Binge Writing

I've spoken about Daphne-lite already in the form of Pamela Hansen, and for those seeking an additional dose of this frippery should be directed to Monday's Independent. If anyone has ever read the British satirical magazine Private Eye, today's column by Marisa Micallef will evoke familiar echoes of the Polly Filler character, busy mother and columnist. Just as an aside, her headshot on the web site makes her suspiciously as if she's posing in the nude, which might be a solution to flag up the Independent's miserable sales figures.
After a reasonable trot through the reasons of teenagers wanting to let their hair down, Micallef arrives at her innovative idea for curbing youth delinquency:

"... the government, the police and all the NGOs and others who deal with all the social problems in general, who should just take the plunge, and cordon off Paceville to at least anyone under 16, although some would prefer the limit to be 18."

The Daphne-lite alarm bells went off like crazy on that line. Imitation is the finest form of flattery they say, but when the opinions are this slavish to the bog-standard concerned but PC parent prototype, you wonder if it wouldn't be easier to read the original first. Which is how within two paragraphs of the extract above Micallef trips into the hoary old excuse for all teenage misbehaviour:

"The sad truth is that kids go to Paceville because there is nothing much for them to do. If you are lucky enough to have kids who are very focused on, say, sport or drama or dance, or – a few – their school work, you have a lesser problem, as these kids manage to go out but not be consumed by the horrible culture that is Paceville."

How mobilising the police in physically excluding the under-16s from extensive swathes of the country tackles the scourge of alienation is not something that Micallef explains, but she is unerringly insightful in her assessment that "we are very good at talk and platitudes."