Dear Philippa,

 

A recently published survey of 13-18 year olds asked for their views on the best/most important inventions made during the past 25 years. It revealed an insight into the thinking of this mysterious age group - referred to by Alan Coren as that miserable period between Meccano and sex. Their values are idiosyncratic to say the least, rating fake tan (fifth) more highly than the Internet (19th) and mobile phones (16th). Their grasp of history is a bit off too: they have the Apple Mac and hair straighteners on the list. Hair straighteners came in at 17th, again ahead of the Internet, and also ahead of satellite navigation. I seem to remember that hair straighteners were the Christmas gift of choice among teenage girls in the sixties.

 

It is sobering to think that people in the top end of this age group have the vote, and that there are plans to bring in sixteen and seventeen year olds. How will they be able to make balanced judgements about the problems of the euro zone and the Common Agricultural Policy when they are capable of elevating the importance of fake tan above the Internet. But it probably doesn’t matter since few of them will bother to vote. Very few 18-25 year olds currently trudge down to the polling stations, and there is no reason to think their younger siblings will be any better. It’s a curious thing that politicians deplore the low turn-outs at elections and yet, as Harold Wilson used to put, yearn to “place the levers of power within the reach of the young”, which will serve only to drive the percentages down. What they should do is to hold all elections on a Sunday, the only sensible thing the French can manage to do, give two votes to all electors over forty except pensioners who should get five.

 

It is slightly disconcerting that several items in the juvenile top twenty I know nothing at all about. I have no idea what an Xbox is, and although I nod knowingly when iPods are mentioned I have only a vague idea about what they do, and have never knowingly seen one. I’m struggling to think what I would have nominated for the top twenty if quizzed in, say, 1960. Antibiotics I suppose, organ transplantation perhaps, certainly the telly. I seem to remember being quite keen on the atom bomb at the time, though I hope I would have had the good taste not to write that down. Tipped fags were seen as quite an advance, too, I recall – Craven A, “for your throat’s sake” were all the rage. But not all inventions were good – drip dry nylon shirts, for example, to which my mother was firmly attached.

 

Also in the news this week, a bunch of young teachers (highly trained professionals) in Hull have unwisely aired their views, on a publicly accessible social networking site, about their pupils whom they clearly find repellent. They attribute the vileness of their charges to the popularity of incest in the city. I don’t remember anything of that, and I’m sure I would have noticed.

 

Best wishes

 

Howard