Forward Slash

You Couldn't Make It Up

2010-11-08T15:06:00.003Z

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet is the latest to defect from the Church of England whom he accuses, in its willingness to ordain women, of 'making things up'. He'll be joining the Catholics, the people who brought us Transubstantiation. Wine into the Blood of Jesus, women into bishops. Yeah, one of those is definitely beyond belief.

Three Shocks and We're Out

2010-10-09T11:25:00.003+01:00

Another week, another report about the effects of drinking in pregnancy. Shock number one: the children born to women who drink one or glasses a week aren't pigeon-toed mouth breathers. Shock number Two: it never occurs to any of these researchers that most people lie about their alcohol intake. Do the (very few) women who neck three double-vodkas a day through their first trimester actually own up? Or - Shock Three - do they only admit to having had the odd one? Conclusion: no-one knows anything. But, in an age without common sense, an endless rolling tide of 'guidance' is apparently all we have.

We're all Special Now

2010-09-14T10:36:00.002+01:00

News that up to a fifth of children meant to have Special Educational Needs have been wrongly diagnosed should not come as a shock. The SEN industry has been expanding like mad - or like alternatively sane - to the point where even the little quirks of character that make us who we are are pathologised, labelled and - here's the nub, budgeted for. Children I know who fidget in their seats are 'dyspraxic'. The parents may be relieved by the 'diagnosis', the schools doubtless relish the extra cash. But the kids themselves aren't always quite so pleased.

When I was a child, I had classmates with all sorts of oddities. Some were good at maths and nothing else. Others only liked drawing, or rocked in their chairs when concentrating. There were even boys who didn't like sport. How ironic it is that forty years ago, before the supposed age of reason, the range of what passed for Normal was so much wider.

Television Kills- or does it?

2010-09-13T10:10:00.003+01:00

New research claims to have proved that television gives children cardio-vascular disease later in life.

Evidently, those who make a career out of piling the guilt onto hard pressed parents want us to know that when we press On we are hastening the premature deaths of our children. While we await actual scientific proof - I'm not holding my breath here - I'll throw in this possibility for anyone who may be a television viewer but also likes to use their brain:

Kids who watch a lot of TV may be missing out on more active pursuits; when you're sitting you're not kicking a ball or running. So it might not be evil rays coming out of the box after all. Just a thought.

Thank you, Lorenzo

2010-08-16T06:13:00.003+01:00

The death of Roald Dahl's daughter Olivia from measles induced encephalitis, revealed in the new biography serialised by the Daily Telegraph, must have made interesting reading for all those parents still shying away from having their children vaccinated. Did it also prick the conscience of Andrew Wakefield, the discredited doctor who led thousands of them to connect the MMR triple vaccine with autism and Crohn's Disease - despite no credible evidence that it caused either?

I went to primary school with a boy called Lorenzo, who suffered the same rare but terrifying brain inflammation after the measles as Olivia Dahl. He survived, but at age eight, having formerly been able to read and write, he became a wild, disturbed boy who could only scream, laugh and throw things at the teachers. When the health visitor offered us the vaccine for our children I read the information, but found my memories of Lorenzo focused the mind even more effectively. I'm guessing that the other kids in our class who are now parents might now also be remembering him with sorrow, and a shudder of gratitude.

Hairy bottom, control freak or nose picker?

2010-07-25T08:52:00.003+01:00

Leaving, the new Kristin Scott-Thomas film, is a dark, heartstopping drama about a rich French housewife who falls in love with her Spanish builder. Her husband, whose passion for her expresses itself as icy control, is a fearsome yet pitiful figure somewhat like Karenin. There is sex - without Hollywood bodystockings and with hairy bottoms, grief, rage and some very convincing domestic violence. Watching these characters play out this gripping drama, I glanced at the man next to me, who at the height of the action was calmly picking his nose. And English men wonder why their wives romanticise the appeal of Europeans.

Are you a Catholic priest who's raped a child? Click here to learn about conscience

2010-06-08T11:36:00.007+01:00

Another week, another revelation of abuse and cover ups in the Catholic Church. This week's Guardian Weekend magazine ran the account of a woman raped at age 13 by the priest living in her house, whose own mother chose to see her as the sinner. It takes a pretty big leap of faith to go for a perception quite that twisted, but if anyone can, a Catholic can.

