ASBO society
A 10-year-old girl is taken to court and fined for crayoning her initial on a neighbour's wall. The same day a newspaper reports that a boy is charged with grievous bodily harm for flicking a classmate with an elastic band. Whatever happened to a good telling off?
I remember as a child sharing a can of Crazy Foam with a friend. Crazy Foam was just like shaving foam - white foam that quickly evaporated after you had squeezed it out of the can. It was popular for a time in TV "custard pies."
One day we took our can to a car park and squirted dollops of crazy foam over a lot of the windscreens until a policeman appeared, gave us a good ticking off and made us wipe it all away with a cloth.
Today that wouldn't happen because: 1. Policemen rarely walk a beat anymore and 2. if they do they come armed, not with a hard word in the ear but with an ASBO.
The ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order)has become the weapon of choice within the judicial system for dealing with minor misdemeanours. I wouldn't condone crayoning on a wall or flicking a rubber band, no more than I would condone squirting Crazy Foam. But I do think we are losing a sense of proportion in the way we deal with mischief.
Mischief is a symptom of immaturity. It's not big, it's not clever but it's part of growing up and people grow out of it. On Mischief night - the night before bonfire night on November 5th - we used to get up to all kinds of tricks, tying dustbin lids to door handles, putting potatoes in exhaust pipe ends, throwing bangers in to gentlemen's toilets, that kind of thing. It's dying out now as is bonfire night as we adjust to a world of conformity and political correctness.
At least in those days we knew when to draw the line. Playgrounds were armed with spud guns and pea shooters. Today they're armed with knives.
I remember as a child sharing a can of Crazy Foam with a friend. Crazy Foam was just like shaving foam - white foam that quickly evaporated after you had squeezed it out of the can. It was popular for a time in TV "custard pies."
One day we took our can to a car park and squirted dollops of crazy foam over a lot of the windscreens until a policeman appeared, gave us a good ticking off and made us wipe it all away with a cloth.
Today that wouldn't happen because: 1. Policemen rarely walk a beat anymore and 2. if they do they come armed, not with a hard word in the ear but with an ASBO.
The ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order)has become the weapon of choice within the judicial system for dealing with minor misdemeanours. I wouldn't condone crayoning on a wall or flicking a rubber band, no more than I would condone squirting Crazy Foam. But I do think we are losing a sense of proportion in the way we deal with mischief.
Mischief is a symptom of immaturity. It's not big, it's not clever but it's part of growing up and people grow out of it. On Mischief night - the night before bonfire night on November 5th - we used to get up to all kinds of tricks, tying dustbin lids to door handles, putting potatoes in exhaust pipe ends, throwing bangers in to gentlemen's toilets, that kind of thing. It's dying out now as is bonfire night as we adjust to a world of conformity and political correctness.
At least in those days we knew when to draw the line. Playgrounds were armed with spud guns and pea shooters. Today they're armed with knives.
Labels: ASBO, bonfire night, Crazy Foam, Mischief night, pea shooters, spud guns
posted by Richard Donkin at
4:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home