WHAT are The Darkness all about? At first, I thought these long-haired rockers, dressed in sequin jump suits, complete with high-pitched, squealy voices and electric guitars, were a joke.

They look like a cross between the spoof band Spinal Tap and 70s glam rockers Sweet, with a dash of Iron Maiden thrown in.

If you've never heard of them yet, you soon will do. The lads from Lowestoft are poised to scoop most of the awards at the Brits next month. My children love them, I cannot bear to watch or listen to them. "Is that a boy or a girl?" I grimace. "You can't tell the difference." "Turn that blooming racket down," I find myself shouting, knowing, as the words leave my lips, that I sound just like my parents did.

But of course, that's the whole point. Every generation reacts against what has gone before. You can hardly be a proper teenager if your parents aren't disgusted by your taste in music. But our children have their work cut out. Apart from the fact we lived through the punk era, and you can't get more rebellious than that, there has been nothing in the charts over the past decade that would offend your great-granny, never mind we 30 and 40-somethings.

Mums love Madonna. Dads love Britney. My eldest bought his gran a Dido CD for Christmas. She also likes Robbie Williams. Need I say more? The British pop charts have been hurtling towards banal mediocrity for years. And the grim blandness of the Pop Idol industry has accelerated this decline. The brilliance of the Darkness is that they have tapped into the one thing guaranteed to make today's youngsters' parents cringe. Theirs is a 21st century take on the embarrassment that was the 70s, the decade we would all prefer to forget. At last, they are provoking a reaction. A light at the end of the tunnel for British pop.

ASURVEY finds working parents struggle to afford the average £134 a week cost of a nursery place for children under two. Work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith says: "My aim is every parent should have access to affordable childcare." But the current rate works out at only £3 an hour. You would have to pay double that for a cleaner. Do people really expect to pay less again for the care of such young, dependent children? Over the years, we have demanded cheaper food from supermarkets. And look where that has got us. Let's not get into the same mess with childcare.

I DON'T have much sympathy for Scarborough goalkeeper Leigh Walker, whose mother mistakenly washed his shirt, autographed by Chelsea players as a tribute to his valiant performance after their one-goal win at the weekend. At 22-years old, shouldn't Leigh be doing his own washing?

WE were annoyed at having to abandon a cross-country walk along the coast this weekend after being warned the path went through a field containing a bad-tempered bull. But then I read about the North Yorkshire farmer ordered to pay compensation when his cattle strayed, causing a road accident, after a careless rambler left a gate open. I suppose the farmer who owns the bull can at least rest assured anyone who dares cross his field will be sure to close the gate on their way out.