Storm of protest at stupid parents

THE FRIDAY THING:

JUST when you think you have lived long enough not to be surprised by the lunatic antics of your fellow man and woman along come a couple of super nutters whose idea of child care is that there are no boys and girls anymore just himhers and shehims.

There was a clue to the total nutterness of the heads of this family when they named their latest born Storm, which is probably just about par for a couple who called their first two offspring Jazz and Kio.

And you thought some of the names of the entrants to the Chronicle’s Top Tots competition were a bit, well, weird.

Still it could have been worse. If his folks are obsessed with the weather Storm could have been Deep Depression over the Azores.

But this lot’s weirdness goes further than their names. Much further.

They have decided not to treat Storm as either a boy or a girl (perhaps they haven’t looked yet) and instead will allow him, her or it to define their own gender.

Now this will of course go down a storm (sorry) at pre-school, nursery school and proper school where the first question will be: “And is little Storm a boy or a girl?”

In other words, will Storm go and fight in the corner, throwing sand into the faces of everyone else in the sand pit, or will Storm go and play nicely at the girls’ tea party until biting, pulling hair and many tearful tantrums bring the party to a close.

The parents’ thinking (and I use the word in its loosest possible sense) is that their approach to bringing up children will make the world a more progressive place.

That’s probably what they thought when they sent 10-year-old kids up chimneys and packed off toddlers still in nappies to work in the cotton mills.

For me all of this is child abuse and perhaps someone with the child’s interest at heart (though, for Storm’s sake hopefully not a social worker) should go and have a quiet word with Storm’s parents, suggesting medication or, perhaps, incarceration somewhere secure to protect Storm from severe psychological trauma when faced with his young peers (stand uppers or sit downers) who can be ruthlessly cruel at even the slightest sign of non-conformity.

And not being able to say whether you are a boy or a girl is a pretty big sign.




Most of you out there might be struggling and up to the neck in the “it” that the rest of us are supposed to be all in together, but some folk in local government are acting like there was no “it” to be in.



We are told now that some councillors and senior officers have council credit cards and use them to spend on holidays, hotels and meals cooked by Michelin-starred chefs. All, of course, in our interests and representing what is best for us.

Millions have been racked up on these credit cards apparently and, in most cases, no one bats an eyelid. But then it’s difficult to sack Bob from Communities, Car Boots and Cafes for a long weekend with Maureen in Blackpool when the head of Finance, Fiddling and Fine Dining has just had a fortnight with his missus (Beryl from accounts couldn’t make it) in a 20-star palace in Dubai.

And if that doesn’t turn you red with rage or green with envy (you see, you should have gone to uni even for a rubbish degree) how’s this for a poke in the eye with a bent stick. You are paying more than £300 a year to finance the pensions of these council bigwigs at the same time as you own pension goes down the pan.

The irony of it is that some councils are spending millions on surveillance cameras to make sure that we don’t put the wrong items in our coloured bins. It strikes me that if anyone needed watching with the intensity of a hungry hawk it’s the never-had-it-so-good brigade in town halls and civic centres across the land.




FINAL WORD: Now I am not joining the chorus of disapproval at the corruption in FIFA, the governing body of world football, it is just a coincidence that Sepp Blatter not only knows who will be in the 2014 World Cup Final but who will win it and who will score the goals.