Witch Hunt

Ah me, decadent me, still in bed at 952 am, laptop on lap (obviously) coffee in mug to right, cat on bed to left!!!

I could stay in bed all day. Except I can't.

Theres things to tidy, parents to see, bills to pay, diaries to organise, washing to do .... .. in short all the dull boring things that require your attention when you become a dull boring grown up.

My newly adolescent daughter will,however, ignore all these things, favouring the warmth of her bed and the comforts of her bedroom until the sun is well past the meridian and we coxe her out of her lair with promises of swimming and the smell of food...

There a problem these adolsecents, one minute they are 12 and playing with dolls, the next they are 13 and coming home with 42" plasma screen tvs and burberry balaclavas, and buns firmly secreted in ovens...

Or are they...

Cleethorpes after dark,

all the families have gone home, the sea front and prom is now the playground of the bigger chidren.

Low slung, souped up cars cruise up and down, driven by pimply youths burning up their testosterone with their last £5 of petrol, girls with ill fitting clothes and gaudy make up wander in groups toward the nearest watering holes, summoned by the beat of tribal rhythms and the lure of a free drink, clutching their coupons in their hand while ignoring the cries of the gathering of the alpha male monkey and his troop who are grunting to themselves from the safety of the lamp lit benches....

There is menace and threat in the air this night.....

and yet, this morning, no reports of rioting or looting in Cleethorpes, a poor run down Northern coastal town where job prospects are low and self-esteem lower...

maybe not all adolescents are that bad, maybe not all parents are crap, maybe people can go through rites of passage in troubled teenage years without looting, killing or rampage, maybe they were once shadows of our former selves and maybe we are to old to remember that

and.... maybe theres a bit of hope


rush