The Pope's choice to run the UK inquiry into the whole horror, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, has blamed it all on the creeping menace of 'secularisation'. Unless that's the new term for sexual psychopaths, I'm confused. Out here in Secular World we generally believe child rape is wrong. We have not only a judicial system but also, most of us, a conscience. Clue for clerical rapists: that's the bit of you that tells you when you're doing something harmful to others, so that even when your own bosses don't hold you to account, you take responsibility yourself and stop. That way, when you somehow escape prosecution for a crime that in Secular World would put you in prison, you can still Do the Right Thing. See?

Of course, you'd think, being so big on Guilt and Sin and all, this lot would feel just a little badly about wrecking the lives of so many innocent children on a scale that amounts to psychic genocide, but that's the brilliance of their particular brand of DoubleThink. They are, after all, the people who helped promote anti-semitism by labelling Jews the killers of Christ, and supposed concocters of sinister, global conspiracies against nice, harmless Christians. Time to re-examine that one, I think. When it comes to international conspiracies, the Jews can't hold a seven-branched candlestick to these guys.

Sobbing into a £695 handbag

2010-05-10T14:35:00.003+01:00

Following the "I can't cope any more" sobbings of several high profile females, it's been observed by one or two of the group formerly known as the General Public that rich, famous women complaining about depression is a bit, well, rich. Try being poor in today's Britain, said one pissed off correspondent to the Guardian's Letters Page, and quite right too. This weekend The Sunday Times' Style section contributed its two bobs' worth to the hand-wringing with a heartfelt feature that made a reasonably sensible effort to point the finger at women's futile tendency to think they can live a fantasy. (There is another word for this, by the way, and it is Stupid.)

As for the distance between that piece and one promoting said fantasy, I found it was a mere two pages further on: the ‘How I Make it Work’ feature showed us a 34 year-old PR woman who had her first baby in September and started her own company in January. She works through into the evenings so as to be ‘in contact with New York and LA’. (Ever heard of e-mail?) And in case we didn’t get the message, her belongings - £695 bag, £40 tiny Smythson notebook etc, were made to sound as essential as vital organs. Ironically, as Shane Watson said in the same magazine, we now look to a commercial - for John Lewis, which is after all, a shop - to remind us of life’s ‘real’ values. Well, supposedly.

It's at times like these you realise your mother did talk some sense after all.

Heaven Can Wait

2010-05-06T09:42:00.003+01:00

Four Lions, the suicide bomb satire from Chris Morris and Peep Show writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong is extremely funny but suffers from a credibility gap as everyone in it is so ridiculously thick. You can't see how people that stupid would be able to get their own clothes on in the mornings, let alone master Key Stage Two chemistry.

According to Morris, this low level of, shall we say, attainment was found frequently during his exhaustive research. Watching it, one can't help being reminded of screenwriting guru Robert McKee's warning, that 'verisimilitude does not equal dramatic truth'. In other words, the reality is too bonkers to believe so sometimes has to be toned down.

However one leaves the cinema vastly reassured, as it means that most of the people who are currently trying to kill us may indeed achieve their aim of blowing themselves up - but not of taking the rest of us with them.

Time to Bring in the Bottom Inspectors

2010-04-29T17:58:00.002+01:00

We've been reminded, and we really do need reminding, that bowel cancer kills 16,000 people every year in this country, more than any other kind barring lung cancer. And you know, it really shouldn't still be so many as they actually do have a test for it. The trouble is, no-one likes things being poked up their bottom, even not for very long. Even by doctors. They'd rather die.

What they need is a popular celebrity to get the ball rolling, or the endoscope unfurling. But bums, unlike bosoms, just aren't sexy. Brown ribbon on your lapel, anyone? Thought not.

Philip Pullman and Hell's Angels

2010-03-22T10:01:00.003Z

Philip Pullman, revered author of the trilogy His Dark Materials and other quality bestsellers, has been condemned to 'eternal hell' and 'damnation by fire' by Christian zealots up in arms over his new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Well, they're upset by the title. They haven't actually read it yet, as it isn't out till the end of this week.

As it is a criminal offence to threaten someone with violence or death, the letters are being taken seriously, and Pullman is expected to be accompanied by bodyguards when he appears at the Oxford Literary Festival on Sunday.

