Many years ago, taking the sea route from Mombasa to Tilbury, I watched a fancy dress competition onboard ship, a traditional entertainment organised by the passengers. I cannot remember who won, but I do remember that one of the competitors was a little girl posing as Christine Keeler.
The reaction of the audience was one of acute embarrassment. The little girl was not to know it, but Christine Keeler was a high-class prostitute who was involved in a huge British political and security scandal at the time.
How the mother could have dressed her daughter as she did and sent her out to prance and gyrate in such a role is beyond belief. But perhaps this was merely a precursor to Britain today where the sexualisation of children has prompted denunciations of a “pornified culture,” a “striptease culture” and a “moral abyss”.
The head teacher of a girls’ school, Dr Helen Wright, recently condemned mothers who let their under-10 daughters wear make-up, high heels and T-shirts with leering sex messages. “If parents cannot see anything wrong in that, something is intensely wrong in our society,” she said.
But it is the explosion of communications, the Internet, the mobile phone and social networks that most worries reformers.
“Sexting” has become a craze. This involves people sending and exchanging sexually explicit text or email messages and images. The charity BeatBullying claims that more than a third of young people have received a sexually explicit text or email, usually from their peers.
The feisty black Labour MP, Diane Abbott, called for a revolution in sex education and a “national conversation” between parents and children about sex, pornography and technology. Ms Abbott, who is shadow minister for Health, condemned the ease with which pornography can be reached through the Internet and added, “Young people are accessing far harder pornographic images than 10 or 15 years ago.”
Among solutions that have been proposed is an opt-in mechanism for adult content online, with Internet users having to make an active choice to allow porn on their computers or smartphones. The government recently rejected plans to block Internet access to pornography on all computers automatically. The public generally did not support the idea, a spokesman said.
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“Card, please,” says the tobacconist.
You hand over your card, which he swipes, then gives you a packet.
That could be how tobacco is bought and sold in the future, effectively by government licence and probably limited to, say, 50 smokes a day.
The idea is the brainchild of Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney, Australia. It’s just like buying medication, he says. Without a prescription (read licence, read swipe card), you cannot get certain drugs, not legally, that is.
In Britain, tobacco-related diseases have dropped since the introduction of laws banning smoking in public places. Cigarette packets are no longer on public display in supermarkets and they cost a staggering £7 (KSh970) for 20, but hospitals are still dealing with thousands of diabetic, heart and respiratory cases caused by smoking.
Prof Chapman’s conditions would include payment of a government fee for the licence, acceptance of a daily tobacco limit and an annual renewal fee. However, if a smoker quit during his or her licensed history, all previous licence fees would be refunded. Giving up the licence would be permanent.
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An advocate and an old man are sitting next to each other on a long airplane flight and the lawyer suggests a game he believes he will surely win. The pensioner wants to sleep but the lawyer persists. “I ask you a question and if you can’t answer, you pay me £5. Then you ask me one and if I can’t answer, I give you £500!”
The lawyer asks the first question: “What is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?” The pensioner shakes his head sadly, pulls out a five-pound note and hands it over.
Now it’s the pensioner’s turn. He asks the lawyer, “What goes up the hill with three legs and comes down with four?” The lawyer is flummoxed. He turns on his laptop, interrogates the Internet and emails all his clever friends. Nothing. Finally, an hour later, he hands over the £500 and asks, “So what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?”
The pensioner shakes his head again, reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer £5 and goes back to sleep.
