The little big spenders

IT WAS difficult to know which was more frightening in Mini Me - the children living adult lifestyles or the parents who saw nothing wrong in encouraging youngsters - we're talking ten, 11, 12 - to be a pint-sized It girl, model, DJ or entrepreneur.

While most ten-year-olds have chips with everything, Jade was lunching with her friends in a posh restaurant. The bill came to £60 for three. She threw her 11th birthday party in a London club. That set back her parents £1,000. Then there's £122 for a top-to-toe beauty treatment.

No wonder Jade was already thinking of the future, particularly about finding a rich husband. Someone who wasn't poor or too snobby, she declared. As she's listed in Who's Really Who as a potential bride for Prince William, the signs are she may get her wish.

Lizzie, 11, wants to be a model like mother Heather. Vogue rather than The Beano is her preferred reading. She and her friends hire a studio and photographer for a private model shoot, aware that one day they might earn £1,000 a day striding along the catwalk.

Money plays a large role in the lives of mini mes. James, 13, and Spencer, 12, were billed as "wide boys" whose fathers, Eddie and Eddie, run a limousine company in Essex. As well as school, they have three jobs already and are planning to retire at 40.

DJ Frost, 12, and DJ Skip, ten, can earn up to £200 a night each as mini DJs with the controversial So Solid Crew, even if it means getting up when most their age are going to bed, to do a midnight gig or DJ on an illegal pirate radio station.

As entertaining as it was to see how the younger half lives, serious doubts were raised about the morality of encouraging children to adopt adult lifestyles and attitudes. Parents had various answers to the accusation - it was better than walking the streets or smoking behind the bike sheds, and what was the harm in wanting to make money or look good?

It could be worse. They could be aspiring soap stars.

Seven Days That Shook Coronation Street was a shabby, but very watchable, trawl through the seamier side of the lives of certain Street actors. There was nothing here that hasn't been muck-raked over before, from the mixed-up personal life of Julie "the Elizabeth Taylor of Manchester" Goodyear, to how a child sex charge against Peter Adamson, alias Len Fairclough, ruined his career despite him being found innocent.

It was valuable to be reminded that makers Granada could behave badly too. After advertising a feature-length video, featuring five of the favourite Weatherfield characters, as a video exclusive, an edited version was shown on TV. Those who'd forked out £13.99 on the understanding the film would never be shown on TV were unstandably miffed and took Granada to court.

More interesting was how the Street responded to the challenge from the BBC's rival soap EastEnders. A ratings war was declared after half the nation watched the Albert Square Christmas episode in which Den served Angie with divorce papers. It's a war still being fought today, and worthy of a documentary all to itself.