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Anorak News | Child’s Play

Child’s Play

by | 5th, July 2005

‘AS if children in the Mail didn’t have enough to worry about with paedophiles hiding in the computer and turkey twizzlers that eat your brains, they are now being told how to play.

Innocent pleasures

“Spending hours in front of the TV and computer games seem the stuff of childhood these days,” says the paper, hankering after the days when children amused themselves with wooden hoops and Golly Wogs.

The Mail says that “youngsters today seem to be missing out on the traditional pastimes that gave their parents treasured memories of childhood”.

So the paper has published a list of 33 things what your under-ten should be doing or have done.

Failure to have ticked off the full list, drawn up by the Marxist-sounding International Play Association, will surely lead to a life of utter awfulness.

But before the list, let’s see who compiled it. There’s Doug Cole, or Chairman Cole, to give him his dues, who contributes tree climbing to the list (No. 9).

And there’s world-renowned expert on child development Melinda Messenger who chooses making a den in the garden and snow angels.

We had expected her to celebrate the childish joy of making false breast from mum’s rolled up tights, but our attention is distracted by the some other entrants.

The best thing to do, apparently is to roll down a grassy bank, preferably into a patch of life-affirming nettles. At No.2 is making a mud pie, followed by preparing modelling-dough mixture (see Messenger) and collecting frogspawn.

But the standout thing is surely in at No.32 – make breakfast in bed for mum and dad. Which, given the times we live in, should consist of a line of Grade A cocaine, a bottle of alcopop and a copy of the Mail…

Paul Sorene’



Posted: 5th, July 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink