With age comes wisdom, and the faint smell of cabbage.

The young have been in the limelight over the past few weeks following the violent riots and the record exam results - on an aside it's funny to think that there were probably no more than 20,000 kids who were involved in the riots and there were around 200,000 kids doing A levels and we're going to change the way the country's managed to suit the criminal minority?

Everybody - including me - has had their say on today's youth; David Cameron thinks they're at the heart of Britain's broken and / or sick society, Nick Clegg reckons orange jumpsuits should be their apparel of non-choice, Ed Milliband reckons we're all as bad as each other from MPs down to burglars, crazy racist historian David Starkey reckons its acting like you've got darker skin than you really have that caused the mayhem and it goes on.

Right wing crazies in the Mail & Telegraph reckon the riots prove them correct; the world's gone to hell and we're only minutes away from a Pol Pot type revolution where anyone who's ever listened to Radio 3 will be slaughtered in their beds. Left wing luvvies in the Guardian & Mirror think the A-level results show the kids are alright it's the bastard bankers stealing our money and shipping it all out to Bermuda that'll leave us freezing to death in December when we can't afford 50p for the gas meter. You pay your money and take your choice, until now.

Finally from the swirling maelstrom of opinion comes a guiding light. A beacon that we can all cling to and learn from the wisdom that spouts forth from this fountain of knowledge. Step forward sage of our time... Joan Collins.

Yes Joan Collins that's right. World famous actress, star of Martini adverts (or was it Cinzano - and more importantly is there a difference?) and former UKIP pin-up has spilled her wisdom out onto the pages of the Daily Mail, and as you've probably already guessed, it turns out to be the unstable rantings of a pre-senile rich old woman who thinks today's children are all evil devils. Even her own grand kids.

Realising that she's witnessed so much wrong, and the world should be told, she's had a little Indian slave girl she keeps in a cupboard write down her observations in blood (Probably) and then has paid a tame publisher to print them in a book for her. This is being serialised in the Daily Mail for people who like Grumpy Old Men on the BBC but think it's observations are too clever, funny or communist.

There's much that peeves her, too much to wade through - she's worse than Grandpa Simpson but one thing she's not too happy about is the culture of instant gratification that's prevalent in today's celebrity world.
Instant fame and popularity for wapping them out is no basis for a career in the entertainment industry, some standards must be upheld. This comes from a woman who's early work was a series of soft porn films written by her mucky sister.

Getting them out was for artistic
reasons and not cos she's a slapper

This culture is having a terrible effect on the evil little rugrats of the world, as she says...

"I pity the poor children of today who are exposed to the nasty adult world of profanity, porn and poverty of thought."


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Annual A-Level result moan

Today has been A-Level result day in the UK, the day thousand of teenagers find out if all those hours spent revising photography on Facebook and English Lit on Twitter were time well spent.

It's also the traditional time of year for the Mail, Telegraph, in fact the majority of newspapers to splutter and sneer at the glut of A* results and the lack of failures. This obviously proves that  A-Levels have got gradually easier every single year since the journalist in question took their own. I'll tag on a FACT too, just to nail the point home.

No one seems to wonder if the fact that results seem to get better over time (This year wasn't a massive shift upwards but it still shifted slightly) isn't due to the fact that the exams are getting easier but the young are getting cleverer.

The Flynn effect, named for a Kiwi professor who was one of the first to describe it, is the observation that as you re-calibrate IQ tests every year the average score increases. This has been demonstrated in numerous data sets from various countries around the world and indicates that over time people are getting brainier. It also explains doddering old men in Nissan Almeras driving in front of you on roundabouts. You may think the old fella's losing his marbles, but no he's always been that thick, just that in his day being that thick was actually labelled "quite bright". The world's turned into a more complex place since he was at the top of his game, when he probably struggled to get a C grade in his A-Level, and he's no longer got the mental horse-power to keep up.

While it might make you feel good to know you're better than anyone slightly older than yourself, remember that in your twilight years the world is going to be a scary confusing place. In fact maybe it's getting that way now. This photo from the Mail is one of about 900 of attractive, jumping teenage girls happy with their results (As pointed out by Chris Cook on Radio 4 it seems blokes and ugly girls get their A level results on another day if newspaper photographers are to be believed) The thing I find scary confusing is the hairy blonde crash helmet worn by the skulking exam failing youth on the right hand side...

Do helmets of straw offer much protection
when you fall off your bike?

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