Those who taken an interest in that side of religious belief that justifies harming or murdering those with different values may remember the writers and producers of Jerry Springer The Opera having to leave their homes for police protected safe houses when they were similarly threatened. In that case too, the Christians had not let seeing the show get in the way of deciding it was blasphemous. Of course, the trouble with reading the book or seeing the play is that you might, God forbid, change your mind.

But that's where faith comes in. You don't need information or insight when you have faith. It holds firm no matter what. That's why it's called faith, and not reason.

Yes, Yes - oh YESSSS! Never Mind the British: the Women are Coming

2010-03-09T10:14:00.005Z

How fitting that the first Academy Award for Best Director to be won by a woman should be awarded within a few hours of International Women's Day. It's a headline writer's dream.

It's also a reminder that winners don't have to be blockbusters. True, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is a war film. But it is also an intimate portrait of characters under huge tension, because of outside forces - and their relationships with each other. The moment where the black soldier (Anthony Mackie) calls the white one (Jeremy Renner) "a white trash redneck" sets the movie apart from war films which are only about, well, war. It also serves as a neat metaphor for a challenge to the status quo. Way to go, Kathryn - and fellow Oscar winner, screenwriter Mark Boal. On which note, let's just check how many women have won for Best Screenplay....

Equal Rights for faiths but not women

2010-02-25T11:55:00.003Z

The much-discussed Amendment means that the government's position on sex education in faith schools effectively amounts to saying,

"This is how you put on a condom, but you will go to Hell if you use one."

As ever, the right of same-sex partnerships to be given equal status to marriage in those lessons is regarded as a given by all civilised people, yet there is no mention of the rights of girls. It's girls who in the Catholic faith are solely responsible for the sin of fornication and what used to be called 'unwed motherhood', and girls born into Muslim families who can be forced to marry as young as twelve.

The now retired headmaster of my old school, a former grammar turned comprehensive, told me that during his tenure, thirteen and fourteen year olds were being taken back to the home country, typically Pakistan, to 'visit granny', and returning married.

Is this going to be covered in the new mandatory PSHE?

And is Ofsted going to be coming round to check?

Blue Heaven

2010-02-03T11:27:00.003Z

Avatar, nominated for Best Picture among others at the Academy Awards this year, has caused the American Christian right wing to work itself to a greater frenzy of rage than even Bill Clinton or the Harry Potter books. Its crimes include not just promoting paganism - hell, we knew they'd hate that, but also being 'anti-capitalist'.

Anti-capitalist? Sure, you know Jesus the Capitalist. So who was the Jesus who overturned the money lenders' tables at the temple and said the meek would inherit the earth? Guess that must be another one.

A fag by any other name

2010-02-01T11:36:00.003Z

Quote of the Day surely goes to Forest, the people who bravely campaign on behalf of cigarette manufacturers to preserve our God-given right to kill ourselves, slowly. On the Today Programme this morning, in answer to the news that the government wants to cut the number of British smokers by half, spokesman Simon Clark called the proposal 'dangerous'.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd always thought that selling a product which can give you 69 different kinds of cancer with absolutely no upside is far more deserving of the adjective. In fact, if trying to help people stop smoking is 'dangerous', then presumably promoting lung cancer as a lifestyle choice should be renamed too. Hmm, isn't there a buzz word that would fit the bill? One that has quite a bit of support. Assisted Suicide it is then. And it'll look nicer on the packet.

The far-sighted Mr Blair

2010-01-29T15:48:00.003Z

Thank God Tony Blair has cleared up any uncertainty about why we went to war with Iraq over the non-existent WMD. Saddam didn’t have them ready at that time, no, but he had the scientists and therefore the capability to build them as soon as the UN turned its collective back. This pretty much covers all bases till the end of time. I must remember that next time I tell the children off for anything they claim not to have done.

"You've got the rubber bands and there are stones outside in the garden so you could break a window at any time in the future."

You see? If only we all had that kind of vision, we wouldn't have run the risk of avoiding a costly, illegal war. Phew!

Internet is not Utopia Shock

2010-01-22T11:59:00.002Z

The wave of horrified amazement which greeted the news that the Chinese, Iranian and other regimes allergic to debate use the internet to spy on their citizens is in itself rather shocking. It's surely tailor-made for the job, leaving as it does a permanent trail of one's communications and contacts like an indelible stain on the carpet. The real tragedy is not that dissidents and free thinkers are being spied upon - as they have been since the 16th Century at least - but that anyone was naive enough to be surprised.

