in children as young as three years old.

Now, obviously, I don't read The Sunday Times myself, so it may be argued that my grasp on the thrust of this report may not be all that it could be. According to my source though - Channel 5's The Wright Stuff - the paper itself didn't reveal much anyway, and when Mr Wright's researchers contacted the H.O. they refused to divulge any of their findings. It's obvious that the lack of detailed information gives us very little to go on but I think it's safe to assume this:

If an institution is unwilling to share their findings with the man who once held the exalted post of Showbusiness Editor for the Daily Mirror, they can't be all that convinced of their veracity themselves. This would be true even if the premise of the report were not risible beyond belief - which this one patently is.

I realise that many people are sentimental about the beauty and innocence of childhood, and are, if left unchecked, liable to rhapsodise about unspotted souls, cheeks glowing with the simple joy of being alive, and what-have-you. Generally, such people don't have kids themselves, of course - nor do they have much to do with them. Personally, I'm rather fond of nippers myself, but I must say that waxing lyrical about them is a bit much.

Childhood itself is no guarantee of spiritual beauty, and any given kid is as likely to be just the same heterogeneous clutter of admirable qualities, neuroses, unpleasant habits, and bloody-mindedness as any given adult. The only appreciable differences a grown-up and a sprog are (and even here, there are no absolutes) physical size and a disparity in the amount of jam smeared around the mouth.

To claim that anyone of any age exhibits signs of incipient criminality unless they're actually shinning down a drainpipe with a bag marked SWAG over their shoulder or something is to take a step backwards while wearing sociological seven-league boots. One might as well espouse phrenology, or claim that those with eyebrows that meet in the middle are probably werewolves.

Continued ......next page

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