Checking out our behaviour

The Greeks have had enough of British yobbery. Drunkenness, violence, and sex in the street (Never mind decorum, what about the broken bottles and pools of vomit?) have led to rapes, a death and finally a crackdown by the police.

Even at home, we're not much better. Resorts in Cornwall are a magnet for the young and drunk of all backgrounds with all the inevitable noise, annoyance and revolting mess. Come to that, any town centre on a Friday night is pretty much a no-go area these days.

Meanwhile, Tesco have asked a customer to leave one of their stores as they considered her improperly dressed. Doing her shopping, she was dressed for the beach in shorts and a bikini top. Perfectly respectable on the sand, but perhaps not while trundling a trolley down the aisles of soap powder.

I just hope they have the same rules for men who insist on wearing those skimpy little running shorts which can reveal far more than you want to see as they stretch out over the fresh meat counter.

Other supermarkets have done the same. A sweet old fashioned blow for standards.

I don't know what Tesco's line is on fat and stretch-marked naked midriffs wandering their aisles. But maybe they'd like to sort that one out too.

And while they're monitoring standards of suitable dress, it is surely only a small and a logical step to do something about standards of behaviour. I have heard a Sainsbury's manager gently reprimanding a customer for his foul language. And, of course, all stores forbid smoking on their premises and anyone causing a nuisance is immediately marched off the premises.

So maybe they could just extend their remit a little further.

Get supermarkets back in town centres and in resorts, near the bars and clubs and let them police public decency in the immediate vicinity. Most of them have 24-hour opening anyway, so will be open when the pubs and clubs turn out.

If revellers are unsuitably dressed, they can sell them clothes to cover them up. And if they cause trouble or take to fornicating on the forecourt, they could stick them in the chiller store to cool off for a while.

Sounds mad, I know. But when supermarkets are the only people to insist on decent standards of dress, then we are already living in a mad world.

CLEVER new cameras could be installed in fitting rooms. They will show and tell the truth, the whole truth. Even the wobbly bits, so you will no longer be able to breathe in, stand up straight and pretend that those creases over the hips are just a trick of the light.

Sounds brilliant - and totally doomed. For whoever wanted a truly honest picture of how they look?

The question "Does my bum look big in this?" never, ever, wants the answer "enormous" - especially if it's true.

COULD we live without men? Scientists say we can. Soon, they say, men could even be extinct.

And as soon as we hear that, all the women in Britain drift off into a daydream that imagines a very different world. One that is a lot less aggressive. More peaceful, co-operative and without a single football statistic, smelly sock or car magazine.

It would, quite probably, be a much better place. But, oh boy, wouldn't it be boring? We might not need men anymore - but it would be a lot less fun without them.

SO astrology has been proved to be junk. What a surprise. Years ago, I used to do the horoscopes for a local radio station. Not knowing a thing about the "science" I made it all up.

Every week I had letters denouncing me as a daughter of the devil, for dabbling in the black arts. But every now and then I would get an astonished letter from a listener who would say that I'd predicted EXACTLY what happened to her that day.

Despite all that, I still read my horoscope every day. And if it's good and encouraging I believe it. But if it's miserable - well, of course it's a load of old hogwash.

MUCH space has already been devoted to A levels and whether they're getting easier/harder and what it's like to be a Cambridge reject (OK, actually, I was one, as were half my contemporaries at the University of Bristol).

Tomorrow, the GCSE results are out and there'll be another flood of comparisons with O Levels, or even School Certificates.

But instead of nit picking about students who do well - and who would probably have done well under any system - can we concentrate our energies on those at the bottom of the pile?

However easy exams are, they're still beyond a lot of kids. Partly because they might not be as bright, but equally likely because they go to rotten schools or come from inadequate families. These children are doomed from the start.

After the best education that Britain could offer, Prince Harry managed a B and a D. What chance would he have had in a crumbling school on a sink estate?

Prisons are full of people with no qualifications. Teenage mothers existing on benefit rarely have folders full of starred certificates.

If we care about equality of opportunity, we should worry less about the brilliant pupils who don't get into Oxbridge, and care more about the still shocking number of 15-year-olds who can barely read or write and don't know what interest rate means, let alone work it out.

The bright students can fight their own battles. We should concentrate on those who can't.

LOW income families are to be taught how to cook meals using fruit and vegetables in an initiative to promote healthy eating financed by the Lottery. Of course, if we still had proper cookery lessons in school, they would already know.

Published: 20/08/2003