Meanwhile, those campaigning against the seemingly unstoppable spread of online pornography involving children may be intrigued by the ease with which the Indian government apparently manages to block all material featuring sex of any kind. And they told us it couldn't be done.

Press it, Principal Skinner!

2009-12-13T10:08:00.003Z

Press the Independent Thought Alert button, Principal Skinner! Reviewing the papers on Radio 4's Broadcasting House this morning, political journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer stepped out of line. Fellow guest, former BBC weatherman Michael Fish, bemoaned the descent of the Copenhagen protests into violence, saying that he had been on a similar march himself, with no trouble. He warned that global warming will cause millions of children to die of preventable diseases such as malaria, to which she responded that 40,000 children die every day of preventable diseases already:

"So why," she said dryly, "aren't people marching in protest about that?"

For anyone dozing at the back there, it's because dead African children aren't currently fashionable, there being too many of them to fit into a photo shoot.

And one of the reasons there are quite a lot of dead African children is that you can't get a patent for salt, sugar and water so there's no money in selling the rehydrating powders that would save the lives of the thousands who perish from diarrhoea.

Another reason is that DDT, the one thing that would have prevented the spread of malaria across equatorial Africa by killing the mosquitoes which spread it, was banned after it was found to kill most of the plants as well. But you know, boys and girls, being grown ups involves making difficult choices, some or all of which are politically unpopular. In fact, that's entirely what being grown up is about, and we clearly have rather a long way to go.

Whom should you fear, children? Vampires or priests?

2009-12-07T14:07:00.004Z

How appropriate that the report into the festering sore at the heart of the Irish Catholic church as a whole, and the Archdiocese of Dublin in particular, comes just before Christmas. Just think, children, of all those priests going on about Jesus meek and mild, always with that emphasis on purity and innocence. There's nothing to add, really, except that they've taken a moment out of their busy schedule of covering up abuse to condemn the new Twilight film.

'Dangerous and morally empty' was the phrase.

Give me the vampires every time.

To love them is not to know them

2009-12-05T15:05:00.002Z

The protestations of Amanda Knox's parents that their Jesuit educated daughter is not only innocent of murder but a model citizen are not so surprising. Knox, sentenced last night to 26 years for the killing of Meredith Kercher, had a rather different reputation in Perugia from her squeaky clean image back in Seattle. Similarly, her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, described by his father as 'an innocent', turns out to have been a keen collector of swords who boasted on the net that he could be wild and 'totally crazy'.

And here in the UK, missing chef Claudia Lawrence is alleged to have had a number of men in her life, some married, of whom her family knew nothing. Finally, this year Ron Smith gave up his thirty-year battle to prove that his daughter Helen was murdered. No evidence was found that she died of anything more conspiratorial than a fall from a balcony at a party in Saudi while - probably - drunk.

Did you tell your parents about all the sex, drugs and alcohol you had?

Do you know anyone who did?

If you want to know how someone really lived, ask anyone but their family.

Guardian readers aren't faking it

2009-11-29T14:08:00.003Z

We recently took out a subscription to The Guardian, which offers, in return for long-term commitment to that estimable newspaper, a generous discount on the cover price.

A booklet of vouchers arrived, with one for each day to hand to the newsagent of our choice. On the first day, a Times reading friend saw them and warned that we'd have trouble getting shops to accept them due to the increasing amount of fraud.

"People have been making fake Times vouchers, printing them off and getting the paper for free," she said. "So lots of newsagents won't take them."

A tiny frisson of schadenfreude at the thought of a modest dent in Rupert Murdoch's profits lifted my heart for a moment before I set off in trepidation with my first voucher.

"No problem," said the shopkeeper who took it.

Seemingly it's just those lowlife Times readers who perpetrate the counterfeits. Well, it is the organ of the establishment after all.

The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

2009-09-15T18:31:00.003+01:00

Those in support of the new vetting and barring scheme for adults who help out regularly at children's sports clubs etc seem to have missed the other reason for the lack of enthusiasm among us tediously uncooperative parents. It's not just the cost, and the nuisance, it's the fact that most of us don't believe that schemes like this protect children from abuse.

