A new generation of NEETS (young people Not in Employment, Education or Training) has come to plague us, but do we really have room to criticise?

SO now have the invasion of the NEETS. NEETS are the latest sub group identified by sociologists. It stands for young people Not in Employment, Education or Training - and without much hope, ambition or anything else either.

Think Little Britain's Vicky Pollard and you've got the general idea. There are over a million of them and they're costing the rest of us a fortune.

They probably have no qualifications, are more likely to be parents while in their mid teens, are more likely to get drunk, use drugs and commit crimes. Oh yes, and they use the NHS more too.

A friend of mine has recognised this sub group for years, but he just calls them Feckless Youths and wonders why you rarely come across them in other countries.

Maybe it's to do with unemployment, maybe it's because of the collapse of the family, maybe it's to do with a myriad other reasons.

But however much we want to, we can't blame the NEETS themselves. Infuriating and expensive though they might be, they didn't create the situation.

They are what they are because their families and the state have allowed them to be. They didn't create the society that pays them to stay in bed all day. We did that - the grown-ups.

And it's time that the grown-ups took charge again.

Of course, we don't want to go back to the days when teenagers worked long days for a pittance with no freedom or fun. Or when young single girls were driven to suicide rather than give birth, such was society's disapproval.

But we're the generation that let this situation arise and it's up to us to sort it out - and soon. Otherwise in 15 years or so, there will be an entire new generation of Vicky Pollards.

Unless, of course, as in Little Britain, the babies get swapped for Westlife CDs.

MEN'S stiff upper lip approach to seeking help for illness is, as we thought, all a sham.

It's not that they're big and bold and brave and determined not to seem weak and feeble, according to a new survey. Quite the opposite - it's just that most of them find a visit to the doctor much too scary.

THE idea of the Goddess of the North - a half mile long, 100ft high sculpture alongside the A1, made of earth and millions of tons of open cast mining spoil - sounds wonderful. A great compromise in the jobs 'v' landscape debate over opencast.

The landscape sculptor Charles Jencks says he's inspired by the ancient British tradition, going back to Neolithic times, of creating massive works of art in the landscape.

So yes, the goddess sounds fun. But perhaps not as much fun as a modern version of the Cerne Abbas giant - a fine upstanding chap, so perhaps a little too distracting for drivers.

Published: ??/??/2004