Penny for your thoughts

I was in Oxford over the weekend and took the Banshee on a tour of the Bodleian Library. Top tip: tell any young person that Harry Potter was filmed here and they'll be immediately attentive and enthusiastic.

This ruse has worked - with some little success - at The Lawnmower Museum, The Pencil Museum and The Dog Collar Museum - amongst others.

C'mon, you must remember the enchanted lawnmower that Harry, Ron and Hermione use to escape from Voldemort? It's in Harry Potter and Overgrown Lawn.

Banshee (PUZZLED): I don't remember that one ...
Me (AIRILY): O, I read it to you when you were very small.
Banshee: What happens?
Me: Um, the usual stuff ... Plus! There are giant, evil dandelions, some poisonous daisies and an invasion of couch grass, but Sirius posts a Black'n'Decker Strimmer to Hogwarts which doubles - the Strimmer, not Hogwarts - as a, um, Blunderbus 2000 broomstick and -
Banshee: You're making all off this up, aren't you?
Me: Yes.

I love museums (almost as much as I love libraries). This love was established from an early age as wet half terms and holidays saw me marched around the Kirkstall Abbey Museum.

Before it was refurbished (A.K.A. ruined) one could put a Bun Penny into a Victorian 'penny slot' machine and see Madame Le Guillotine do her bloodiest worst; watch a pretty housemaid fall out of a wardrobe shot through the heart; follow the trial of a murderer up to the point where he is hanged by the neck until dead - and more. Clockwork puppets in fabulous 2D with juddery animation and a very moral message. (Never hide in a wardrobe when an angry husband's brandishing a gun.)

It was a perfectly thrilling place to visit and one could endure the endless display cabinets of Scrimshaw work and edifying embroidered samplers with the promise of a penny for Being Good.

Museums for the Young are not nearly so much fun these days. Small people pretend to be a poo and waddle through a labyrinth of intestines, or dress up in 100% polyester Tudor clothing, or press a lot of buttons. It's all about being interactive.

Curators! There is nothing wrong at all with pressing ones nose against a display cabinet and just looking. Why, it never did me any harm ...

Political Birdfeed #1

The Youth of Today

The teenagers in the house opposite are hanging out of their bedroom window puffing on a fag. At last, teenagers behaving like teenagers.

History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse. Teenagers started badly and should be steadily getting worse - but they're not. In fact, they are a huge disappointment. And considering they didn't even exist as a group until the 1940s, they've fizzled out remarkably quickly.

We have given them every opportunity to become angry, dissolute and rebellious. We have saddled them with debt, abolished free university education, and made their qualifications all but worthless. We have closed youth clubs in their thousands. We have stopped them razzing round on scooters and descending on seaside towns en masse. We have colonised their music and used it to advertise mobile phone networks. We have stolen their clothes and their clumpy great training shoes with sensible soles and room for their toes to grow. Any bizarre haircut they invent, we are but a scissor-snip away in imitation.

Media headlines proclaim our ephebiphobia: gangs, knifes, rainbow parties (of very doubtful provenance) - the little sods won't even give up their bus seats for their elders (and obviously betters). We provoke and provoke and provoke. Their response? A shrug of the shoulders and a mumbled Whatever.

We've banned marbles (a choking hazard), skipping ropes (a strangling hazard), Top Trumps (potential for RSI injuries), rubber balls (they might become MPs and move onto oranges). We have ensured that every school playground in the country is full of children standing about with nothing to do - ready to become bored, destructive teenagers.

And what happens? Have they taken to manning barricades? No. Have they arranged convoys of caravans and raves in Stonehenge? No. Have they invented ways of tuning in and dropping out? No. The only drug they've come up with is a plant food. Let's get high on Baby Bio? At least your foliage will have a healthy shine. They've got smart phones and crack cocaine. We made do with a tin on a string and a Sherbet Dib-Dab. Yet still they refuse to rise.

The Youth of Today's acme of rebellion is wearing a hood.

A hood.

One word: monks. Not so rebellious now, is it?

Besides which, we all know they wear hoods to hide their acne (with an N) and to keep their ears warm, and because they're having a bad hair day (which is every day of your life from 13 years onwards unless you are Ross Kemp).

They wear hoods because they own anoraks and all anoraks come with a hood - damn Brussels and their Directives - and their mas tell them, "That coat cost me £29.99 and you will blimmin' well get your money's worth out of every bit of fabric. Put your hands in those pockets! They're not just for show, you know."

And The Youth of Today
Does everything his ma says.