The most dangerous place for children, statistically, is their own homes. But we can't vet and bar parents, or parents' boyfriends, or lodgers, so we have this instead. It's a well meant waste of - potentially - 11.3 million people's time, but let's not kid ourselves that it's solving the main problem. For every Ian Huntley, or Ian Brady, there are many abusive and murderous parents. Sometimes it almost seems as though the government wants us not to remember this. I wonder why.

Made from 70% recycled stupidity

2009-09-02T10:27:00.002+01:00

I take glucosamine for my knee, which is - marginally - cheaper on prescription. When I went to get it from the chemist recently, I was given the 180 tablets in SIX containers. Each had 30 pills loitering at the bottom of an otherwise empty pot. Ridiculous, I thought, so I decanted the lot into one, and took the other five back to be reused. The pharmacist laughed at the idea.

"Oh no!" she said, as if I were mad. "We throw them away."

I tried another chemist the next time, and got exactly the same packaging - and response. The company responsible for this ludicrous waste? Alliance Healthcare, whose paper bags bear the legend: 'Made from 70% recycled paper', along with the usual meaningless slogan: 'Bringing Healthcare Closer.' Closer to what? Landfill, presumably.

Wakey wakey!

2009-08-25T17:08:00.005+01:00

Just in case anyone is still in doubt, we really do have it on very good authority that alcohol and cigarettes kill more people than anything illegal you can name. The latest professional to issue the reminder was Dr Andrew Hartle, a Consultant Anaesthetist at Imperial College, on the Today Programme this morning, while discussing Michael Jackson's unfortunate and probably fatal addiction to the anaesthetic Propofol. Having moved on from the tragic singer to addictions generally, Evan Davies pressed the doctor for drugs people "should avoid". He sounded uncertain as he said it, but was clearly even less sure of himself - even disappointed - when he heard Hartle's answer.

"More people are harmed by alcohol and nicotine than all the other drugs," said the doc quietly. The glimmerings of a laugh you could hear in his voice were presumably the result of having to state the blindingly obvious. Parents and teachers take note: yes, that is alcohol and nicotine, and coincidentally, they do both bring in billions to the Treasury.

Weapon of Maths Destruction

2009-08-12T18:31:00.003+01:00

Well done to the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less which this week demolished a racist and scary video on Youtube, just with the power of maths. Yes, that's right children: you too can work out that the Muslim population of Belgium isn't 25% because it's actually around 6%, purely by using numbers, along with what we call 'thinking'.

The video, reportedly posted by a US Christian group, seeks to frighten us all to bejesus - literally - with what it calls the 'Islamicisation of Europe', ie those dark foreigners are breeding so uncontrollably that soon there'll be no nice white, blonde, God - as opposed to Allah-fearing - people left.

And you might have believed it, for about a minute, if not for those helpful maths geeks at More or Less - and another flaw they calmly and charmingly pointed out. None of the EU countries record the religion of newborns so no-one knows how many of them are Muslims. Oh, and trends measured over the last 100 years show that immigrant groups largely conform over time to the birth patterns of their host nations. In other words, it's all bollocks. Statistical bollocks, as well as ideological. Thank you, BBC: when the airwaves are full of ranting talk shows and 'home-made' news reports, we are going to miss you so much.

Never mind the war on terror: the real enemy of this government is dissent

2009-08-04T07:19:00.003+01:00

The government's plan to reduce the influx of undesirables into the UK sounded promising when it was announced. 'New criteria' are to be used to screen out people who don't share British values. Great, we thought. At last they're going to start booting out the 'honour' killers, thieves, terrorists and rapists. After all, we don't need them coming in; we have our own. Uh, no, actually: the only criterion mentioned would be if immigrants show they're unpatriotic by demonstrating against wars, for example those in Iraq or Afghanistan. As Chris Huhne of the Lib Dems rightly said, since when has demonstrating against war been proof of not loving your country? From there it is but a short, almost imperceptible step to the charge of 'challenging government authority', and there are quite a few countries that put people in prison for that. You can get a list of them from Amnesty International.

