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BRIBED TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE
The Home Office is launching a supermarket-style loyalty card for youngsters aged 13 to 16. The "opportunity cards" will be credited with £12 worth of vouchers for spending on music, sport or clothes for staying trouble-free. Anyone found to be involved in "unacceptable and anti-social behaviour" will have the cards suspended or withdrawn. How long before the scheme is abandoned because it victimises those who misbehave?

WAR ON YOBBOS
War veteran ex-corporal Nigel Hounslow had suffered two and a half years of vandalism when he spotted 14-year-old Jamie Clark and three friends hanging around his people carrier. Clark, wearing a baseball cap and hooded top, leapt on to the vehicle's wing and the ex-soldier stormed out of his home. Furious Hounslow pushed past the other lads and shoved him in the back before hitting him "like a punch bag". He struck the youth six times, knocking him to the floor and leaving him with a badly bruised and grazed face and a swollen lip. He then asked the boy's age and began marching him home when he was stopped by police, arrested and then spent the night in a cell.

He was spared jail after a judge agreed the area had been plagued by acts of vandalism. The court heard how bored youths went out kicking cars and pushing over brick walls. Up to 30 car tyres had recently been slashed in one night. Judge John Boggis QC gave Hounslow a nine month suspended prison sentence and told him to pay £500 costs. But he did not order him to give Clark compensation. The judge said, "I know there are decent members of society who are fed up with youths damaging property. The public ask, 'Why don't the police do something? Why are the parents not controlling their children and applying parenting skills?' These are valid questions but this does not excuse such violence."

Jamie's dad Tony Clark said, "All he did was put his foot on one car. He did not deserve to have that done to him." Yeah right, but if these yobs thought they could get seven bells knocked out of them, they'd think twice before causing trouble. Instead of pussy-footing about with them maybe this is the right approach. If the police are unable to protect the public and their property, then the public must have the right to defend themselves in this way. But why wasn't Clarke charged with criminal damage?

PE LESSONS NOT GOOD ENOUGH
Just a week after London won the 2012 Olympics, an Ofsted report claimed one in ten school PE lessons remain unsatisfactory and warns that too many of the country's best young athletes are not being stretched. Chief inspector of schools David Bell said, "With the Olympics in our sights now is a great time to give all our pupils the best sporting chances." There's no chance of that with the following being practiced...

Headmistress Judith Wressel told parents events such as the sack and egg-and-spoon race were to be scrapped because they were unfair on children who lose. She said such events were to be replaced at Maney Hill Primary, Sutton Coldfield, with a new "activity-based" concept and that "traditional races can be difficult and embarrassing for many children."

FIGHTING TERRORISM
Special Branch officers have been given orders to shoot any suicide bombers if they catch them before they get chance to blow themselves up. They are instructed to aim for their head, as this will "tend to neutralise the muscles" and the bomber will drop their package and can then be overpowered. The expression "neutralise the muscles" is a novel way of saying "take his head off" and then he drops the bomb and it goes BANG. Brilliant!

TOMORROWS YOBS IN THE MAKING
Schools are banning giving disobedient pupils lines because they fear prosecution for being degrading. They've stopped forcing pupils to write the same sentence over and over again as teachers are afraid parents might call social services to complain the lines have hurt the childs wrist. Deputy head Sarah Tennant, of Repton School, said she had been advised that giving lines was illegal. Detention is also seen as a breach of their human rights.

2012 OLYMPICS
The International Olympic Committee has announced that the 2012 Olympic Games will be held in London. The area will benefit from a £2.37bn regeneration programme to the Docklands Light Railway, the East London Line, the North London Line and the London Fenchurch Street to Southend Line. Start counting the stealth taxes that will now be introduced to pay for it. Organisers have costed the 2012 Games and claim it will not cost anyone outside London a penny. The new stadiums and transport links will cost £2.3bn but £1.5bn of this will come from new National Lottery games. Another £550m will be raised by London's council taxpayers and £1.5bn to run the Games will be found from sponsorship, tickets, TV rights and merchandise. Where have we heard this before?

SACKED FOR HAVING AN OPINION
Alex Hanff was asked to appear on a Newsnight programme to talk about the recent Supreme Court decision against Grokster. Hanff, who is from Lancaster, was of interest to Newsnight because he was sued for copyright infringement by Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Warner Brothers. Hanff worked as a trainer and consultant for Aldcliffe Computer Systems, also based in Lancaster. He was given permission to leave work 45 minutes early to meet the Newsnight camera crew. When he returned to work, the technical director sacked him, saying it was because of his opinions and that there was no right of appeal.

LIVE8
The idea behind Live8 was sincere enough but you begin to wonder about some of the people who were there. Many of the artists performing could, collectively, practically wipe out the Third World debt between them and yet we learn that performers in Philadelphia stuffed themselves with chargrilled beef, salmon sushi and spare ribs before going home with £7,000 worth of goody bags consisting of Hugo Boss suits, watches and jewellery. And with the likes of David Beckham, who's paid £100,000+ a week, appearing on stage for no real reason but to be seen, and a miriad of pampered celeb hangers-on backstage, these events come dangerously close to losing their credibility.

Officials tried to pull the plug on Live8 when it over-ran by 2½ hours. Bob Geldof was handed a notice warning the electricity may be cut if it didn’t stop but he furiously tore it up. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell was called in to defuse the row and a Met Police spokesman later said, “At no time did we attempt to stop the event. The only concern we had was having 205,000 people and no public transport system.” This is the same London that wants to host the Olympic games.

SHOWERS CAUSE BRAIN DAMAGE
Scientists claim that breathing in small amounts of manganese found in water may harm the central nervous system if we take regular showers. Dr John Spangler, of Wake Forest University in New Carolina, said, "If our results are confirmed, they could have profound implications for the world. Manganese damages the brain leading to learning difficulties, tremors and changes in behaviour." Dr Spangler's team claim that a 10-minute shower a day for 10 years would expose children to three times higher doses than would be needed to damage a rat's brain. Adults with more years in the shower would receive doses 50% higher. In the US, 0.5 milligrams of manganese per litre is allowed in water. The permitted level in the EU was cut to 0.05mgs in 1998. Carry on folks!

PRISON NO DETERRENT
A banned driver was spared prison after Christopher Klausner has been jailed nine times for driving while banned and has never passed his test. He was stopped while taking his children to school and smashed a police car window on arrest. Magistrates were told it was a waste of time to jail him because "Custody...is no deterrent." He was given 240 hours community service and banned again for seven months. Why not jail him for ten years? That might be a deterrent.

REVISION DOESN'T ALWAYS PAY
Pupils at a Merseyside private school went into an English Literature GCSE exam having been taught the wrong book. Fifth-formers at the boys' school had been expecting to answer questions on John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The students should have been taught one of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, The Old Man and Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, or George Orwell's 1984. Deputy headmaster David Edmunds, said, "The exam boards are used to this happening. It is not unusual to find pupils studied the wrong text." Well it bloody well should be.