The Daily Torygraph has just wasted another wad of column inches on the Institute for Public Policy Research’s 2006 conclusions that Britain’s teenagers are the worst behaved in Europe, and the UNICEF calculation that our children had the lowest scores for well-being in the developed world.

I don’t think that they wasted the column inches because I disagree with the conclusions, but because I disagree with the reasons they claim are behind this unfortunate social trend.

It turns out that these two reports have not roused the nation into action to help and support our troubled youth.

No. It has instead roused the nation’s tub-thumping know-it-alls to saddle up their hobby horses and gather a thought police posse to hunt down some outlaws.

Who are the outlaws this time? Let’s start with the people who don’t feed their children “real food (as opposed to processed junk.)” There’s nothing like a nice, clearly limited definition free of emotive spin to help support a rational argument, is there?

Second group to be strung up are the parents who deprive their children of “real play (as opposed to sedentary screen-based entertainment.)” Later in the same article these same parents are berated for refusing to stay at home while their children go out to play. And yes, this is an article complaining about children being left to roam the streets, unsupervised, to misbehave an cause trouble. Heaven forbid that the solution might be to send the kids to a safe ‘play activity’ – that’s chequebook parenting, that is! We can’t have that!

The third group of bandits are those who don’t support the need for “real education (not just the pursuit of test results and targets.)” I wonder if this Daily Telegraph columnist has read the Daily Telegraph’s articles on education recently?

And finally, most evil of all, are those parents who don’t have time to raise their own children because they are too busy earning the money to pay nursery fees.

What kind of arse-ended thinking is that? Are we to believe that our nations ASBO youths are the brats of hardworking middle-class parents who paid for the professional, structured learn-through-play early years curriculums that academics, the government and, yes, Daily Telegraph columnists were so loudly praising only a decade ago?

Where are the statistics to correlate antisocial teens with parents who work for a living? Produce the proof or get off your hobby horse.

Floods have hit the South of England this week, causing almost as much devastation in almost as large an area and to almost as many people as they did in the North.

But with ten times as much media coverage and even more official response.

I’m sure it is all justified: Tewksbury is far prettier than Hull; the flooded properties in Berkshire are worth far more than those in Mexborough (come to think of it, has anyone in the South even heard of Mexborough?)

They did say, last month, that if Chelsea had been flooded instead of Doncaster and Rotherham then more concern would have been expressed and more would have been done. Shame they were wrong about the Chelsea bit – that would have been impressively prophetic.

Well, it has taken him four years, but Little Nutter has finally gone one better than this

Our home has been thoroughly and comprehensively autism-proofed throughout, even down to the walls in Little Nutter’s bedroom, which are covered in a bacteria-resistant plastic that can be wiped clean in moments. The windows, obviously, are lockable – with keys.

And once the window fitters got over our insistance that it be harder to break out of our house than break in, they were very helpful. So all we had to do was store the keys in a place he couldn’t reach.

But he isn’t that stupid. In fact, he is not even slightly stupid. The last time I went into the garage (where the key is hidden) was three days ago, and I didn’t notice him pinching the key. But he didn’t use it until he was left alone. That was this afternoon.

Little Madam & I were walking to the Post Office, Tiny Flirt was playing with his pirate ship in his room, and Little Nutter had a copy of Happy Feet on DVD and his train set in the sitting room. Darling Wifey did what any sane, rational person would have done under the circumstances: she checked to see all was safe and secure, and then put the kettle on before browsing eBay for a new tea-cosy.

Five minutes later, half way home from the Post Office, Little Madam & I met Little Nutter wandering down the street barefoot, telling himself what colour cars everyone had. He was ever so happy.

And when I tried to drag him home, he gave me yet another example of autistic rhetoric: “Not home! Norby home! Upside down home!”

Obviously. It makes perfect sense…

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/07/generation_selfesteem.php

“Self-esteem comes from the self doing something worthy of esteem.” Oh, if only the people who run our education system would realise this.

Hopefully, at some point in my lifetime, the backlash against the crap that has poisoned our education system will achieve critical mass. But I’m not that confident.

Nothing says ‘middle aged’ with quite the same resignation as ‘persistent chronic back pain,’ does it?

And there is very little that is worse than realising that you have suffered from it for half a decade. The drugs didn’t work, and all that physiotherapy did was convince me that it is a career path for the school bullies who were too clever to study PE at college. Acupuncture was interesting in that there was no curtain on my cubicle as I lay on the couch with twelve needles in my arse for quarter of an hour, but utterly useless.

So when the University of York wrote to me asking if I was interested in being part of a random trial into yoga therapy for back pain sufferers, I was prepared to try anything. I said yes, and a local yoga class was contacted and given credit for me to receive 12 lessons.

The first thing I discovered is illustrated in the title of this blog entry. I am the youngest member by 15 years, and the only one without lycra. Secondly, all the jokes about yoga and farting are absolutely, unfunnily true. Don’t get me wrong, I giggle at farts like every self respecting grown-up professional male should – but there is a limit.

But I have to say this – if you are a modern professional with a high velocity, high impact lifestyle and haven’t discovered yoga, you are missing something.

My back is better, my sleep patterns are restored to a healthy 7 hours a night, and I feel great.

So my advice: buy some skimpy lycra shorts and learn to fart in front of strangers.