No room for the faithless on the moral high ground

2009-07-28T09:42:00.003+01:00

With swine flu anxiety edging up, the religious/'spiritual' crowd are, as ever, shoving the rest of aside in the scrabble to gain ownership of human values, ie thinking things may turn out for the best and being nice to others.

In Sunday’s Observer Karol Sikora argued - though that's putting it rather highly - that because we have ‘lost’ both our faith and extended families, we’re all falling pray to panic about swine flu as apparently only those two entities can offer freedom from fear, and also support. He claimed that 'When our own mortality is suddenly questioned, we need a shoulder to lean on. If we have no family infrastructure or belief, what is there?'

Well gee, I don't know about you, but I had a family last time I looked. They're a bit ragged round the edges. The extended bit contains stepbrothers and sisters rather than grannies. They even have different belief systems. My mother doesn't like Christmas and my sister does Channukah instead. But I'm fairly sure that if I fell ill they might bung me a card, or hell - even visit. I also belong to two amazing networks known as neighbours and friends. For anyone of the faith/spiritual disposition who doesn't know how it works, you get to know people, either because you like them or live nearby, or you've been to school together, or your children have, or combinations thereof. You hang out a bit, share stuff about yourselves, and do each other little favours. Examples might be, ooh, minding their kids while they go to an interview or the doctor's, or giving them a bag of icing sugar at 10pm when they're making their child a birthday cake and have run out. (No, that wasn't me; it was my neighbour though.) Then, when crisis strikes, you help in whatever way you can. It's easy. Mr Sikora, you should try it. It might open your eyes to the joys of being human, and even make you less cynical.

Try saying 'American Dream' with your mouth closed

2009-07-28T08:48:00.013+01:00

Every July in Wise, Virginia, a free dental field clinic treats 2-3000 of the 47 million Americans without healthcare, a miracle of almost Biblical proportions. That's right: approximately one in five Americans have no access to a dentist or doctor because they can't afford private healthcare.

President Obama has now joined the ranks of those brave - and they do need to be - politicians who want to take on the vested interests of the health insurance companies, who in contrast to the warm, caring images in their publicity, go to considerable trouble in their small print to ensure payouts are avoided as often as possible. Examples include cancelling a woman's mastectomy because a previous attack of acne had been mistakenly described by her dermatologist as 'pre-cancerous' and so the patient could be said to have lied about her medical history.

You'd be amazed, therefore, to hear that many Americans oppose free healthcare. Clean teeth and chemo for all: what's not to like? But it would spell financial ruin, or vastly reduced profits anyhow, for the insurance firms whose lobbyists do a brilliant carrot and stick job by filling campaign coffers and scaring people with images of filthy, rundown state facilities. But surely, you say, all they have to do is come over and look at our marvellous NHS. But they don't. Even many Americans who actually live here go private, believing the alternative to be a ‘Third World’ service for the poor and desperate, not the remarkable system most of us use throughout our lives. That’s the power of the private health insurance lobby.

So, Mr President: you know what you need to do. Our amazing doctors and nurses will be glad to show you around.

Don't hold your breath

2009-07-22T15:05:00.002+01:00

Hope everyone heard the swine flu advice from Health Secretary Andy Burnham for pregnant women on the Today Programme, which was, er, to follow the advice given a few moments before by the ‘Pandemic Co-ordinator’ at the Royal College of Obstetricians. And all he could tell us to do was to “observe good respiratory and hand hygiene”. I think we got the hand part OK. Any idea what the other bit means? Wear masks? Stay in? Don’t breathe? No, me neither.

Do these people listen to themselves?

2009-07-14T13:02:00.003+01:00

To the list of endangered professions in this country, along with car manufacturers and markers of 'A' level papers, we must now add satirists.

It began with parents at some schools being banned from photographing their own children at Sports Days - though you'd have thought they'd have just been grateful that they still had Sports Days. Then Sandy Upper School in Biggleswade stopped tinkering around the edges of paranoia and held the event without the parents altogether. Paul Blunt, of the East Beds School Sports Partnership, was quoted as saying,

"If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children. An unsavoury character could have come in. The ultimate fear is that a child is hurt or abducted."

But, Paul: why stop there? If you want to be really sure, don't let children out of the house at all. Two of them die every week at the hands of their own family, so we look forward to your initiatives for tackling that.

testing testing

2009-06-30T22:19:00.000+01:00

checking if the timestamp's working correctly.